Marathon Project Coverage

Campus wrote:

You are correct. Cheapskates want track to be cheaper and cheaper while the other sports become more and more expensive.

On the one hand, I understand the criticism of someone who's a fan who's not willing to pay $12 to help them be a fan.

On the other, more dominant hand, it would appear to make exactly zero sense to state or imply that such a negative reaction to paying-to-watch is inconsistent with wanting to grow the sport. Let's see, what fraction of people willing to pay are already fans? Yep, not one person less than 100%. Absolutely zero possibility of "growth" if no new people are exposed to it.

NeverGonnaHappen wrote:

Campus wrote:

You are correct. Cheapskates want track to be cheaper and cheaper while the other sports become more and more expensive.

On the one hand, I understand the criticism of someone who's a fan who's not willing to pay $12 to help them be a fan.

On the other, more dominant hand, it would appear to make exactly zero sense to state or imply that such a negative reaction to paying-to-watch is inconsistent with wanting to grow the sport. Let's see, what fraction of people willing to pay are already fans? Yep, not one person less than 100%. Absolutely zero possibility of "growth" if no new people are exposed to it.

Regarding coverage, this site says 7:30pm eastern on NBCSN tonight. I believe that my TV is showing 8pm (to 9:30).

Who do you expect to pay for it? Nothing is free. Are you 14 years old? Adults understand that everything has a cost. I would love for you to donate $100k so that the rest of us could get it for "free". You wouldn't consider that to be free but if Brooks paid $100k so that you could watch it, you consider that to be "free".

Is this the official discussion thread for the race?

tetsuo wrote:

Is this the official discussion thread for the race?

Never mind, a thread was just created.

Not much of a fan of these paywalls but this one seems like a no brainer, especially with the dearth of such events in the last 10 months. Bring it on! Hoping for decent coverage. Really no excuse - small fields, circuit course, no spectators, good weather.....

Campus wrote:

Who do you expect to pay for it? Nothing is free. Are you 14 years old? Adults understand that everything has a cost. I would love for you to donate $100k so that the rest of us could get it for "free". You wouldn't consider that to be free but if Brooks paid $100k so that you could watch it, you consider that to be "free".

100k? Lol. Put a kid on the back of a truck with facebook live. That's usually the quality we get from these big productions any way.

You are idiotic to think track/road running has a solid business model in the US. No other sport requires multiple subscriptions to follow live events. I'd have to pay for a cable package, nbc gold, flotrack, and usatv to not miss action in this sport. I'm sure I'm missing one or two too. Hundreds of dollars per month to watch a niche sport that usually produces low quality streams. That's definitely growing the sport (eyeroll).

NXNfan wrote:

People who won’t support the sport financially and then complain about distance runnings place in the world. SMH. Pay the 12 bucks!!

I view it the opposite. For track to get more coverage it can't be behind a pay wall. It need to be at the very least on common cable stations line NBCSN or ESPN or, ideally, on free network TV.

I love track but I'm not paying to watch big events. I feel the same way about the EPL. It is the best sports league in the world in my opinion but I only watch the games on NBCSN, I won't pay for a separate subscription.

I'll never understand why people can't understand that nobody gives a s**$ in this country about distance running, keep whining about the coverage and growing the sport though I suppose. I'm looking forward to hearing how Hall does, it has been fun to see her improve so much late in her career with Ryan's coaching.

Campus wrote:

Who do you expect to pay for it? Nothing is free. Are you 14 years old? Adults understand that everything has a cost. I would love for you to donate $100k so that the rest of us could get it for "free". You wouldn't consider that to be free but if Brooks paid $100k so that you could watch it, you consider that to be "free".

Yes, the billions of adults who watch billions of hours of free sports (from huge sports to corn hole tossing) CLEARLY "understand that everything has a cost."

Geez, they're ALL so aware, and I'm so dumb. Sorry. All you dumb people, please remember the wisdom above when you watch the NFL (and/or women's basketball) today. For free.

Here is the coverage we were waiting for. Free!

https://www.facebook.com/theXCorg/live/

NeverGonnaHappen wrote:

Campus wrote:

Who do you expect to pay for it? Nothing is free. Are you 14 years old? Adults understand that everything has a cost. I would love for you to donate $100k so that the rest of us could get it for "free". You wouldn't consider that to be free but if Brooks paid $100k so that you could watch it, you consider that to be "free".

Yes, the billions of adults who watch billions of hours of free sports (from huge sports to corn hole tossing) CLEARLY "understand that everything has a cost."

Geez, they're ALL so aware, and I'm so dumb. Sorry. All you dumb people, please remember the wisdom above when you watch the NFL (and/or women's basketball) today. For free.

The Mr. Olympia bodybuilding thing was this weekend. It was pay per view. I'm guessing someone will broadcast a package show of it later. Strongman competitions are only broadcast later. Ditto for Ironman for years, although there was live streaming last year.

Not sure why some minor sports are broadcast live while others have the recap and perhaps a paid live broadcast, but what's happening with the marathon project is quite common for minor sports. I'm sure they'd love to have it free live and NBC would love to broadcast it free live if that was most lucrative.

If the viewing/advertising market was there for marathoners to make $40 million per year in salary and millions more on shoe contracts, I'm sure we could see it live for free.

it looks Reebok guys are racing in super Adidas shoes (Reebok is owned by Adidas, right?)

What's mildly interesting - and not readily explainable by a layman like myself - is that so many sports that seem to be in niches even smaller than T&F are on TV at all, or at least close to as much as T&F. I mentioned women's basketball for a reason. Cornhole (or whatever it's called). Yachting (saw that just yesterday). Spartan races. Poker. Etc.

I suppose that if we saw a bar chart of coverage across sports, we might realize how many other niche sports get LESS coverage than T&F. Absent that, we just know that it's on less than we'd like.

You’re right

It should be free with lots of annoying advertising like this site.

Very few are gonna pay 12 dollars to watch America’s minor league Marathoners.

I became interested in track after watching Michael Johnson in the 96 Olympics. It was free and my parents weren’t gonna pay 12 dollars.

Finally I found free coverage. Moi bueno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5d4Rf_NAZk

NeverGonnaHappen wrote:

What's mildly interesting - and not readily explainable by a layman like myself - is that so many sports that seem to be in niches even smaller than T&F are on TV at all, or at least close to as much as T&F. I mentioned women's basketball for a reason. Cornhole (or whatever it's called). Yachting (saw that just yesterday). Spartan races. Poker. Etc.

I suppose that if we saw a bar chart of coverage across sports, we might realize how many other niche sports get LESS coverage than T&F. Absent that, we just know that it's on less than we'd like.

I don't get it either why some random barely sports get broadcast and other minor sports don't.

Women's basketball, however, is a known: it's broadcast out of equality. The WNBA loses money but the NBA props it up. Not sure who is paying for women's college basketball to get some of the broadcast slots they get. Both WNBA and NCAAW do have audiences and can get broadcast on their own merit, I'm not running them down, but they seem to get much better venues and slots than their popularity would indicate. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they do get the numbers to justify it.

USATF is a joke of an organization. Paying them 12 bucks to watch this race is most certainly NOT helping to advance the sport. The USATF will just waste 100% of that money on the salaries of executives who sit on their a$$ all day and do nothing.

In order to grow the fan base, we need to make these races MORE accessible. That means making them free.

Please do. I am happy to pay my subscription to these services to watch but if you want to lay down $1m to further the sport for all of us, please help us out. If not you, who were you assuming would foot the bill?