I watched Sydney McLaughlin‘s race today and the announcers sleepwalked through it. One of the most exciting races and they failed to match the effort. Another runner was in the lead for the first half of the race, but they never mentioned her or any other racers who might have run a PR or beaten rival runners for the first time. There is a world of excitement, competition and drama that the announcers completely miss.
Was this a web cast? Maybe the announcer is a volunteer who works as a retail furniture sales person , who said “ I like that event with the spear” , and got to do the commentary ?
A relevant comparison is F1. Have you watched? Most on the grid have no chance to win, none, there is little passing, a race goes on for over 2 hours, you can’t see the athletes faces, but this sport is a global phenomenon. Is it just the possibility of the crashes? Hundreds of thousands of tickets to the F1 race in Miami sold out in seconds. So, if F1 can be a mega sport, so can T&F. Motor sports are boring innately. It’s marketing. T&F should be able to better figure it out. Bring on Cade Flatt…we need some energy. I’ll tune in to root against him.
F1 drivers have to race every event. So you are guaranteed to see head-to-head between top drivers in every race.
In track, top athletes dodge each other until the championships. They really don't care non-championships races. So why should fans care?
Excellent point and a problem that could be remedied with a change in incentives or rules. If the top competitors raced at least every 2-3 weeks, better rivalries would develop, interest would be amplified. Why on earth is Sha’Carri running in Florida while ETH runs in Rabat? When the sport is set up to permit or incentivize such nonsense it undermines its potential.
I love watching track and field, but it's because I did it and it was a big part of my life for a while. Most people who do track and field in high school do not have overly fond memories of it.
Baseball is super exciting. Sorry, you're wrong there.
Tons of people play golf....as adults. It has a LOT of other things going for it too. Golf is a status symbol, so if you are one of the Keeping Up With The Joneses type of people (and most are) and you have even a little bit of money, golf is a likelihood, you don't have to be on a team or in shape or even all that athletic to play it.
People in general don't like to run, so they don't want to watch people running.
A relevant comparison is F1. Have you watched? Most on the grid have no chance to win, none, there is little passing, a race goes on for over 2 hours, you can’t see the athletes faces, but this sport is a global phenomenon. Is it just the possibility of the crashes? Hundreds of thousands of tickets to the F1 race in Miami sold out in seconds. So, if F1 can be a mega sport, so can T&F. Motor sports are boring innately. It’s marketing. T&F should be able to better figure it out. Bring on Cade Flatt…we need some energy. I’ll tune in to root against him.
F1 drivers have to race every event. So you are guaranteed to see head-to-head between top drivers in every race.
In track, top athletes dodge each other until the championships. They really don't care non-championships races. So why should fans care?
Yeah, they race every event and their cars don’t even get tired.
Almost all the individual sports are the same thing. Except for earning some additional money, the 4 majors are the only tournaments in tennis and golf that matter. Cycling begins and ends with the TDF and Tyson Fury fights once a year.
A distance runner wants to be at his best for the WC and the Olympics and the only way to do that is to be selective in the races that are going to be all out. If you want to watch balls to the wall competition every week or 2, distance running isn’t the sport for you.
Track and field and road racing WERE popular in America. The roadmap is there. What made it so popular in earlier decades?? Relatable stars who win. Hardcore track fans alongside casual fans loved 18 year old Gerry Lindgren beating the Soviet stars in 1964. They loved Billy Mills' upset win in Tokyo. They loved Jim Ryun, Pre, Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit. Even the Dan vs Dave decathlon rivalry went mainstream in 1992. Golf got popular and captured the public imagination starting with Francis Ouimet, then Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and of course at its zenith of popularity with Tiger Woods at his peak 20 years ago. Baseball was far more popular in the 80s and 90s with too many fun, quirky, relatable stars to count. Track completely lacks relatable American stars who win on the global level. Galen Rupp was almost at the top. Had he captured a 10k gold in London, a marathon gold in Rio, and hit a 1:59 time trial in the streets of Portland, he'd have been a gigantic crossover star. Someone like Nick Symmonds had the charisma to be a big star had he won a couple global golds and been the first man under 1:40. Americans haven't had a consistent winner in the middle-long distances in a very long time. The brutal truth is that no one, with the exception of the hardest of the hard core track fans, wants to watch a bunch of random Africans go 1-10 in the New York Marathon, or Boston, or Peachtree, or the Olympic 5000/10,000. Maybe this kid Cade Flatt will bust through, or Colin Sahlman, or Abby Steiner, or Elle Purrier, or Erriyon Knighton will be the American Usain Bolt in 2024. Absent a big breakout star who truly dominates, say an American Jakob Ingebrigtsen, track will remain a niche sport and perhaps wither further.
