masacote wrote:
completely stupid wrote:
The only way to grow ANY sport is to make it marketable to fans. In a sport like the marathon where roads are big enough to support 500 runners you will have WAY more people watching it on TV than if it were 30 runners. The cream will rise to the top in the race...the extra runners will not prevent that. But if more runners are striving for Olympic Qualifier times and more fans tune in on TV it is a big victory.
And that’s why there are a lot of USATF Certified road races, to develop the sport, so the cream will rise to the top, the Trials is not the place for that. Again, you are missing the point, the trials is to select the US Team, not to serve as a selfie opportunity for runners who don’t stand a chance.
And I say again...there will be more people watching on TV this Saturday than if you had just 30 runners...WAY MORE! This feeds add revenue and gets more runners contracts. The more energized you get Americans about running the better the chance you can break the stranglehold that East Africans have on the marathon. If only the 10 snobbiest people here on LR watch on TV well good luck with that. There are only 3 marathons that get a national tv audience...Boston, NY and the OT. You want to grow your sport...you have to take advantage of those 3 big time.