OMG dismal attendance at Haywards Stadium, McDonalds refuses to stay open, Skin Head Parking Patrols

Wow, absolutely awful attendance for "Tracktown" on a Friday night with 100m finals, which typically gets top attendance. Maybe the nights with distance finals will be better. I would love to attend USAs but getting to and staying in Eugene is a giant and expensive pain in the arse. Hold the Olympic Trials there but start giving the non-Olympic USA Championships to other cities with actual airports and adequate hotel space. The experiment making Eugene the Omaha or Williamsport of the sport has failed and it's time for something new.

The poor attendance at the meet aside, the bigger issue, which I know has been mentioned is the fact that this meet can't be easily watched by the general public.

I haven't checked, so I could be wrong, but I'll bet I can't even go to youtube and find the a replay of the 800 semi or the 100 finals... but I know I can find stage 1-7 of the Tour de France there.

It's called promoting your sport... something the USATF seems to be very poor at doing.

Agreed, too damn hot. Walnut may not be as bad, but no way does anyone want to sit outside in the south during the summer. If you've been to any of the Junior Olympic meets, you'd know how awful that is. Chicago or San Fran would be nice.

For anybody living outside of the State's why is there no free streaming of this meet - which apart from the World's is the best meet of the year?

Very few people are prepared to pay to watch

USATF are worse than hopeless - stadiums with thousands of empty seats - failing to grow the sport by not providing free streaming worldwide

What exactly are they trying to achieve ?

That's the problem, USATF doesn't know what they are trying to achieve aside from landing a few big sponsorships to pay their executives.

The reference to Williamsport or Omaha is great. I hadn't thought of it but now it's very apt especially because I think maybe in the 70s to 90s, when the whole "Tracktown" thing was catching on, Eugene kind of was to track what Omaha and Williamsport were to baseball.

I feel like it should be moved to NYC

New stadium is inferior to the old one, shutting down for two years was a huge mistake..............seats are too far away.........ticket prices way too high.............Oregon doesn't allow their best athletes to run at Hayward, but sends them to CA, AZ, etc...................it wasn't very long ago when the stands were packed for all four days of the NCAA Championships................I've turned in my season tickets after 20 years.................many of my friends have done the same...............talked about ruining a once successful program...........

HRE has it right. More fans would show up for the Oregon-Oregon State dual meet in the 1970s than are attending the National Championships right now.

That’s the key to any full stadium for track and field. Diamond League meets fill the stands with locals. If that many local people were still coming to Eugene meets, combined with outside Oregon attendees - the stands would be full.

Those local fans are either too old, dead, or just not interested anymore.

It’s a niche sport always has and always will be. Distance races look slow on TV and unlike most televised events it’s a bunch of different disciplines at the same time.

Also social participation in the sport does not equal being a fan of competition. The most watched sport in America has no way for adults to compete. Just because someone takes part in a local race doesn’t mean they care about Noah or Sydney or Grant

Foks always claim were a

'participation sport'?

Actually we're

'once in a great while participation sport'

that happens once or only a few times a year in 99% of the United States

only the tracks, fields, parks, beaches and trails of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego has daily mass participation on a grand scale

Just because the seats are empty doesn't mean that there weren't good ticket sales.

I would agree though that the local populous isn't nearly as interested in the Hayward experience as they used to be. Very much an aging demographic of track fans with better things to do. Heck, sitting on the couch and scrolling through social media is more engaging.

Eugene resident here. I think the lack of attendance is related to four things (in order of decreasing importance).

1. Oversaturation of high profile meets. After all the buildup and excitement around World Champs last year (which were amazing, and despite not being fully sold out many, many local people I know attended at least one session), I think people have a harder time getting excited about USATF champs.

2. Timing. It's the week of the 4th of July, a lot of people are on vacation/in the mountains/at the coast, etc and thus aren't interested in attending a track meet.

3. Lack of engagement with the UO team. I'm hopeful this will change over time as Jerry and Shalane et al try to better engage with the Eugene community, but the lack of meets and total non-existence of the men's team this year definitely did not help with building community engagement with T&F.

4. Lack of stars. I get why there are byes into World Champs, but when the US's best athletes are not competing (or not completing in their best event), it definitely takes some of the luster away (i.e. is it really the 'fastest man in America' when the fastest man is not competing?). Glad some of the biggest stars (Lyles, SML) are at least running other events, but still, compared to Olympic Trials it is a bit of a letdown.

I live in the Midwest and travel for work all over the country. Open public tracks almost always have a scattered stream of walkers, joggers and casual athletes.

Wash Park- Denver, Forest Park- St. Louis, Lake Shore Drive- Chicago, Charles River Path-Boston and other urban trails are packed with runners on nice days. I live 20 miles outside the nearest major city but have access to a great rails to trail system. There are plenty of runners out year round.

All to say- take your California arrogance and shove it. Established races in the midwest draw 1000s to 10000 plus participants. The rest of the country outside California has plenty of 15 min 5kers with real jobs and a life.

And hold it where Ichan? Ever try to get to ichan? Very difficult. Think hotel prices and car rentals are expensive in Eugene?

If we were PE coaches that would be the goal, if we were a sport , increased viewers would be our goal. If the sport doesn’t grow their won’t be anything on tv or meets or merchandise

I agree except for #6 and #7

Outside of the country even. I'm in Europe and cant chuck on some races when I wake up. Content is geo-blocked on Twitter. Its insane how locked down this event is from afar