Too many events at Hayward this year. I did HS State, NON & Pre and will do WC’s. can’t afford them all.
This is true. Not only are there too many events in Eugene, but add in the Portland Track Festival and Stunptown Twilight in Portland and there are just too many events too keep all the seats filled.
What is the US population within a 200 mile radius of Eugene, or even within a 2 hour flight? What about pretty much any location on the east coast, especially the northeast? There’s a very simple solution to the attendance issue...the choice of location is terrible.
Sure, like maybe NYC? They had 1500 for the Grand Prix 2 Sundays ago. Sha'Carrie, Noah Lyles, Devon Allen, were all there. Without the Jamaican fans in the stadium the place would have been a ghost town.
They need to stop having every big meet in Eugene to have any chance at growing the sport. I think a growing, but small city is the best place... Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Austin, etc. The people there might really get behind having a national championship in town.
That's a goosed figure. No way there were that many.
Saving all your paper route money for an every 3-4 year trip to Eugene is reasonable, but like somebody said before - when NCAA, Pre, USA meets are all in Eugene in the same year ... and Worlds, you can't expect the small number of track faithful to show up for everything.
NCAA was actually pretty well attended I thought. Less reliant on track diehards and more families.
Too many events at Hayward this year. I did HS State, NON & Pre and will do WC’s. can’t afford them all.
This is true. Not only are there too many events in Eugene, but add in the Portland Track Festival and Stunptown Twilight in Portland and there are just too many events too keep all the seats filled.
This is a serious question... the stadium and facilities are world-class and ideal, but can Eugene actually handle a World Championships from an infrastructure standpoint? As an example, there aren't enough restaurants or workers to handle a 10-day international meet.
For every major sporting event - World Cup, Champions League final, Super Bowl, etc - a large proportion of the tickets are given to VIPs and corporate sponsors, with relatively few left for fans of the clubs participating. What I think we are seeing here is that the VIPs - agents, shoe company people, IAAF honchos, et al - have been given their usual share of tickets, access, etc but because Eugene is so small their presence has an outsized impact on the normal people who want to go watch a track meet. For instance, in Paris there is plenty of room for Max Siegel and cronies to stay in a fancy hotel or pay $1000 per night for an Airbnb and bask in how great they think they are, but there are crappy hotels for fans and the VIP crowd doesn't have such an inordinate impact on the rest of the market. Since Eugene is kind of a small place probably maxed out by a meet like the Olympic Trials, the VIP set has totally wiped out the market for normal people.
It's 1 hr and 45 minutes from downtown Portland. Maybe a little less from southern suburbs of the city, and I'm not an expert on the region, but there a lot of towns in the middle like Woodburn, Sunnyside and Millersburg that might also have cheap lodging.
Using that model it would be a bit of a schlep but it's not awful.
Additionally, I hardly think that the influx of people attending the world championships in Eugene are greatly affecting airline process.
Everything but the homestretch right by the finish line is empty. Totally empty for NCAAs. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes…
Where are people even going to stay for worlds? The accommodations are mostly crappy motels on unpleasant-to-walk streets. For like $300/night a room. Unless you stay in one of the places right by Hayward, you have to walk on busy streets that can be hard to cross, past huge homeless encampments to get anywhere.
And it’s a huge pain to get to.
Also, it obviously will vary person to person, but allergies are so bad for me when I’m in Eugene I walk around looking like I’m crying my eyes are just pouring water, despite twice a day Zyrtec.
American distance running may be at its most boring point ever.
I call bulls**t on your little story. Sounds too much like every other troll post about Eugene, Portland, or San Francisco posted on this board since forever. I know the area very well. Please tell us what hotel that you are staying in? Where was this massive homeless camp located? What street was super difficult to cross?
Hotels are definitely that expensive. Some of the streets you would have to walk on to get to Hayward from the downtown area have narrow sidewalks, close to cars going fast. There are definitely a lot of homeless around, I don’t know about camps, though.
None of this stopped me from coming to Pre, USAs, and I will be here for Worlds. For Worlds I am having to stay 30 mins away at 350 a night. I live 4.5 hours away so don’t have to pay for flights or car. Definitely wouldn’t be doing all this if I had to fly.
For every major sporting event - World Cup, Champions League final, Super Bowl, etc - a large proportion of the tickets are given to VIPs and corporate sponsors, with relatively few left for fans of the clubs participating. What I think we are seeing here is that the VIPs - agents, shoe company people, IAAF honchos, et al - have been given their usual share of tickets, access, etc but because Eugene is so small their presence has an outsized impact on the normal people who want to go watch a track meet. For instance, in Paris there is plenty of room for Max Siegel and cronies to stay in a fancy hotel or pay $1000 per night for an Airbnb and bask in how great they think they are, but there are crappy hotels for fans and the VIP crowd doesn't have such an inordinate impact on the rest of the market. Since Eugene is kind of a small place probably maxed out by a meet like the Olympic Trials, the VIP set has totally wiped out the market for normal people.
WC has always been a little, insignificant scrub meet, not a major at all. A small burner event. Tickets always cut rate $100 apiece. Not Olympics Athletics/T&F priced at $10,000 to $25,000 per ticket.
Eugene is a pretty liberal place. I think people camp out in public spaces there. If you belong to Planet Fitness, go use their showers. Get some groceries at Winco or Fred Meyer. Eugene on $20 a day.
For something like the national championships you need a location with a certain number of people within travelling distance that don't require overnight stays. From what I can tell Eugene is too isolated so you're not getting those kind of fans - you're only getting hardcore fans (who will pay for overnight stays) and there aren't enough of them.
It's a shame because obviously the track is very nice.
It may do a lot better for the World Championships as obviously there's a different dynamic for that.