I'm a bit older than you are. And I understand where you're coming from. Sports and entertainment have changed over the years. My Dad has told me tales of taking the train from Kankakee, IL to South Bend, IN on Saturdays to watch Notre Dame football.
Back in those days there were trains from the same station taking fans to the Drake Relays. Not anymore. Track and Field was very popular up until the NFL started getting all of the attention and buying up all the fast guys. ( back in the day the fast track guys would give up their amateur status for an NFL contract.) And for those who weren't born during that era, baseball was the most enjoyed sport, following, College Football, Track/Field, then finally Pro Football. Although hockey was coming into to its own about the same time football did. But until TV and expansion came into play, I was fortunate enough to watch the Original 8 NHL Hockey Clubs play. And my gosh was that fun hockey to watch. Back then the goalies didn't wear masks or helmets. Neither did the rest of the player or officials. When fights occurred everyone left the bench and fought to the bitter end like it was one of the closing battles of WWII. But now don't you even try boarding a marque player. You might get set down for a few games. Sports have changed over the years. For better or worse? What the hell do I know. I'm just 1 of 7 or so billions of Earthlings populating this planet. What say you?
Yes, I remember going to Rangers games and a few indoor track meets in the Garden 40+ years ago. Rangers games are still sold out, Knick games are sold out but the track meets no longer take place. 20 years ago the track athletes and coaches were able to get tickets for 5 bucks and even most of us wouldn't attend.
Unfortunately most of the kids on HS teams are not fans of the sport. I hope this is just a problem in the NY area but I'm afraid it's not. I used to go to the world championships and was impressed by the European crowds who were knowledgeable and passionate, I hope that's still the case but I don't see it here.
You understand the problem and the solution is- marketing. Market the sport and athletes to the kids.
I'm 63 and I remember sold out US/USSR dual meets.
I remember sold out Millrose Games (I attended some).
I always refer to the 1971 "Dream" Mile between Liquari and Ryan. Google it.
Stands were full, it was on TV.
I remember in 1979/80, I liked Ovett. My Girlfriend, definitely NOT a runner/track fan, hated him and she liked Coe.
If you didn't know who Pre, Liquari, Ryan, Coe, Ovett, etc were you were living under a rock.
John Walker breaking 3:50 was on the evening news.
That Bayi/Walker Commonwealth World Record was on the evening news.
We had local newspapers that everyone read that covered track like it did the other sports.
It's all in marketing and, I think some kind of organization that can bring them together would make it more understandable.
Example- there are more than just Diamond League Meets in Europe. We used to call it the European Tour. T & FN carried all the meets results and lists of performers/performances.
Running Times covered the road race scene- it was a circuit. They would even had lists of top times at different distances.
There is just too much wrong with T&F for it to ever be popular. Just imagine if there was a thing called Racketsport and they had a huge football field and competed in 5 matches in tennis, pingpong, badminton, squash, and padel at the same time.
The problem here is that it WAS popular at one time.
You start wrong.
You don't have to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
It was actually the 3 ring nature of track that was appealing. I've been watching Worlds on Peacock, when they show the British feed they don't do commercials. I quickly figured out that I better go the bathroom before it started because there is literally never down time if it's covered right.
I get it, Americans tend to like sports with very little action- baseball, golf, enough said.
Football? 5-8 minutes of actual playing time in a 1 hour game that takes over 2 hours to play.
Exception is Tennis- it's marketed right so people watch it. It's individual, not team.
Keep in mind, the people that run the sport have no interest in making it popular. If they did, they'd force head to head battles between big rivals, require frequent racing, require media participation, and make changes to beta test popularity enhancing ideas. But they don't. It's working for them, the way it is.
If you are a world boxing belt holder, you can be stripped of your belt if you continuously dodge top contenders.
I don't think this would work with track. Maybe someone who is good at "thinking outside the box" could come up with a solution.
I was thinking, first- hold Worlds at the end of the season, not in the middle.
Tie qualifying into racing, somehow, I don't know how. But there has to be a way of not hurting someone who couldn't race enough.
But, it does seem that most runners just don't compete like they used to and they're not in the public eye enough.
Nike and other shoe companies could easily promote the sport via every box of shoes that goes out the door. Trading cards, pictures of sponsored athletes, randomized free tickets to events, statistics printed on the box tops, historic venue information, etc. $18 billion dollars in annual sales is a lot of boxes, and shoe boxes get re-purposed around the house.
How did world track allow NBC to purchase the meet rights without putting everything on live TV?
I think track is not asserting its rightful place in the sports world. Track is the basis of every other sport: running, jumping and throwing, and these are the best in the world. There are no gimmicks, it is pure athletic competition in your face and worldwide. NBC is missing out because they don’t know how to market the biggest athletic event in the world.
I still say a lot of it is people who couldn’t excel in track when they were young, pretending like it is not a major sport because they know they could never do it. Spite and jealousy in the NBC programming department.
There is just too much wrong with T&F for it to ever be popular. Just imagine if there was a thing called Racketsport and they had a huge football field and competed in 5 matches in tennis, pingpong, badminton, squash, and padel at the same time.
The problem here is that it WAS popular at one time.
You start wrong.
You don't have to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
It was actually the 3 ring nature of track that was appealing. I've been watching Worlds on Peacock, when they show the British feed they don't do commercials. I quickly figured out that I better go the bathroom before it started because there is literally never down time if it's covered right.
I get it, Americans tend to like sports with very little action- baseball, golf, enough said.
Football? 5-8 minutes of actual playing time in a 1 hour game that takes over 2 hours to play.
Exception is Tennis- it's marketed right so people watch it. It's individual, not team.
