I don't get why anyone would be annoyed by her comment. The first rule of marketing is that "people buy people." A list of times, even great times, doesn't help to grow the sport or engage fans. Athletes with a story to tell to go with their performances will always be more engaging than dry, factual conversations about who is the GOAT. Those conversations are for the nerds.
She couldn't be more correct (although I found the f-bomb to be unnecessary).
GOAT conversations don't grow the sport. They don't get people off the couch and out for a run. They do very little, if anything, to increase viewership of major races. They don't increase the prize pools or attract new sponsors.
Presenting the audience with stories they can relate to, or giving them living examples of what they can aspire to be will get more people to run, to watch, to consume running media of all types, and sponsors will want to get in front of them.
A father dragging his disabled son through an Ironman will get more people up and out the door and will drive more eyes to the annually televised centerpiece of the sport than will the first man to break 8 hours.
this is 100% correct.
people on the website don’t want to hear it, both because they aren’t the demographic that storylines are meant to be marketed towards and also because a ton of people on this website don’t like molly seidel either for some reason.
honestly, this was the wrong place to ask this question. the people here who actually consistently post enough on this website to care probably make up around 1% of the viewers, and all of them care about goat talk vs the storyline - for the average viewer, it’s the other way around.
nobody cares about your story unless you are great. maybe they will get sucked into a 3 minute interest piece in the middle of a meet, but they aren't thinking about you anymore after that. greatness is what grows and sustains interest. again, it works best if you are both great AND interesting.
Molly is right. She's not really saying there's no place for the GOAT talk. What she is saying is that, without context, nobody cares who the GOAT is. Kipchoge is a good story teller. People are invested in him. We don't know very much about Kiptum. Hassan is more known than Assefa. Whether folks like it or not, nobody cares about our sport enough to simply watch for the fast times. We pick up tons of casuals every Olympics because of the feel good puff pieces that come out about the athletes/their families. That gets people to rally behind them.
nobody cares about your story unless you are great. maybe they will get sucked into a 3 minute interest piece in the middle of a meet, but they aren't thinking about you anymore after that. greatness is what grows and sustains interest. again, it works best if you are both great AND interesting.
I don't think that's true at all. People cared about Seidel's story because it was interesting and she was ultimately successful, but she's not "great" by any stretch - incredibly good, but still more than 10 minutes behind the WR and will never win a gold medal. But her story is interesting. Same for Keira D'Amato. She'll probably never achieve anything like Grant Fisher, but I bet she generates more interest in the media (outside of Letsrun which, let's face it, is a clubhouse for running nerds), and I'm sure she's shifted more product for Nike than anyone who has ever run for BTC. Athletes don't need to be great if they have an interesting story, just good and fairly competitive.
I don't endorse her profanity (it makes her look classless and obtuse), but I agree that GOAT arguments are stupid.
Sports change over time. Given that you don't get to pick the date of your birth, and time travel isn't a thing that actually exists, being the best of your era is the most an athlete can do.
fi d a compelling story to the average person. Just as in cycling, it took a cancer survivor that was also a winner to attract eye balls
I would say the biggest star in US running over the last 50 years was Joan Benoit. Yes she won olympic gold and set a world record, but the biggest factor was that she won that gold in the first olympics which allowed women to run the marathon. People (especially half the population) could see themselves in all those women doing what had not been allowed (by the men in charge) before, pushing forward. And Joan was out front and fearless. You didn't need to hear her personal story to feel a personal connection with the achievement. She became a symbol of a changing society.
Runners backstories aren't compelling. It's always a partially broken, obsessive person, that has no other interest besides running. They overcome some mild trauma. Now they're back competing, blah, blah, blah.
How many times can you rinse and repeat that story?
Runners backstories aren't compelling. It's always a partially broken, obsessive person, that has no other interest besides running. They overcome some mild trauma. Now they're back competing, blah, blah, blah.
How many times can you rinse and repeat that story?
Truth. Runners are some of the most boring, narcissistic athletes on the planet. If you have the time, health, and opportunities to run at an elite level, you are probably from a middle-to-upper middle class family and neighborhood. Yet they have stories about how oh-so-hard their lives have been, and they've overcome "hardships" to chase their dreams.
Yawn.
Not having a roof over your head is a hardship. Not knowing where your next meal is coming from is a hardship. Being confined to a hospital bed while fighting cancer is a hardship. Elite runners have no clue what hardship is.
Thing is, I don't find Molly Seidel's story all that interesting. I think it's attitudes like hers that keep top athletes from getting the sponsorship they deserve. There's also plenty of bias as to whose story is marketable.
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