I love watching track and field, but it's because I did it and it was a big part of my life for a while. Most people who do track and field in high school do not have overly fond memories of it.
Baseball is super exciting. Sorry, you're wrong there.
Tons of people play golf....as adults. It has a LOT of other things going for it too. Golf is a status symbol, so if you are one of the Keeping Up With The Joneses type of people (and most are) and you have even a little bit of money, golf is a likelihood, you don't have to be on a team or in shape or even all that athletic to play it.
People in general don't like to run, so they don't want to watch people running.
It’s that they don’t know anything about distance racing and not because they hate running. I would hate to block big people or be hit by linebackers and safeties but I still love watching the N.F.L. I wouldn’t enjoy a 10k climb in the TDF but I like watching others do it.
To enjoy watching distance running you have to have competed yourself at some point. If you don’t know what 60, 65 or 70 second 400 pace feels like, it’s going to boring.
As expected, the goal posts have changed again. The narrative was that the meets are too long and there’s too much down time. Then there’s the fallacious argument that I don’t understand golf or baseball. Fun to play. Not fun to watch.
I came across this article from Sports Illustrated in March 1990. It's lamenting how only 11,000 tickets were sold at the MSG for indoor US nationals, and how the year prior was the first time since 1972 that Millrose wasn't a sell out. To the naysayers who say track is just boring - why would anyone care ever? Well even competing against indoor winter season sports like the Magic/Bird/early Jordan era NBA, and the Gretzky/Lemieux NHL, remember Millrose was still selling out.
Anyway, the article talks about how track is in a malaise, and tries to identify what is going wrong with the sport. Here are some quotes to save you time:
What has gone wrong? "Part of it is drugs," says Schmertz. One legacy of Ben Johnson's being stripped of his 1988 Olympic 100-meter gold medal is the pervasive assumption that every breathtaking performance is drug-assisted
It also needs athletes with competitive fire. At the heart of the sport he not only record times, but also great rivalries. Unfortunately, many top athletes spend more time avoiding each other than they do racing. Last year Abdi Bile and Said Aouita, who were ranked first and second, respectively, in the world in the 1,500, did not race each other even once.
With stars busy dodging one another, televised track meets have lost their luster. Indoor track's decline has occurred even though, because of the boom in cable, there are actually more meets on TV now than in the 1960s and '70s. By not offering the best fields, track blew its chance to use cable as a promotional tool—unlike college basketball, which televises exciting matchups with national appeal
If track is to stage a comeback, it must make the sport more accessible to new fans, for whom indoor track meets can seem cumbersome and confusing, especially when there are three or four events going on at once. Some solutions: Do a better job of focusing the fans' attention by trimming meets to two hours. Clocks should be visible to everyone in the arena, and they should be in sync with the phototimer—especially when record bonuses are on the line, as they were at the Meadowlands meet.
Honestly, you could copy and paste those complaints into 2022. We've learnt nothing in 30 freaking years. We have made progress on reducing doping, but we still talk about doping in such a toxic, and unintelligent way, with stakeholders in the sport willing to weaponize that existing bitterness and toxicity to their own ends (see all the athletes throwing shade or even openly accusing others of being dirty, see how BTC/Houlihan have made that one ban become such a recurring, horrifically damaging headline without actually working to change any of the things they say they have a problem with).
Wow, Bile and Aouita dodging each other? Just like Cheptegei managed to dodge Barega, Ahmed, Teferea, and Aregawi last week, or how Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm **have only raced 3 times in their whole dang careers!!!!** Despite them both being top 3 in the world since 2018 (including rounds, its a whopping 4 head to heads).
