Let's talk bottom-line here, how much $$$ would it take to set up a non-USATF, professional, regional track league?

Jeff Wigand wrote:

I'm a professional track athlete. Why would I give up the freedom to be coached by whom I choose, to train where I choose, to compete where and when works best for me, for this?

Who cares? Nobody expects or wants to see elite pros in a regional meet, any more than they want to see their major league baseball players demoted to the minors.

Why isn't it that way with track, well it used to be in the 19th century, when pro and semi-pro runners were very popular and people gambled on them. What changed all that was amateurism, first with the olympics, and then in the US the NCAA.

The olympics has long since abandoned its pretense that amateurism is good for sport, but the NCAA still clings to that obsolete system, all the while raking in huge profits from it. NCAA is the only serious development system for most popular American sports. Instead of being paid to compete in minors or semi-pro's, athletes must, at best, compete for free for several years before they can even think of making a living at their sport. A select few, mainly football players, are kicked down a few tens of grand worth of education, and the rest all have to pay their own way. The NCAA's economic stranglehold on most developmental sports ensures they'll always have the best coaches, best facilities, and best competitions. There is no way for a minor league to flourish in that environment.

The NCAA failed to conquer baseball, therefore baseball has a healthy minor league system. It has limited presence in hockey, so hockey has good minor leagues. NCAA never beat out Golden Gloves, so there's plenty of low-level pro boxers for the undercard of the big fight. But the semi-pro leagues for basketball and football are a joke. NCAA completely dominates American developmental track, and there is no minor league at all.

To create a semi-pro league, all you need is two local track clubs (real ones, not fundraising fronts for elite TC's) to compete against each other on a high school or college track, pitching in 10 bucks a head for prize money. Let spectators watch for free, replay it on youtube, and soon Joe's Tire Store will kick down a few hundred or thousand to sponsor the contests. Add in other towns, get a regional rivalry started with a series of dual's or tri's and a final, and people will start paying to watch, and sponsors will pay more for the ad coverage, creating more prize money, attracting better athletes, and so forth.

But for this to happen, sooner or later the NCAA will have to be shoved out of the way. It may take an anti-trust suit to do it. Far-fetched? Maybe not. There's football players suing them right now:

While it's basically about video game royalties, it could end up forcing NCAA to finally pay football players, which might loosen its grip on other sports.

America also must give up its manic obsession with road racing for semi-pro track to succeed.

What are the chances of winning The Masters? Probably pretty slim, but if that's where the money is, people will chase it given the chance.

How is this different than the minor leagues as we know them today? What happens when your top minor leaguer gets called up to fill a lane in the Diamond League 48 hours before your meet? Is he or she obligated to refuse that chance to hit it big on the world stage?

How do they force the athletes to compete? What do you do when athlete #1 says, "I'm not ready to race," or "I'm not good for a 1500m yet"? Do you simply use a substitution like the big leagues? It works in the big leagues because of the very high salary paid to every full-time player. The union has worked it out so that they're well paid no matter how the team does, no matter the athlete's individual performance that day.

And wouldn't jumpers and throwers who can conceivably score in two events on the same day become more valuable and more popular than a miler who can't run at a personal best level in the 800m and 1500m in the same day?

So the money that those companies pay is going to be more than enough to replace whatever the athletes on the team roster would have earned individually from shoe companies? I think it's one thing to try to do this with the best talent available but how is this going to sell as a D-league? Are these teams there to purely service the Diamond League (where there is no team aspect)?

And if you are going to make this for the best of the best, then how do you work out pay? It's not like a stud middle distance runner is worth more than a stud jumper to a university program. First place is first place.

So the hammer throw is just as important as the 100m.

Yes.

But that's 30 points right here. Those athletes can double or triple in a meet. Why not ditch the 5000m? They run one 5000m in the day and they're useless. More exciting to have high jumpers doubling back in the hurdles and triple jump, right? That's more akin to basketball and baseball, where your stars play offense and defense. That's not the case in the NFL but you still see them many times throughout the game.

Where is this money come from? Why do people want to watch it? How many home fixtures to do we have? What ties the local community to the team? How do we make the team members compete? If this is a d-league, aren't the best ones going to pass it by, and the ones you do have will jump ship as soon as a spot on a bigger, more lucrative stage opens up?

And why wouldn't owners recruit heavily out of East Africa and the Caribbean? The point is to win, and what would make these teams different than baseball, basketball or hockey in that respect?

Yes, you're right, but those minor league teams are just there to service the big leagues. When one of your guys has a break though and break 10.00 for the first time, does he get pulled up? Do you say, "Congratulations, Wiggins, you've been called up. Prefontaine has a lane for you." But then he's off this minor league team, right?

I disagree. I don't think the minor league teams would draw the attendance they do or even exist at all if they could only recruit from the neighborhood. Besides the convenience of not having to travel long distance to a big league game, part of the appeal of the minors is seeing young talents (from across the globe) that you know could end up being superstars in a season or two, and also seeing rehabbing established stars. I don't see those elements existing in this proposed system.

But if you ever get the funding, I'd love to be proven wrong and see this make it more popular.

I think this would be a big step in the right direction. Why? Because the sport is pretty much dead on a professional level here in the US and the recent news will only make the sport more of a niche. Most us pros (I use that term loosely) can't afford Europe anyway. A summer league would be awesome. And to the guy who says he is a pro and doesn't like it, no offense, but your opinion doesn't really matter. The league would be garnering fans from scratch and many people wouldn't know you from a 4:05 high school kid.

Also, the 1500 should be the longest event in the league. Anything longer will bore most people.