With NXN Cancelled, Will Footlocker Follow Suit or Adjust?

pavement88 wrote:

Some entity, be it New Balance or Nike or Footlocker etc., needs to start organizing a national postal-style meet.

3200 on the track, at any point during the month of November. Easy enough to document something like this. Both team and individual competitions.

Something like this is a throwback to yesteryear and would produce some interesting results. It gives kids something to gun for even if some states have seasons and some do not.

These national meets are always schools competing as clubs anyway so it would eliminate some of the red tape that would come from school policies.

I’ve been saying this since the minute I saw that NXN was cancelled. Realistically, I don’t see any other way to crown a national champion this year than by this way. And it’s totally realistic too.

Teams host the time trials on their own tracks. The race must be recorded on video and each athlete must back up their results with GPS or chip data. The time trial must be completed in a certain window, such as the fourth week in November or first week in December. Fastest 5 runner average is crowned champion. There can be rewards for champions of each region and also individual awards.

Nike & Footlocker could really capitalize off this. The hype and exclusiveness of being a national championship qualifier is huge. Kids who make New Balance Nationals wear the backpacks everywhere, it’s like a prized possession. If Nike & Footlocker charged anywhere from $50 to $100 to take part in the virtual national championship and for a t-shirt, I can’t imagine how many kids would sign up just to say they “competed at the national championship”. Coaches could claim this too.

The opportunity is there, we’ll just see if they take the chance.

Allen53 wrote:

In fact the data, which is readily available, proves on all levels and to high degrees young people are at GREAT risk to their safety (mental, physical and emotional) as they are having all of their activities cancelled.

Please share this readily available data.

While your searching for that, please look up “school refusal” in relation to covid. Many students are going to refuse to come back despite parents wanting them to. It happens every year without a pandemic... this year is going to be out of control.

So in your opinion, is death the only statistic that matters? I coach a team who has competed at NXN several times in the last decade and the strength of our team compared to our region indicated that we would likely qualify again this year. The team is heartbroken at missing this opportunity and while I've lost plenty of sleep being heartbroken for them, Nike made the right call.

You also claim you used to be close to the event...do you remember what that week is like? For anybody that hasn't been to NXN before, 400+ athletes along with roughly 100+ adults stay in the same hotel and travel by coach bus to only three locations total over the course of 4-5 days (NIKE HQ, the hotel and the course itself). If there is one COVID case on day 1 (and remember that any of these 500+ individuals could pick it up while traveling, never mind having brought it from home) then by Sunday it would have spread through dozens of individuals, perhaps more. You're right, teen mortality is extremely low, but what about those who would inevitably become ill far from home? If their cases were minor, they might not notice and would simply spread it. If they were major they might require intensive care very far from home. After that, if an athlete tests positive, what happens next? Do they quarantine at the Embassy Suites in Tigard for 14 days? What about the 499+ individuals who came into contact with that person? Do they quarantine too? Yes, the death toll among this age group is low but look beyond that, the ripple effect would be daunting and nearly possible to overcome.

You mean like getting in a car accident or bike accident? Or falling down the stairs? There are 100,000 ER visits related to stairs per year Or eating junk food? Scary. Eat well, don't drive, don't take the stairs if you are a runner. All are riskier than competing at a cross country meet outdoor related to catching Covid.

Cancel it permanently then because the flu spreads the same way. 200 kids died of the flu this year while only 20 died of Covid.

I understand the logistical problems. But didn't we learn anything from the L.A. marathon? 27,000 runners in mid march ran and no outbreak resulted. The threat of getting the virus in an outdoor setting is very low, maybe even infinitesimal.

Change the housing and transportation if necessary. It's not that many runners involved.

Harping on the "flu" argument is ridiculous. Yes, they are both viruses with similar symptoms, and yes they can lead to death, especially in people with underlying illnesses. However, COVID is a NOVEL virus. We don't fully understand how it functions yet and there is no natural immunity built up in the population due to previous exposures. This is unlike the flu which humans have experience with. COVID has a significantly more erratic and typically longer incubation period with symptoms manifesting on average FIVE days post exposure with a range of 2-14 while the flu averages 1-4 days post exposure with a range of 1-7 days. Since you clearly don't understand the difference, this means that the amount of exposures a person can cause is significantly higher than the flu. Perhaps most importantly, we have a vaccine and time-tested medications and treatments for the flu. Anything even plausibly affective on COVID is still registered as emergency use only.

Regarding NXN, previous exposure, vaccines, shorter transmission rates and the timing of flu season all prevent it from tearing through the event. None of these things are true regarding COVID.

Everyone should mask up and live in their basement til they die. Well you can come out when the Amazon packages are delivered, but thats it.

Funny isn't it that the flu is less contageous and people are immunized and yet 10 times as many young people have died of it this year but you are okay sending kids off to a large event in a normal year. Why are so many people not afraid of their children dying of the flu? Sounds like you are somebody who is quick to dismiss something that is deadlier to young people than Covid.

