True or false: Christine Brennan says Americans care more about swimming and gymnastics than track and field

1) we already know who the games will be covering in track and field, bolt, farah, eaton, and felix. These are the people that are already in commercials. It won't change. Just like last olympics they focused on Sanya Richards, Bolt, and for some reason Centrowitz (and not Manzano at all even as he took the silver)

2) The reason the sprints and swimming are popular are two-fold, one america is good at them and two, every olympics there is a legitimate shot a world record is going to be set. Knowing nothing about the 1500, why should I care that these guys are 20 seconds slower than the world record (or a minute slower in the 10K). The 4x400 I think is probably legitimately the most exciting track and field event, and no one would watch it if the first three legs just jogged together.

3) Gymnastics is popular because women who don't watch sports, watch gymnastics. Most people who are sports fans, will watch anything and are probably happy to have more company. Think of college basketball fans who get the joy of friends during the NCAA tournament. I think gymnastics team competition is the first half of the olympics and coincides with swimming rather than T&F Which is at the end, which might be the real reason swimming has higher ratings (simply because it shown in prime time along with the team gymnastics)

There are a lot of far-flung opinions on this thread including what Christine Brennan has said.

It is disturbing to me that "The dream team" gets so much coverage during the Olympic games.

CC and Track have always been the top rated participation sports among high school sports. If you have the young people, you have the future. Unfortunately we do a very poor job of covering track & field on TV and in all areas of the media. All Runner's World cares about is the marathon. This is ridiculous because a 13 minute 5K is much more impressive than a 2:20 marathon.

We need to educate the public and start advertising our sport.

As Larry Myricks, 28' 8" LJ in 1988, has said, "In America we USE our track & field athletes, we do not DEVELOP them. Only about 1% of the top track & field stars get scholarships in America." In addition he talked about how shoe companies do not do much for athletes, so many must work full-time after college. This is not fair because in many other places, the athletes can work out full-time.

It is also true that our top athletes in America play football, or basketball. That is where the money and glamour is!

In Kenya and Ethiopia in many places, Track & Field is KING!!!

Some people think that Eastern Africans have physical advantages or that all run to and from school each day. NO, this is not true! Culture and expectations are why they dominate the world. (We have altitude and hills every where in the world. This is also NO EXCUSE!)

rojo wrote:

How could one prove or disprove her statement?

She's a hack, in the bag with NBC in order to get an announcer slot in the future.

BUT, as someone else already said, its NBC's marketing department that bangs the drum that the network dances to. Cute lil' doll-like gymnasts and sculpted bare-chested swimmers appeal more to the average American (think Walmart on Saturday afternoon) than a rail-thin African running around in circles.

Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps have the collective IQ of a gerbil but they look great on the podium.

Every been to a collegiate swim meet. You can't tell who's ahead most of the time.

OK, synchronized swimming is a secret passion of Bernie Sanders, but that's about it.

Trust me, I'm not like the others: the Rio Olympics are not going to happen.

I have run competitively in track from the age of 10! I have a daughter and all I can say is that I hope to GOD she chooses gymnastics over track because the thought of sitting through 5 hour hs and college track meets would be worse than burning in hell for a million years!

It's true for America but not the rest of the world. Athletics/Track & Field has always been the marquee event of the Olympics and the games and every aspect of the games revolve around the Olympic stadium not the aquatic centre.

Americans also don't care about the World Cup whereas the whole world is at virtual standstill for the duration of the tournament. Imagine Super Bowl Sunday continuous for a whole month. Also, only Americans and South Koreans care about women's football/soccer.

I found one site that had the order of popularity of sports in the US at the summer games, but not actually viewership numbers. And it went like this

1. Basketball

2. Swimming

3. Gymnastics

4. Beach Volleyball

5. Track and Field

6. Indoor Volleyball

7. Tennis

8. Table Tennis

9. Badminton

10. Cycling

Worldwide it goes

1. Athletics

2. Aquatics

3. Futbol

4. Gymnastics

5. Basketball