Typically, this thread ignores the rest of the World, where athletics is very popular.
Almost no-one outside the US gives a toss about basketball, gridiron or baseball.
The sport was fine until the World champs went bi-annual and partially devalued the olympics. The recent changes to the Diamond league are stupid and should be reversed.
Apart from the walks which are pointless, leave all the disciplines alone and stop this tasteless obsession with marketing. Its tacky and smells of greed.
Georgerunner wrote:
Typically, this thread ignores the rest of the World, where athletics is very popular.
Almost no-one outside the US gives a toss about basketball, gridiron or baseball.
The sport was fine until the World champs went bi-annual and partially devalued the olympics. The recent changes to the Diamond league are stupid and should be reversed.
Apart from the walks which are pointless, leave all the disciplines alone and stop this tasteless obsession with marketing. Its tacky and smells of greed.
Yeah definitely greedy to want to see athletes race each other more than once a year, and god forbid anybody wants to watch a full race without it going to commercial breaks mid-race. And the fact that you think nobody outside of the US cares about basketball or baseball is mind blowingly stupid.
Pet theory of mine: a huge proportion of hardcore track fans want the sport to remain marginal - the smaller it is, the more it "belongs" to them. Think of how many music fans resent their favorite bands becoming popular.
Part of the strategy to keep the sport unpopular is a loud and unceasing preoccupation with drugs. Look no further than this board, and, indeed, this thread!
NFL fans: wow, this 6'5 270 lb man with 10% bodyfat is incredibly fast and strong. That's cool!
Track fans: impressive performance by this athlete; DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS BAN BAN BAN BAN DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS
The unceasing voices that can't rest until running is a significant sport is puzzling to me.
The sport can only be made more "popular" by sh*tting on it. The obvious way is to allow gambling. Another is to turn it into a spectacle and allow free PED use.
Let it go.
certainly a wrote:
This always makes me wonder.
Why does it have to be popular - i.e. - financially lucrative, like other sports.
Even though its sport, its not a competition.
Those love T&F don't care if it's more popular than Basketball. It won't be. Its an individual sport. Its professional for very few, and pin money loss for a few more, and costs shoes and shorts for the rest.
Enjoy it and watch it or don't.
When I grew up in track and field it I never expected to make a career of it., I learned about competition and injury, and that eventually I was going to have to get a job, where I applied my life lessons into my future. Now we suddenly have to compete for TV and funding?
People will always run. People will always look to be fitter and measure themselves. It will find a way. In the scheme of things its not that important.
This is about respect and fairness. Nobody said track should be as popular as football, that sport is way over-hyped to the point that it is just ridiculous, especially when so much of it depends on referee calls, lucky breaks, and who gets away with being the biggest bullies. I wouldn't want to be involved with something that clownish.
Track and field needs to be recognized for what it is: the original sport (from the original Olympics). It is the premier sport for measuring human performance and all the positive attributes that fall under that title: health, fitness, foot speed, leaping, power, physical improvement, striving, pushing to the limit ...
Track and field should be recognized as equal to any other sport. That means all the big meets should be on TV, as well as many of the small ones. The news media should cover it equally, advertisements should have as many track athletes as any other sport. The media is ignoring a major sport, but the sport continues to flourish anyway.
Track and field has the numbers, it has incredible competition at all levels ... if people realized that, it would get the respect it deserves and would be treated fairly.
2 things:
1) his take is ALL about money; and
2) he doesn't care enough about anti-doping efforts to even MENTION them.
Those 2 basic observations tell me all I need to know about the quality of his proposals, and how likely they are to support and further a sport that I want to be any part of.
If he wants to consider it all a mere entertainment property, let him put together a group of investors and do it himself, like WWE, UFC, etc.
Other than that, he's part of the problem, not the solution.
IMO
You're right, and the points on money were not specific or substantial. Lots of money flowing to different athletes and federations, and some big companies involved, but it doesn't come together efficiently and coherently. Some of the special interests have reason to influence the anti-doping process too.