Marketing. Period.
It was popular in another time when team sports where not shown on tv.
Tennis isnt marketed, it sells itself, because it is entertaining with all its variations and unique scoring system that means you can turn the match and win no matter the score.
Other team sports like Soccer, NFL, NBA and NHL became popular when leagues got tv rights. They used to be afraid of losing spectator income if games where on TV
Another problem with T&F is lack of creativity. A 100 m looks the same every time. But in team sports you get those wow moments.
How can it be elitest if you're got people from Kazakhstan and Ivory Coast and Ethiopia winning medals? As Governor Brown of Oregon said when she opened the games, this is the most accessible sport in the world. With the exception of high and long jump and three of the four throws, you just need a pair of sneakers usually.
If anything correlate this to tennis which is extremely elite and most people can't get court space in winter time.
I think it's often odd when track stars try to have swagger. Like Noah Lyles is trying to do dances and stuff and there was something small of a beef with Knighton, and I get that it's an effort to try to enliven things, but I don't know, something about it doesn't work.
Thinking more about it, I think it's that some of these feuds seem extremely small and we barely know these guy. I'm not sure if there was a Rowbury-Simpson fued but I seem to remember people trying to talk it up and it might have been nothing
No doubt about it, Jenny had a beef on the track with Shannon.
The problem here is that it WAS popular at one time.
You start wrong.
You don't have to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
It was actually the 3 ring nature of track that was appealing. I've been watching Worlds on Peacock, when they show the British feed they don't do commercials. I quickly figured out that I better go the bathroom before it started because there is literally never down time if it's covered right.
I get it, Americans tend to like sports with very little action- baseball, golf, enough said.
Football? 5-8 minutes of actual playing time in a 1 hour game that takes over 2 hours to play.
Exception is Tennis- it's marketed right so people watch it. It's individual, not team.
Marketing. Period.
It was popular in another time when team sports where not shown on tv.
Tennis isnt marketed, it sells itself, because it is entertaining with all its variations and unique scoring system that means you can turn the match and win no matter the score.
Other team sports like Soccer, NFL, NBA and NHL became popular when leagues got tv rights. They used to be afraid of losing spectator income if games where on TV
Another problem with T&F is lack of creativity. A 100 m looks the same every time. But in team sports you get those wow moments.
I do remember when the local NFL team's games would be blacked-out (even if it were on a national feed) if the stadium wasn't sold out. They wouldn't put something else in that spot, it was literally a black screen that was broadcast for those two hours.
How did world track allow NBC to purchase the meet rights without putting everything on live TV?
I subscribed to Peacock for this month. What a difference having Tim Hutchings call the races instead of the homers on NBC. It's worth it at this late date to get it and watch it live. The attendance in Oregon appears weak compared to the meets that used to be held there before the new stadium was built. I was there for the trials in '08. The Oregonian reports the first three days attendance was 54k. Why it's not a sellout is a mystery since this is supposed to be Track Town USA. Are the ticket prices too high? Are accommodations to pricey for visitors? Track and field will never outdraw football....... that's okay we have better spectators.
Track is dying where? In the US or around the world? Stands looked full to me in Stockholm last month. UK fans filled up the Worlds in 2017.
It's a niche sport here and will never be mainstream again.
Yes you can draw a crowd in DL in Europe, but its one time a year. Look at little Norway, you get 15 000 for DL Oslo but the football top division draws +1.5 million every season.
The DL in Europe is a happening for track fans, and many travel to it as a yearly pilgrimmage
T&F draws more than other sports for a few reasons. Most programs across the country does not cut their participants. So, T&F is one of the few sports anyone can make the team. T&F also dodges competition with the more popular team sports. In most states, soccer, football, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, etc. are fall and winter sports. For most schools, this means that T&F only competes with golf and tennis in the spring (or maybe lacross, but that's not played in the vast majority of schools). Because T&F does not compete with most of the team sports, those team sport athletes tend to go out for T&F as a way to stay in shape during the offseason.
Track, like many Olympic Sports, has stood in time while major sports have passed it by. Sports are big money now. The NBA, NFL and even College Football have really exploded over the last 50 years in terms of marketability.
Track is basically like swimming, ice skating, gymnastics and wrestling. This is why we have hacks with cameras on the friggin track during a race.
If the Olympics is your big deal, your whole existence for being a sport....then you are not a major sport.
No one wants to watch people run around an oval 25 times. No one wants to watch people run around an oval 12.5 times. Hell, no one wants to watch people run 7.5 laps around an oval.
Track is exciting when people either A) win B) Break a world record.
Besides that there’s pretty much no point in the entertainment side. Think of this past mens 1500. If the race was rerun with only Ingebrigsten and Wightman running exactly how they did and remove everyone else it would be just as exciting because they were the only ones in the race who actually mattered. Cold truth.
Another big problem with track meets is the time between races. You have to wait 5-10 minutes AT LEAST before another race goes off. It’s like changing innings in baseball except it happens after every single race! Huge waste of time.
Anything over 1500/mile is just not attractive to watch for most people, and I only include the mile because everyone knows mile times.
It also doesn’t help that regardless of whether it’s a sit and kick race or a complete barnburner, non track fans really have no clue how fast athletes are running if they’re watching on tv. If everyone is in a pack, everyone is in a pack.
There also are very few big meets in which anyone would ever be interested in going to. I live in a city that has 1 national level track meet every year that attracts B/C level pro athletes. Very well ran meet. Great community involvement and it’s a fun event, but it well never reach non track fans just because the nature of who would ever say “hey, there’s a track meet at x, wanna go?”
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