Vin Lananna says that college track & field competitions are dreadful

Agree. With all the marketing expertise out there why can't it be packaged better? UFC came out of nowhere to become a sport. Maybe track just needs someone with a real vision and some money to get behind it. It is strangely paradoxical how the U.S. is the home of track, but not from a spectator's standpoint. European spectators go to big meets, but their grass roots track system is so much worse. The high school scene and the NCAA is truly unique, and so far ahead of Europe. An elite high school track athlete has almost no outlet in Europe and they probably miss half of their talent because high school track almost does't exist. (Yes, I know about the clubs etc., but it doesn't compare). It just seems like such a ripe opportunity stateside. One of the huge mistakes was putting Hayward Field in Eugene. If it had been constructed in Portland there was a huge opportunity to get big crowds at meets. Once you get the ball rolling good things come. Millrose has a great vibe and presence as do Penn Relays, and adding more to the mix could get things moving.

I'm guessing that just about every high school state championship meet draws a decent crowd. Why? The first reason is obviously that people have a personal connection to the athletes and schools involved. Family members, friends, classmates, teachers, etc.

The second reason is that it matters. I know qualification is different in different states, but assuming you have some sort of regional meets or district meets to qualify for state, those matter too.

I've never been to NCAAs, but I've watched on TV. It seems like a pretty good product. So how do you extend that out beyond one meet (or maybe two if you count regionals)? It's the same issue with professional track, and getting people interested in more than just the Olympics.

For me, the simplest fix would be to have conference meets that matter for regional/national NCAA qualifying. At a bare minimum every conference champion gets an autobid to NCAA regionals. After that, I'm not sure how you fix the regular season, but if you at least have three meets that matter (conference, regionals, nationals) and you hype those up, I think that's an improvement. I don't think dual meets are a magic answer. And I think chasing times/marks is always going to be a part of the sport.

Track's best fan! Seriously, you are 1 of about 10 committed t&f fans on our national t&f website.

Many other dedicated fans volunteer as officials and judges for big meets.

Yet you left out the most important part of the story-- they finished out in lane six (if I remember correctly)

Hey Ruxton. Vin is right Not going to read 3 pages. These meets are old fashioned and boring. Track meets are the worst. Who’s asleep at the wheel USATF

It's not going to happen but and no one is going to clear their schedule for one or two dual meets. But if a season consisted of mostly dual meets there'd be no choice but to clear your schedule for them. Anyway, a competitive sport where no team score is kept at maybe 90% of the competitions is ridiculous.

I go to as many Track Meets as Possible, College and Open, only CIF Masters or State Meet, Arcadia as far as me going to High School Meets, And High School, And Open races at MT SAC are together, But I go to see The College and PRO's. The Funny thing is the California State High School Meet is always packed, One year Cerritos College Had the State Meet it was Crowded as can be, Sold out (I got in), people Who did not get in were looking from the Fences, Then a Few weeks later The USATF Meet Was At Cerritos College with almost all the best USA Athletes, There seemed to be More Athletes than Spectators, The Seats were pretty much Empty, Wilt Chamberlain was there watching the Meet, (I saw him at Track Meets all the Time Back then, he was a true Fan.) Good thing is seats were everywhere, you could sit where you want.

Here is The Funny thing A big High School Meet sells out, a few weeks later Athletes Who are where those High School Athletes Dream of Being Someday, The High School Runners Heroes could not sell at all, That amazes Me

I agree with everything you said, but just giving conference champions auto bids will not change the incentive structure enough. The reason that the season works they way it does is because the current META is to go to one of the 3-4 big time trial meets to get your qualifier and then sit on your hands until championship season. Competing in a bunch of small meets can do nothing but hurt you.

If the NCAA actually wants to change, they need to move towards a World Athletics style points system. No more 3000 heats of the 1500m in California or 100 heats of the 10,000m. The way to get an NCAA spot should be competing in races that mean something.

Of course I have a choice. I can choose not to clear my schedule to go. No one's going to pass a law requiring attendance at dual meets

The other (since deleted) response wasn’t from me, it was from someone who somehow registered a username seemingly identical to mine. Probably what I get for calling BS on one of our resident psychos.

BTW, you’re perpetuating homophobia which isn’t very cool.

The longest MLB game by time in history was about 8 hrs. I remember almost every track meet I was in lasted about 8 hours from age group all the way to college. I hope my kid has no interest in track…. My hope is only runs XC

It's just a bizarre little sport that is a hold over from years gone past. It is so very very basic that it no longer captures the imagination of the sporting world.

Who can run the fastest, jump the farthest, and the highest. That's really it.

Take away the contrived events and you have:

100m

1600m

long jump

high jump

marathon

I was talking about the athletes, not the spectators. Of course you have a choice as to attending any sort of meet or not.

I reject the premise that Sam Seemes and some of them make.

"If we don't make track more spectator friendly, it will be lost in the shuffle."

I don't buy it. Yes, the local track meet was more popular back in the day when there was nothing to do - no cable tv, etc - but let's don't kid ourselves and act like track and field was a revenue producing sport.

It will never be a revenue producing sport.

These big rich schools can and will always have some revenue losing sports. I doubt they all dump track as it's a classic Olympic sport. Would it be cheaper for them to sposnor beach volleyball instead? yes. So administrators do need to be vigilant to protect track but colleges have plenty of things that lose money.

Can changes be made? Of course. I remember when I was coaching at Cornell and I'd get at our indoor facility at 6am to set up and not leave til 9 pm. I turned to my fellow assistant one week and said, "We are doing nothing to make this sport more fan friendly." Like with having an elite window for 2 hours, etc. He replied, "Correct. And that's not our job."

If you are going to change it, you have to go all in. If you want to focus on dual meets, you have to go ALL IN. Otherwise, people know what they are watching is practice that is meaningless. Hence coaches run JV squads in historic meets like Harvard - Yale.

But I don't think fans really want to watch a 'dual meet' nationals anymore than a regular nationals. I think what we have right now is fine. It's the same reason why I thought GST track was going to fail. If there was some novel and easy way to make track popular, we would have figured it out long ago.

Let's don't act like college track was every popular as a spectator sport at any point when Vin Lananna was coaching - and he's 71. It's still here and way more resources are going to it than in history.

We can shame SEC schools into not giving up on track and be willing to lose $2 million a year on it just for Olympic glory alone and for the 1 good fooballer every 5 years that does both.

Let's face it, quad duel meets suck bug time. That will be the death of Track