I have easy access to Hayward Field but I would and have traveled to Atlanta, New Orleans, LA, Indianapolis etc....and believe USATF and NCAA should rotate for convenience of the fans and to help keep interest high everywhere. I think a major block is having a host with an appropriate facility make a bid. Infrastructure to officials are limitations. Should never have it at Franklin Field until facility is up to WA standards of which there are only 2 in USA so theres that.
I had weekend trip booked to Eugene for the trials coming from the East Coast. After I realized how much time (basically an extra 2 days due to few flight options) it would take me to see 3 finals, I said screw it, not worth it and canceled. The golden goose of Hayward for USATF is a problem. Swimming get it. Even if Indianapolis isn’t a huge city, it is pretty easily accessible from all major airports and relatively inexpensive to encourage people to make the trip.
Vin Lananna and Max Siegel the first two guys to go. Complete waste of time to give them any power. They keep ruining the sport of US Track & Field day by day.
Our sport just ain’t that sexy. We can’t do a zillion prelims, we won’t ever be as hunky.
what’s our shortest event? Over in 10 seconds. In swimming? Over in 20 seconds. The average swim event is what, maybe 2-3 minutes, diff strokes add variety, and there are more rounds.
there’s just more going on with swimming that you can visually latch onto. Underwaters, dives, etc
I say hang a $1000 bill over the finish line every lap of a steeple, 5k and 10k at USATF. Some people know they wont win but theyll keep the pace honest for several laps. Either that or jus start shooting the last guy each lap. You're out!
Something like this would help a lot. The bottom line is that nobody outside of a few diehards want to see a group of people jog 95% of a race and sprint to the end.
Well, and everyone who downvoted Indianapolis as a place for the Trials for Track in another thread doesn’t remember history when it was successfully held there in the past. Indy may not be the best destination for everything, but the city knows how to host big sporting events and it’s accessible and affordable.
Ok, so how do we go about doing that exactly? Fans complain mostly by not attending their functions. So far, that's not working. I’ll be sitting in my usual seats next week. Nobody is going to listen to me. USATF was selling 1980 retro uniforms and warmups at USATF meet in DesMoines one year as an anniversary nod but I was totally disgusted and told them so. They blew me off. Then I went down to the track and asked a personal friend of mine who made the 80 team what he thought and he said he was going to puke on the track in disgust. So again, how do we the fans have any impact on any decisions USATF makes other than just not show up at their meets? I want to support the athletes and they just want to get paid. FU for caring though is all we seem to get.
We do that by never again hosting a USATF event in places like Eugene, Oregon. No other major country in the world hosts major events in cities in the middle of nowhere.
1) fire CEO and hire one who isn't in it for the money (by only paying a small amount compared to what is being paid currently: maybe $100,000 - $200,000).
2) Eliminate Nike influence: haven't we had enough of the John Chaplin, etc crap to realize that Nike has too much control over the whole process. having the meet in Eugene just maintains the same old same old.
3) New host cities: rotation idea is good, but also be mindful of the oppressive heat (probably needs to be in the northern part of the country).
4) athletes selection process is better, but still needs to be clearer. (I am talking about the qualified, declared, selected, rejected thing. It can be a little confusing - better terminology and explanations on home page would be good.
5) Put money into developmental programs. Maybe have a race series for the next level athletes (those not making the team this year, but will be in contention 4 years from now)
Did you see the Kenyan athletics trials? Raggedy stadium, zero fans, laughable video presentation.
Yes! Videos are on YouTube. The video looked like they were using an old camera from the 1970's! Here you have some of the greatest athletes in the world and the crowd support was terrible. Tickets too expensive?
I think Hayward is a beautiful stadium, best track facility in the world.
But, they should pick a central location in the US for the trials. Hopefully in a place where the weather is not ridiculously hot and humid.
That being said, runners (especially distance) are boring lame people. The atmosphere will never compare to other sports. There is also too much downtime at a track meet, long distance races are boring as heck, especially when they are tactical. Track is not a great spectator sport.
* Distance events are never going to be popular for spectators. This is true even of swimming; I bet most of the public isn't even aware that there exists swimming events such as the mile among the standard events.
* The optics of mostly-empty stands are just terrible. They should've built that facility in Eugene small enough so that it's always full.
* We can't underestimate the role of physical attractiveness in the public's interest in Olympic-type sports. One of my non-running friends knows who Keely Hodgkinson is because he was flipping through channels and saw her racing and decided to watch it because, of course, he found her cute.
* Swimming races more often come down to the wire and you have a clear view of the whole field. There are little things too that I think help add to the spectator friendliness, like that at the finish the winner is on camera for a while and often takes off his goggles and celebrates and interacts with competitors in adjacent lanes. In running, everyone at the finish line sort of scatters and sometimes you don't even see the winner doing whatever.
Yet another thing is that in track (sprints and distance) athletes can only realistically compete in max of 2 events. You can't have a storyline around a superstar gunning for 8 gold medals, like you can in swimming.
If we had our racing “Mecca” outside of a sh!t hole city, in bum-fnck nowhere we’d have less of this issue. If it was any major city, or even second rate city, I’d make my way to every major meeting. But we are forced to goso far out of our way just to view our sport. That’s our issue
Same old song. Been to Eugene many times. Won’t go back. My group ( 10 people) would have gone to ANY other spot in the country except Eugene. But when one company calls all the shots you have sold yourself to the devil. USATF couldn’t care less. I’ve been thru AAU, TAC and now USATF. Been a clown show FOREVER.
I'm gonna plug for Vegas again. The only issue that would need to be solved is the heat. An air conditioned stadium like Doha or a retractable roof baseball stadium would solve that. Heat could also be solved if the trials were held earlier in the year. Hotels, transportation, widely available flights, things to do when the meet is over, etc are already in place. A lot of people are just looking for an excuse to come to Vegas. Plus you could bet on the races.
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