My Annual Make Track Segregated by Gender Thread

I’ve yet to see any evidence that women’s track is “parasitical”. Fan interest in women’s track is high; the two biggest faces of the sport in the US are women.

That's exactly why it is not popular.

If you say so bud.

You BELIEVE single gender meets don't bring us closer to getting more spectators. You can't know it because it's almost never done. I don't know if you're wrong or right because single gender meets are almost never done.

Funny you say this. When I was in high school, our coach was incredibly strict about the boy's team not talking with girls from other schools. Not so much vice versa but he viewed them as more responsible and less likely to waste energy hitting on guys

Beach volleyball.

Most tournaments have both genders.

Immensely more enjoyable live experience than track.

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I'd rather watch WNBA than watch rounds of the 10k.

Fair. Other than the Athlos meet there hasn't been a high profile single gender meet in a while. I guarantee you that a single gender meet will be female only, like Athlos, not male only. With today's cultural values, NO network or streaming service is going to want to cover a men's only meet. I don't have data, but I understand cultural values better than the people who think a men's only meet isn't dead on arrival.

That's fine, the 10k heats are for Deno to see.

You failed to share which of the two scenarios you'd prefer to watch. However, after reading what you've instead offered, the degree to which I care about your opinion has plummeted to zero, so no need to respond! :)

The cultural values thing is a good point. I was almost convinced but after further review why do you think no network or streaming service would want to cover a men's only meet? That's what they do with pretty much every other sport they cover. Golf does so much better than athletics in terms of interest and viewership and every major tournament is either all men or all women.

Let's get rid of the best part about track...

Got it

Anyway, see you at the Ironman world championship in Nice in October

If it was segregated, then you could watch ONLY the best parts (in your eyes) by attending or viewing on TV the women's only meets. Win-win for us both.

Golf and track have different histories and traditions. After decades of mixed gender meets, it will be seen as poor form to have men only. The compromise I could see working is men's events one day, women's the next, but that only works logistically.

Golf gets much more viewership than track so advertisers will be ok if not all the golf fans tune in to a given event. Track depends on getting every eye it can on the broadcast. Advertisers aren't going to be ok with paying for ads seen by fewer people. From what I can tell the PGA's viewership is roughly triple the LPGA's and track would be thrilled with what both the pga and lpga would consider an event with low viewership. Advertisers want to pay for as many eyes as they can get on an ad every time it airs. If they realize a bunch of people won't be watching, well that's just less money for track.

The single gender only meet now has that issue completely instead of advertisers maybe being ok with some seeing their add one day and some who didn't watch that day (the portion of the fan base only caring about one gender event set) watch the next.

Now lets talk about sponsors who are in it for more than just having a commercial viewed. Sponsoring the lpga or pga is cool. Sponsoring a men's only meet is in poor taste to mega corps.They aren't going to pay for a new meet or replacing a traditional meet when there is already a full slate of mixed gender meets with history and tradition.

There is nothing to say a men's only meet can't work logistically and can't be run at the elite level if a meet director can find some one willing to pay for star power.

If you were someone like Deno who didn't care about distance events, you still probably wouldn't host a meet without them. Even Michael Johnson who prob could care less about distance is having distance in the Grand Slam because he knows his meets are dead on arrival without distance fans. He isn't going to have men only or women only because track needs every fan it can get.

By the way the argument for mens and womens only meets working should be the olympic marathon. They are run one gender at a time with a significant gap between. I haven't looked into viewership data. Something like men and women at different times might work but probably not men in Rome on June 3 and women in Stockholm on June 8. Outside of the Olympics, the viewership just isn't high enough to take risks like this just because though. Only on letsrun will you find vocal fans who go I'd watch a couple more DL meets if it weren't for the women's events.

Keeping to single gender so more events can be held is a poor argument too. The DL meets are designed to have a tight tv window to hold viewership but now you are asking fans to tune in twice as often or else watch for a longer period to catch all the action.

Track needs to promote how exciting it can be and draw in more fans, not risk siphoning part of the audience (if only for a portion of the events) to hope a few fans with a 1960s mindset tune in more often. More often than not having to see events they weren't initially interested in (unless they meticulously check a timetable) generates interest in those events - thats how you get men who want to watch Jakob interested in a women's 100 hurdles matchup or a high jump battle, not by hoping they tune in on day 2. The DL vs Grand Slam rivalry might be good for the sport. Hoping some sprint fans who don't like women tune in more often wouldn't be.

I explain in my post above why that isn't really good for the sport. Its only good for the individual who would either watch nothing or only what he wanted. But he is outnumbered by people who will watch most or all of the meet.

You've got a lot of assumptions there. I can't say that they're correct or not and no one else could either unless we have a fair number of one sex only meets. Maybe coed meets could do all of each sexes events together. This is all pretty irrelevant because it's not going to happen.

Is there something resembling a point here? No matter, if I'm not there start without me.

Having run in the era of gender specfic meets, going back there isn't the answer. The only solution to long track meets is cutting down the number of events that are contested in non-championship meets, running scored tri meets instead of large invitationals, limiting the number of entries per team per event to two, running only finals, and limiting jumping and throwing events to three attempts.