I probably should be upfront and divulge that 57 kids at our high school have tested positive this summer but only 2 had symptoms.

Coe or Vid wrote:

You mean like getting in a car accident or bike accident? Or falling down the stairs? There are 100,000 ER visits related to stairs per year Or eating junk food? Scary. Eat well, don't drive, don't take the stairs if you are a runner. All are riskier than competing at a cross country meet outdoor related to catching Covid.

WTF, didn't you read the previous post, you have obviously never been to the event.

The athletes don't drive over in a car and jump out and run and then go home. They fly in from all over the country, they all stay together in the same hotel along with coaches and parents, not to mention many college coaches. They travel together on buses to the Nike campus for several events, they have a dance at the end of the week for the athletes, they spend much more time together inside than they do running outside.

And then they travel back home to parents, teachers and others who are a little older and more at risk. And, they do that through airports and on planes potentially spreading it. Open your eyes, good decision to cancel.

I like the postal idea.... lets make it a 5k so its same distance as high school XC and different than a track meet. Most XC runners have run a 3200 on track many times.. way fewer have run a 5000. I think it makes it more interesting.

Not the only stat that matters wrote:

Harping on the "flu" argument is ridiculous. Yes, they are both viruses with similar symptoms, and yes they can lead to death, especially in people with underlying illnesses. However, COVID is a NOVEL virus.

Covid19 is so novel, that no one yet has been able to find it anywhere.

Nothing justifies the bunker mentality we are showing towards this illness.

astro wrote:

Nothing justifies the bunker mentality we are showing towards this illness.

Well, in four months over 140,000 people have died in this country and just because you haven't been affected doesn't mean it isn't serious. Don't forget "All lives matter"!

An obvious question should be, why has there never been a test done to confirm that there's a covid19 virus? The obvious answer is, because whoever came up with this scheme doesn't want people to know the truth, that there is no covid19 virus.

Coe or Vid wrote:

Funny isn't it that the flu is less contageous and people are immunized and yet 10 times as many young people have died of it this year but you are okay sending kids off to a large event in a normal year. Why are so many people not afraid of their children dying of the flu? Sounds like you are somebody who is quick to dismiss something that is deadlier to young people than Covid.

If you are a high schooler, I am sincerely sorry that this has impacted your season. It sucks and it's certainly not fair. I myself had hoped that NXN would be delayed a month or two, but again they made the right decision.

Additionally I'm not sure where you are getting your facts, the CDC reports 179 deaths for the flu compared to 66 for COVID (less than 3x the deaths in a span one-third as long, not the 10x as you propose). Remember too that COVID was generally spreading for only four months, at which time schools were closed. You'd be wise to estimate deaths by multiplying by three to equate this to a 12 month period. This very rough estimate of 200 deaths would then be even higher if schools are to open in 2020. Similarly, the CDC estimates that of the 179 flu deaths, that you seem to be aware of, over 90% came from unvaccinated patients. You are comparing apples with oranges.

Like you pointed out from your anecdote regarding your high school, teenagers aren't immune to carrying and spreading. What happens when teenagers test positive? Do they quarantine in Tigard? Is Nike liable if those 400+ teenagers travel back home and spread this to their communities? Even if they aren't legally liable, are they ethically responsible? What about the adults at NXN that have demographics with much higher mortality rates? This goes beyond just the athletes, you need to be open minded and willing to consider the risks, health and needs of more than just you and your age group.

I went three years ago to watch my friend' son. I live in a state that is holding youth tournaments with hundreds of teams from across the country participating. I flew with 25 kids and a handful of parents for our 2 week training camp this summer. So NXN is not too scary to me.

Went to NXR Midwest two years ago. There’s only a couple hotels that many of the athletes stay at in Terre Haute. Most of the athletes try to go to some Italian place for dinner and there aren’t a lot of restaurants. Packet pickup involves a bunch of people huddled around each other because it’s freezing cold out, the gear selling is a mass of lines to get shirts and hoodies before it’s sold out. The day of the meet (which has multiple races, not just the championship event) has runners packed like sardines on the starting line. If you move off your spot someone immediately swoops in because there isn’t enough room on the line for all the athletes.

The Nike and Footlocker regional and national championships are not fun because of the racing. They’re fun because you get to travel with your friends, mess around at hotels, get some gear and show it off to your teammates that didn’t go, and just generally fool around because your in high school and don’t have a major parental pressure to be on your best behavior. The racing is just a bonus. At each NXR meet there are only 5 qualifiers and two teams per gender. That’s 38 people. 99 percent of competitors don’t even stand a chance of qualifying for the championships, and that’s not even including spectators who don’t need to be there. There are literally thousands of people packed into a tiny venue and you don’t expect virus transmission? Not to mention these kids probably won’t be able to go back to school for two weeks because of travel quarantine rules.

The only way Nike could put on these meets would be to invite the top 5-10 athletes from each state and force them to quarantine or have two negative tests before going to the regional spot and having some kind of exhibition match. A national championship would be infinitely harder to produce.