That's cool. I think people should be able to pay extra for special seats where you get given a paintball gun and can shoot at the runners after the first lap.
Should only be two events - 100m and 1600m. Field events are silly as are relays or Multi's. Nothing else matters. The marathon has been taken over by gallow-walkers and charities, so it is no longer relevant.
The 400 (and 4x400) relay matter too, distinct race pattern and performance qualities, and drama in the final straight, or the athlete struggling to hold form as a record or sub-barrier time lies in front of them - 'if you can fill the minute with distance run', as did Reynolds, Freeman, Perec, Johnson, Merritt, Felix...real stars of the sport.
High hurdles for similar reasons (race pattern, shifts of momentum, athletic display in clearing barriers).
Some good ideas here from MJ.
McRunnin wrote:
FIRST YOU GET THE FANS, THEN YOU GET MEDIA AND SPONSORS.
A simple idea wrote:
I think that track would benefit from looking at Formula 1, since that is basically the same thing but with cars. In Formula 1, you have one event every 2 weeks or so, with the same 20 people each time. Place is emphasized, while time is either ignored or only considered relative to what has been seen that weekend (no comparison to previous races and few to previous years at the same track). Each track is different, which poses a new challenge to drivers and provides a new backdrop and story for each race. There is both an individual and a team championship, which helps to provide more context, especially for competitors further down the field. The race is long enough that there is time for drama to unfold several times a race in several spots, so there's 2 hours of action.
To make this work for running, I'd suggest making the pro circuit something that looks like a ~10K cross country race. Each course would be different, some hilly, some narrow, some with lots of tight turns, different surfaces, etc. This would take care of removing the focus on time and give an interesting new challenge every time out. 10 teams of 3 or so runners each would give us lots of mid-field battles to follow, especially when the top runners aren't doing anything interesting. A set up like this would let people follow the action and get 30 minutes of enjoyment.
I know some people would bemoan the loss of other distances and field events - those can still exist in the Olympics and other events, just like MMA didn't kill more "pure" martial arts. However, a single competition makes for a much more watchable product where we can actually follow more than just the top 1 or 2 athletes in each event. It also prevents a watering down effect that we see, where the person who won the 5K at a meet may have only done so because the better runners decided to run the 1500 or the 10K.
This new event would still have to find a way to market the runners as competitors and people you want to cheer for (or against). Many sports do this better than track, where most runners are afraid to show personality or aren't comfortable enough on camera to show it (or don't speak enough English). Drive to Survive brought this side of Formula 1 to many Americans, but the clashing egos and personalities have always been a part of the sport.
Distance running is a great sport just the way it is, and I don’t why you would want to destroy it. Humans and cars are different and the former can’t run all out every two weeks. With your idea, there would be a mass exodus among current fans with no one to replace them.
In the major team sports, people generally care about happens in the field and not personalities. About 90% of the player interviews from those sports are just as boring as those for T&F.
McRunnin wrote:
On Twitter today, Michael Johnson shared his ideas for how he would improve track and field. Here’s what he posted:
Professional track must be developed by a private commercial entity focused on profitability.
Hey MJ, how is that whole profitability idea working out?
Nike put MJ and KM up to no good by trying to launch an Iranian ICBM barrage in Sebastian Coe and Petr Stasny.
Great find! Thank you for bumping this thread. I had completely forgotten about it. It’s so interesting to go back and read MJ’s pitch from back then knowing what we know now.
This part stands out to me:
A for profit entity focused on profitability would change the structure of the sport by conducting market research (not from just current track fans), employing deep sports business knowledge, along with marketing, branding, and event expertise.
MJ called for doing broad market research, but I find it difficult to believe the findings from that research would have included large numbers of people expressing interest in a monthly series of 3-day meets.
I also thought the marketing and storytelling were inadequate.
Those checkmarks are noteworthy too.
