According to a person who would know, he said Newbury Park coach Sean Brosnan already said they are all in for Nike. Same person said most top coaches have already said Nike too.
That's not what Brosnan said last month. Maybe he has changed his mind.
So, pay for a trip to Alabama just to face NP or get a paid trip to the Nike show in Portland? I really can’t imagine a team passing up NXN just because NP goes to RL.
Teams wanting to attend nxn would still have to pay for a trip to a regional meet and place top 2 to earn a trip to nxn. If they choose to attend runninglane, they pay for that meet and are guaranteed a chance to race.
This, for many teams that travel to NXR it is just as expensive as it is to go to RL. Also ask anyone who was at RXC last year to compare the environment to an NXR/NXN. You'll never see that many fans at NXN and you can take that to the bank.
The NXR Southwest course was a dusty trash heap at a rundown golf course last year, same location this year. We will probably go to RL again and just skip NXR. If NP commits to RL, I think NXN is dead.
Nike has history--20 years of it, give or take. If Nike is still paying the tab for teams that counts in favor of Nike. RunningLane, on the other hand, has been the only one showing up the last two years. The Nike course will be mushy. The RunningLane course will probably still be among the fastest in the nation. One wild card to consider, though, is that Nike has allowed athletes who are ineligibile in their state associations compete for their "school teams." Think it doesn't make a difference? Look closely at the 2018 and 2019 results. Nike has chosen to go with their marquee instead of with true school teams. With RunningLane you can roll the dice at one race rather than navigating the regional qualifying. Regional qualifying involves expense, travel time, and an element of risk (more so in some regions than others).
As the handle suggests, I've played a role in the last two iterations of the RunningLane Cross Nationals. It has been such a humbling and tremendous experience to know that we were able to give back to the sport that helped shaped us in our youth and as adults.
More than anything the smiles we have seen on the kids faces, the tears of joy and pain at each of our meets has been something I will never forget.
I can say with certainty that no matter what Nike does the team at RunningLane will do its best to put on the best experience possible fore EVERY kid that wants to come run in 'bama.
I hope and pray that the kids and the coaches remember us when the big dogs at corporate forgot about them the last two years!
Happy training everyone, hope to see you in Alabama on December 3rd!
I hope and pray that the kids and the coaches remember us when the big dogs at corporate forgot about them the last two years!
I was with you till that part of your post. No one “forgot” about kids and coaches. That’s a grossly unfair assertion regarding differing responses to a global pandemic.
Stop, you know damn well that Covid killed NXN the last 2 years, not “corporate”. If our team qualifies for Nike, then we’re going to Nike, and I’m sure we’d be in good company. If our kids want fast 5k times they can jump on a track.
Stop, you know damn well that Covid killed NXN the last 2 years, not “corporate”. If our team qualifies for Nike, then we’re going to Nike, and I’m sure we’d be in good company. If our kids want fast 5k times they can jump on a track.
So we had college football stadiums with 100k fans in them and countless other indoor sporting events, including the NBA, NCAA basketball, etc all competing in the fall of 2021 and you are going to tell me it was about a pandemic.
It has been proven for quite some time now that outdoor activities have been safe. It was about politics and the optics for NIKE. The pandemic was NOT a threat in the fall of 2021.
I hope and pray that the kids and the coaches remember us when the big dogs at corporate forgot about them the last two years!
I was with you till that part of your post. No one “forgot” about kids and coaches. That’s a grossly unfair assertion regarding differing responses to a global pandemic.
Maybe so in 2020, but Nike had every opportunity to host a national meet in 2021 and chose not to. Not a single state association bypassed their state meet in the fall of 2021. Eastbay hosted. Small School Nationals hosted. AAU hosted. I can't speak to Nike's reasons for not hosting a national meet, but it's absurd to say pandemic conditions were such that they could not host. And, whatever considerations applied to Nike not hosting a national meet obviously did not apply to their regional meets.
I think as a team meet the return of NXN effectively kills runninglane as a team national championship. But I think runninglane can and will thrive as a post season meet for those individual athletes who can't quite qualify for Easybay or NXN but still want to run after their state meet and throw down a fast time.
Nike didn't host NXN last year because the Nike campus was still closed due to COVID. Whatever your own personal thoughts are on that it doesn't really matter, as Nike simply couldn't host the event on their campus, which is a massive part of the NXN experience. Instead, they dumped more resources into creating even better NXR experience for individuals and teams.
NXN is back this year and national champions will be crowned.