Why is track not popular? Imagine tennis the last five years if Nadal and Djokovic only played each other three times. I know careers are longer, but Rafa has played Nole 59 times in his career now. Imagine baseball, if just some years the Red Sox are #1 in the AL East but the World Series didn't make sense for their schedule so they passed on the playoffs and their spot gets taken by a below 0.500 Blue Jays (no offense Toronto). Sporting popularity is all about narrative and excitement. That's why people loved Pre even when he didn't win. That's why F1 is booming from Drive to Survive, because where before there were faceless helmets, now there's accessible history, personality, and year long (or even multiyear) stories for fans to care about. How is track meant to built season long narratives when by the big pro meet in September we are meant to care about 1/4 of the best are already training for next year, 1/4 are burnt out or injured so not competing, while another 1/4 are burnt out nursing injuries. The result is DL fields diluted of talent, quality, and a reason to care.
I have thoughts on how it should be fixed, but this post is long enough.
Short summary: I think track actually has a lot of potential as a popular sport, it just excels at organizing itself in such a way that it hurts itself as much as possible while trying to save itself with obviously flawed ideas that make it more unappealing even to the die hards left - I'm looking at you Pre Classic world record attempts and you Mario Kart Zurich road/track 5000m.
Right. Big, breakout stars who win - Magic/Bird in 1980s NBA, Gretzky/Lemieux 80s/90s NHL, Nadal/Rafa/Djokovic in tennis the last ten years. All good examples. Promotion helps too. Los Angeles had TWO big indoor meets well into the 1980s that showcased our stars like Carl Lewis. Promoter Al Franken had all kinds of schticky, fun races like "Devil Take the Hindmost" and 105-year-old California Senator Alan Cranston racing the 60m. The Savannah Bananas are currently the most entertaining team in all sports. Yeah, a minor league baseball team in coastal Georgia. USATF should study them, or better still hire their creative team. Doesn't matter if they can't name all ten events in the decathlon or convert 1500m to a mile. Sports is entertainment. If the US can't produce dominant global winners, we can at least make track FUN.
Age has a lot to do with it also. Younger me would actively seek out any opportunities to watch track or road racing on TV and get tickets for a meet. I wanted to see my heroes compete. Older current me is jaded by drug scandals, athletes ducking each other, poorly produced coverage, and the lack of actual fun at events. Oh, Rabat is on tonight? Meh. Let's grab dinner at that new izakaya that just opened. I hear that they have an outstanding sushi chef and a killer sake selection.
It's marketing. Marketing- that's it. We need to market the athletes and we need announcers who can call the race and not babble on.
Yesterday, at the Nashville meet for the ATL, they were interviewing Bobby Kersey, they cut back to the track and the 1500 had already started and Lewis Johnson would not shut up about Kersey.
There was no clock on the TV and for both 1500's they didn't give splits and never talked about where they were until there was one lap left.
Of course the casual observer is going to say that watching people run in ovals is boring.
Baseball is super exciting. Sorry, you're wrong there.
My daughter was a very talented athlete. At the age of 7 or 8 they wanted her to try softball (apparently she was playing baseball with some boys and a coach was watching and she was REALLY good.
We talked about the sport.
She came to the conclusion that half the time you sit around and do nothing and the other half you stand around and wait for something to happen.
Exciting is not the term to describe baseball, and I LOVE baseball. My brother played minor leagues decades ago.
Casual observers often find track to be anti-climatic unless a world record is broken. Otherwise every race to them looks the same. At least races in American ninja warrior someone might get have a crazy 20 ft. Fall and the courses are more interesting than a track.
If it were popular to gamble on, like horses, then viewership may go up.
Casual observers often find track to be anti-climatic unless a world record is broken. Otherwise every race to them looks the same. At least races in American ninja warrior someone might get have a crazy 20 ft. Fall and the courses are more interesting than a track.
If it were popular to gamble on, like horses, then viewership may go up.
