I appreciate you are trying to think creatively here but gender inequity doesn't seem like a winning solution. Plus, I would argue that the (quite feminine) stars like Sydney M, Athing M, and Allyson F are probably bigger stars to a wider audience than most (all?) male track athletes. Also, I beseech you to get a female family member or friend to read your post with no prior explanation from you. Ask her how it makes her feel... as a competitive female myself (top 100 at the 2020 Oly Mara trials) and someone who is knowledgeable about the history of women's sports and the struggles to achieve inroads in such a male-dominated space, it didn't make me feel great...
Don't worry about that idiotic post. All my friends and I like following the women's and men's runners equally. Actually, the women's distance races are usually braver and more inspiring. (Frerich's olympics? Monson's 10k Friday? etc)
Yep! The NBA figured out how to highlight stars and make them bigger than the actual game. They figured out how to turn a sports competition into sports entertainment.
Tennis had that with McEnroe, Agassi, Conners, Sampras, etc. I watched Tennis in the 90s purely because I wanted to see what Agassi was doing.
Tennis players were in commercials. Track stars are not.
What other major sport wastes 50 percent of its time and prize money on women? Women, that are turning in "top" performances that many high school boys would be ashamed of?
The old school days of the hayday in track and field was all about men and them racing. This was back when the average Joe Sixpack was interested, not just washed up high school/college runners that post on heavily censored running message boards. People that watch pro sports want to see the best of the best, not Title IX subsidized carryover with women drawing salaries and entry fees by leeching off the backs of male athletes.
Imagine if we took the NFL model and ditched the pro running women's events entirely. Institute a men's only track meet, with twice as many male contenders (e.g. instead of 3 top names per race, have 6). Double the available male prize money and increase the quality of the fields and the competitiveness of the races.
Maybe put a few pretty cheerleaders on the track so there is some female involvement and put on a highly competitive meet. That will draw in way more crowds than the current women's races which have a bunch of women that don't shave their armpits and have pink hair (Canada I'm looking at you), men running as women (Zambia and SA I'm looking at you), women that look like men and act like men after taking massive amounts of steroids and PEDs, and largely non-competitive slow female races (compare the 1-8 gap in a men's 5000 to a women's 5000 for instance).
Instead US T&F is doubling down by pushing more parapalegic events and other boring, non-relatable, non-entertaining races on us. Am I the only one that just rolled my eyes and fast forwarded when the para events came on yesterday?
US T&F has become the ultimate social equity sport and it's been an abject failure. Really, people will just turn off the tube rather than watch this boring crap being foisted upon us.
You have to ask yourself why this hasn't even been tried one single time in the last 40 years that I know of, when it's so obvious. Prove me wrong, US T&F. Market it correctly and try it at a few meets and let's see.
How did NYC do when hosting the pro meet at Ichan? Pretty sparse crowds if I remember correctly.
I understand the logistical challenges traveling to/from Eugene and the housing shortage, but you've missed out by never attending a big meet there. I've been to every Trials since '88 and none of them come close to Eugene '08, '12, '16, and even '21 with the last minute decision to allow spectators that kept many people at home.
You do not remember correctly. The stadium used to be jammed pack with people from around the area standing at the fence on the back straight to see the event without paying.
How did NYC do when hosting the pro meet at Ichan? Pretty sparse crowds if I remember correctly.
I understand the logistical challenges traveling to/from Eugene and the housing shortage, but you've missed out by never attending a big meet there. I've been to every Trials since '88 and none of them come close to Eugene '08, '12, '16, and even '21 with the last minute decision to allow spectators that kept many people at home.
Trials meh. Please do think bigger. When Penn Relays can have more attendees that should tell you something.
I live in Eugene. It was a quiet town when I first moved here. Then the liberals called in the homeless. The Vin Lanana and the Nike thugs paid to bring the Worlds here. It will be a bust like every other track meet in the new stadium that most people that live here never wanted built - we like historic Hayward field. The new stadium will never be full of paying fans. For the Jr Worlds the ticket sales were non-existent. As a last ditch effort to fill the seats for the TV, they bussed in high schoolers.
