NXN, RunningLane, Champs – Will They All Survive?

no axe, other than I can't stand the nike shills, I don't have a dog in the fight, you clearly do and it's nike.

RL was nice, but done. No team will ever plan an out of State trip for that completion ever again. Some might again next year? But it will drop year after year

FL/Eastbay/whatever it’s called now is pretty done too. Maybe a couple of years left. Top California guys can’t go. Some decide not to go…. It’s a nice event to go to if you messed up at NXR or even NXN and want to redeem yourself. But that’s not a championship.

Nike just dropped Kyrie And about 60+ track athletes. They’ll drop NXN with budget cuts.

Oh look, it’s another one of these “original” Nike shills spouting off with their wishful thinking that they desperately want to be truth.

It hadn't even occurred to me before seeing this thread that I hadn't seen anything about footlocker this year.

NXN is the only answer.

I was at running lane and watched everyone leave mad. It was like a funeral. Slow times, the races are all messed up by slow teams being put in over fast kids. A lot of the Alabama kids and teams ran an indoor track meet instead of going to the race. When you have trouble getting the top runners in your state to show up. You are done.

Next year the top end kids aren’t coming. Their hope is when kids miss footlocker or Nike they will show up there. I have my doubts after watching kids pissed off before and after the race.

Jesuit is also proof why you shouldn’t go. You have a bad day at Nike, people just say you had an off day. You have an off day at Running Lane against second rate schools, people call you a fraud.

As an individual if you don’t run on a short course during the year, you get a 9:30 3200m kid who did in the Gold race instead of you. Running lane does no homework on athletes. It’s a dumb meet. Every year it will get worse

So many letsrunners just have clouded judgement because if any other shoe company did what Nike is doing they'd be praising them.

I get the Nike hatred but they're giving (literally- it's free and you come away with a TON of merchandise) away a golden opportunity to kids and the regionals (if they're all like the NY/NE Regional are amazing.

There is hatred for nike for good reason. This board is also filled with nike employees and the clown from california like rich who sucks at the teet of nike. We know you are one of the clowns posting.

Imagine being so consumed by money that you want to crush opportunities for other kids to have a good time at alternative meets like champs and runninglane. I personally hope Champs figures out their branding and can remain consistent.....they'd also do well to hire some people to do a little more marketing!

This is the most ironic part of the NXN website.....their long section on being Safesport compliant. Maybe nike employees/coaches/athletes don't actually read it. They just think Safesport means taking drugs safely. Too bad nike has soo much money to keep everyone hush, it would have been nice to get more information out about the Nike and Huntington ties.

"Nike Cross NATIONALS Club Team Coaches/Chaperones are REQUIRED to be SafeSport Compliant"

I think it’s really unfortunate that kids were disappointed or ‘mad’ after competing at RL. The problem seems to be that coaches, parents & athletes have this unreasonable expectation that every xc race should be a PR. Social media platforms like Milesplit, Strava & Instagram have ruined our sport for kids. Athletes today have accessibility to so much more information than we had as kids. If I wanted to know how fast my competitors had run I had to read the newspaper! I tell the kids I coach on a regular basis that xc times don’t matter, if you want to run fast we race on the track. It’s dumb to compare times across unknown courses with different weather/conditions! RL this year was a great example, most of the boys from Arkansas ran on average 30-40 seconds slower than their season’s best. And it just got muddier, it was awesome!! True XC!

As coaches, we need to teach our kids to find joy in the rawness & beauty of this sport again & stop chasing times! i can’t even tell you my high school or college xc PR’s…because it didn’t matter.
As for RunningLane, we loved every minute of it! I personally think I had more fun the my kids. I love that they offered a community race so I got to lace up my spikes too, the races were all competitive, it was very well organized, had a great atmosphere, and jumping in the ponds after was definitely a highlight! I also appreciate that it was open to everyone, not exclusive like NXN. It gave my kids an opportunity to race against some of the nation’s best! All of my kids had a blast!

The smart play for Running Lane is to market itself as the national small schools championship. Limit the team race to schools with under 1000-1200 students. Those programs will be thrilled to go to Huntsville since they would never have a shot at qualifying at an NXR event.

Why? Did they not get enough registrations? I would guess they probably got about 2500 athletes registered. I am guessing they charged like $25 per person. So that's $62500 in registration income. That's before you count what they brought in from Garmin and their other sponsors. Yes they have expenses but I am sure they made plenty of money.

I completely disagree with your assumption that the problem in this instance is coaches, parents and athletes setting these expectations of a PR. I don't believe most people go into every race expecting a PR in cross country. RL was different because it markets itself as the fastest course and tries to draw people in using that. Check out their website. The race heavily marketed itself as the fastest course and had banners onsite saying welcome to PR'ville. These expectations were set by the race's marketing team hence the disappointment.

Finally figured this out: Nike needs to drop the individual qualifiers and that would clean up the event. Why did they feel compelled to invite only 5 guys/girls from each region? Not impactful.

Please explain. The regionals are overpriced and merchandise and the pasta party are all over priced.

The Runninglane organizers saw an opportunity base on NXN's two year absence and attempted to capitalize. And they marketed their race as a chance to run a PR. The thing is Nike still has all the cachet, and once it was back that was where the top runners returned to. I took heat for this but I even think NXN tried to speed up their course to counter Runninglane, although the weather always has the final say.

I think there is a place for more than one national race, but I think RL cannot go head to head with NXN.

have you checked what a typical marathon entry fee is? and you get a t- shirt!

pasta party overpriced? some regionals don't have one and those that do are reasonably priced. $20 for a pasta dinner is more than reasonable. Have you been to a restaurant recently? with drinks and dessert, tax and tip, it comes to considerably more than $20... plus feeding a team of 20, 30, some even more than 50 in a restaurant is impossible.

some regional courses paid $20,000 for its use! equipment, fencing, food, staff pay, gator and tent rentals, ambulances on site ( $300 per hour!! ), Porta John rentals on and on...try putting on a Regional and you'll see that the entry fees just about cover costs.

8 regions x 5 qualifiers = 40 runners plus top guys on teams, let's say 5 = 45

more than footlocker field (40) for individuals

1 year they had at large invites to FL qualifiers and stars who for some reason missed qualifying. Didn't see this in 2022.

Yes to all. It is way over priced. Champs manged to keep the price down. Marathons close down streets for 8 hours. There is really no comparison. Nike is not losing money. It isn't for the kids.