Correct. Yeah, we need gambling and/or fantasy track as ancillary entertainment. Even CNBC's Diamond League coverage from Rabat yesterday was terrible. No live clock on the 1500m and commercials midway through both 3000s. Marketing/promotion is a huge part of breaking through to casual fans. Track is an example of what not to do. And I meant Nadal/Federer/Djokovic above. Can't forget Roger. And those three aren't even Americans.
F1 drivers have to race every event. So you are guaranteed to see head-to-head between top drivers in every race.
In track, top athletes dodge each other until the championships. They really don't care non-championships races. So why should fans care?
Yeah, they race every event and their cars don’t even get tired.
Almost all the individual sports are the same thing. Except for earning some additional money, the 4 majors are the only tournaments in tennis and golf that matter. Cycling begins and ends with the TDF and Tyson Fury fights once a year.
A distance runner wants to be at his best for the WC and the Olympics and the only way to do that is to be selective in the races that are going to be all out. If you want to watch balls to the wall competition every week or 2, distance running isn’t the sport for you.
Some arguments for racing more (as it would help the sport):
1. Exposure and rivalries (as was already stated. Runners simply aren't in the public eye enough.
2. I get the staying fresh for world/olympics thing BUT- the NBA plays 82 games then has the never ending playoffs. NHL long season, never ending playoffs. Football, 17 (18?) grueling games then the playoffs.
Baseball 162 games day after day then playoffs.
It comes down to survival of the fittest.
Obviously, track and field doesn't have a regular season that you HAVE to compete in BUT, I remember on non mjor championship year when I followed the Diamond (may have been Golden back then) League and it was more exciting because the race to race competition for points added to the interest and not only 1st place in the final mattered.
I love watching track and field, but it's because I did it and it was a big part of my life for a while. Most people who do track and field in high school do not have overly fond memories of it.
Baseball is super exciting. Sorry, you're wrong there.
Tons of people play golf....as adults. It has a LOT of other things going for it too. Golf is a status symbol, so if you are one of the Keeping Up With The Joneses type of people (and most are) and you have even a little bit of money, golf is a likelihood, you don't have to be on a team or in shape or even all that athletic to play it.
People in general don't like to run, so they don't want to watch people running.
It’s that they don’t know anything about distance racing and not because they hate running. I would hate to block big people or be hit by linebackers and safeties but I still love watching the N.F.L. I wouldn’t enjoy a 10k climb in the TDF but I like watching others do it.
To enjoy watching distance running you have to have competed yourself at some point. If you don’t know what 60, 65 or 70 second 400 pace feels like, it’s going to boring.
Yeah, but hating running is a thing that they have experienced...gym class, an attempt at trying to lose weight. Watching football is just pure entertainment. To use your debate strategy, most people who watch football don't know what it is like to have played it, and many don't know much about it beyond you're supposed to get the football into the endzone.
Track and field will never be a big spectator sport here in the US.
Casual observers often find track to be anti-climatic unless a world record is broken. Otherwise every race to them looks the same. At least races in American ninja warrior someone might get have a crazy 20 ft. Fall and the courses are more interesting than a track.
If it were popular to gamble on, like horses, then viewership may go up.
You consider a watching a ninja fall 20ft to be must see T.V.? It’s fine that you like to watch junk sports but don’t assume everyone else does.
Gamblers don’t help any sports. The more serious one bet on several games and don’t even watch watch them.
This makes you sound ignorant. Those provide entertainment values to masses. Skinny 120 lb men running in around in circles in tiny short shorts don't. Masses can even get a bit excited about 100m. 10,000m, hell no. This is just a fact. Even middle of packers running 5 hour marathons don't care.
This makes you sound ignorant. Those provide entertainment values to masses. Skinny 120 lb men running in around in circles in tiny short shorts don't. Masses can even get a bit excited about 100m. 10,000m, hell no. This is just a fact. Even middle of packers running 5 hour marathons don't care.
It's not even really that as much as it is that Americans can't compete at the highest levels anymore in most events. Americans today can't get worked up about watching an African guy who looks like he belongs in an eating disorder clinic and has a name they can't pronounce (much less remember) run the 10,000m.
If we had a US guy who could beat them it would generate some interest. But that guy wouldn't be racing because his family would probably have him in some eating disorder clinic.
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