Conservatives are so weird, backwards and willfully ignorant... always harping back to the glory days of stagnation. Tiresome. More reason not to visit such a podunk town.
The women's lacrosse final today drew a full house on Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, over 5500. Fans were in the parking lot watching as well. I know UNC travels well - six hours drive from Chapel Hill, but it shows that track and field is just not well promoted.
Yup, how many people outside of those who post here know any of the "players" competing at Eugene? The cast of characters are fluid, most having short careers in the limelight. How does any sports fan identify with individuals that show up once or twice during the season and then are off to Europe for the summer, where the only place you hear about them is here on LRC.
How do you have meets on the same day high school and colleges have their championship meets? Do you really expect people to skip their high school state meet to come and watch some competition in Eugene or tune in on a streaming video that sometimes works and sometimes does not work? Most of your fan base is out competing and or watching their own meets.
I have been in the sport for over 55 years and I have zero interest in watching the meet out in Eugene, or for that matter, the NCAA regional meets. Pretty sad, huh? All those years first competing, then coaching, then helping out at meets and now finding that the sport isn't worth my time or interest because I don't know who is who and find little else that would interest me about the meets. (sorry for the run on sentence).
Heck, I went to a spring training game between the Mets and Braves three years ago and the stadium down in Port St. Lucie was filled to capacity, with people having a blast watching mostly non-roster guys trying to get a spot on their respective teams.
In track and field meets, we see time trials, wonder if the competitors are using PEDS and find out that some "star" attraction decided not to compete three days before the meet. We see 3-4 competitions going on at the same time, not knowing who is winning or what they jumped, threw or ran. Thank God for FinishLynx or we would still all be looking at our stop watches to figure out who ran what time.
Unfortunately, you have amateurs who run our sport, starting with high school where track and field meets can last up to 12 hours, to college where most meets do last 12 hours to the pros, where you might see a match up, but usually the top stars don't face each other. All these missteps are result of meet management that still thinks track meets are run like they were in the 1950's. I can go on and on, but then I would be no better than going to a track meet and having to spend 8-10 hours waiting for an interesting event to pop up.
Meets last 12 hours? The CIF state meet starts at about 6:00 PM and the years I watched it and I was definitely home before 6:00 AM. Maybe you confused it with a cricket match you watched?
Don't worry about that idiotic post. All my friends and I like following the women's and men's runners equally. Actually, the women's distance races are usually braver and more inspiring. (Frerich's olympics? Monson's 10k Friday? etc)
You are so correct. Part of the problem is that American broadcasts RUIN the beauty of this sport. The women competitions are as good as the men but the entire nature of these competitions is lost in the presentation. Just watching Friday night's stream of the women's discus throw and the high jump was very entertaining, simply a live stream but with great camera work and good graphics so that you could keep up. No narration. In particular, the frustration of former #1 Sandra Perkovic (2nd place in the discus) was noteworthy. The close ups of the women high jumpers reacting to their success and failures albeit at modest heights adds to the full picture. We don't get these things in the usual network productions: Only a few quick clips of Vashti Cunningham and another of Mahuchikh and that was it for the women's high jump! No build up, no drama!
People who complain should spend a few bucks on these streaming services so that you watch more meets. You will get some real dogs along the way but it is worth it for the gems.
Just watched the LA Times indoor mile 1973. Attendance was 16,000. 4 times the attendance at this weekend's Pre. I think that was the only event, the mile, and 16,000 showed up to watch the charismatic Pre.
Just watched the LA Times indoor mile 1973. Attendance was 16,000. 4 times the attendance at this weekend's Pre. I think that was the only event, the mile, and 16,000 showed up to watch the charismatic Pre.
I was one year old the year Steve Prefontaine died.
I'm not an Oregonian.
I don't swear by Nike running shoes and I've never been to Coos Bay or Eugene.
Why would I or should I (or folks younger than I am) care about Pre?