My Annual Make Track Segregated by Gender Thread

Track does because of the struggle women had to go through to be able to compete at all, then to be able to compete at distances above 3000. The longest track events are barely over 30 minutes - its not the same as a 90 minute soccer game, an hour long basketball game, etc. What other sport has events short enough that men and women could compete at the same event - swimming, and men and women do compete at the same events. I don't know enough about skiing or velo events, but I bet men and women compete at the same events there too.

Shorter track meets have merit in some instances, but not often because the venues that host them are in high demand, the officials that keep the meet running are in high demand, etc. I don't think it has a lot of merit at the pro level though because you lose a lot of the audience. Despite what Lenny and sexist posters on letsrun will tell you, a 5000 womens AR attempt is exciting, a 5000 women's CR attempt is exciting, etc. Fewer are going to tune in to see men run 336 if you take that event away just like fewer will tune in to see women run a 15 minute 5k if Jakob vs Nuguse also isn't going on at the meet.

But at the lower level - hs and college. A single gender meet means now we need the track for 2 days when individuals want to be free sunday for religious observation, coaches who coach both teams want a day off, etc. I see very few good reasons for single gender meets when so many teams share coaches, practice times, etc. You want them because you are being inconvenienced having to be at the track all day, but now the coaches don't have a day to spend with their family, the girls can't attend church since their meet is on Sunday, etc (or no we could make them race in the heat of the day or have their meet start at 530 am).

Lenny was slipping in the Dumbest Poster of the Year rankings, but this clinched it

Congrats to Lenny!

If the men's race is won 45 seconds faster than the women's but it's front ran by the leader and no one challenges, I'm not very engaged. Impressed, sure. But certainly not entertained. If the slower women's race comes down to the line with lead changes throughout, I don't care what the finishing time is. My heart will be beating like crazy and I'll be screaming down the homestretch even without a horse in the race. Which would you prefer?

Do you not enjoy watching collegiate races knowing there are faster pros out there? Or March Madness when the NBA exists? I like to think that true sports fans can connect with others on this level that seemingly binds us all together by a shared/understood experience. I'm sorry if you don't feel that connection!

I don't disagree. There are distance only, sprint only, and field only events, but only the distance only events are popular enough to be marketable at the elite level, other than some one off events. I'm not always interested in all the events, but events that cater to different skill sets has been part of t&f since the beginning. Some one excited about the sprints prob doesn't care about the 10,000 but might stay tuned because he has enough he is interested in. That's just the nature of the sport. Arguing we should take away something whether its a category of events or gender isn't going to retain viewership. The guy who only wants to watch the 100 and 200 might not watch a meet because there is too much he doesn't want to see, but obviously he is made up for by the 1500 fans who will watch the 100 and 200 even though they aren't that interested.

In the United States, women’s professional track is considerably more popular than men’s.

And yet the second most popular track meet is the world championships, which is modelled after the Olympics. All the other models for track meets haven't garnered the popularity of these 2 events and your male only model won't either.

Do you have a source or numbers to back that up?

I did not say that I personally want single sex meets. I said that high school and college meets are really long and that lots of people, including competing athletes, might find the sport more appealing if the meets were shorter. I also said that spectator inconvenience at such meets matters less than providing opportunities for competition.

Now you bring up the business of coaches and say that mostly both the men's and women's teams have the same coaches. Why is that? What other sport does that? I've always found that a bit insulting, that we're a sport that matters so little that it's a good place to economize on coaching salaries.

The most popular tennis tournaments are Grand Slams where men's and women's matches follow one another on the same courts. Single-sex tournaments on the regular tour are less popular.

Only thing I would change is put the Steeplechase as the first event, Don't make us fans have to sit thru it, And anything over a mile at the end of the meet,

The Olympics ratings are actually less clear than I thought:

sportsvideo.org

Ratings Roundup: 2024 Paris Olympics Sweep Ratings Across All Platforms, Up 82% From Tokyo

Samantha Gabay

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week’s edition, take a ...

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My initial comment was more perception-based though. I think SML and Sha’Carri are bigger stars than Lyles and Hocker.

How many fans who aren't relatives of the athletes are showing up for your typical track meet.

In track, men and women can practice on the same track at the same time. A few or even one coach can run the practice for both groups simultaneously - especially for xc which is distance only. This isn't so for soccer or basketball (it might be possible using only half the field or court but much harder where the athletes can use the whole track or the practice can be coordinated so different event groups are on the track at different times). A coach could run mens and womens basketball or soccer - but the teams compete so frequently and in such different places that the idea loses practicality. Some of the best teams have separate mens and womens coaches, but for every Florida State there are ten North Florida and five Miamis.

Naturally colleges want to save money or else not only would the track team be fully funded with large coaching staffs but NIRCA clubs would be fully paid for by student fees as well and would have their own coaching staffs, budgets to travel anywhere, etc. Some draw the line tighter than others. With the way things are going, men who weren't all state in hs might consider themselves lucky to get to run for a college team at all. Its unfortunate and we all wish even away xc meets had courses lined with fans, but I don't know how we get there. I just know single gender competition doesn't bring us closer.

I'm going to hold rounds of the 10,000 just for you.

To further back this up: NBC’s press releases on the Trials (not the Olympics themselves) show Sidney McLaughlin-Levrone’s world record as the biggest night for live viewers, and Sha’Carri Richardson’s 100m win as the most viewed YouTube clip, but also Noah Lyles as the biggest X post.

You might be right. If so, that's just more evidence that men's track benefits from being held and broadcast alongside women's track.

Every triathlete I know hates that Ironman split the Ironman 'world championship'. It was done so they could double the number of PAYING participants - it's a money grab by a private company that makes money off suckers triathletes. TV isn't going to pay double to broadcast 2x as much track and the pro athletes don't pay entry fees!

what do you do with Nikki Hiltz, or Nico Young? Or Conner Mantz, for that matter?

You must not understand how something like football, basketball, formula 1, professional cycling can survive without the women to help draw an audience. "
regression to satisfy some antiquarian set of values is good for the sport" - This shows how you are primarily ideological. You don't care about what is good for the sport, you care that the sport reflects your enlightened values. Your values are trash. They are totally unconvincing.

I actually do enjoy watching many women run. Ill follow female athletes and wouldn't want to prohibit women from having an opportunity to be professional athletes. They shouldn't be allowed to be parasitical to the male athletes to do so however.