In the US is the WNBA more popular than professional running

Yes. Running has Parker Valby so there is hope

As it should. Anyone can train hard enough, dope enough to become a professional runner. You can't do the same in basketball. Very few people on the planet can become professional basketball players.

Yes, but if running had an established league that promoted it and allowed it to burn money for a few decades while it gained a foothold it might also be popular.

Yes, because the WNBA get100x the coverage as T&F. It's definitely not more entertaining

Regular season yes wnba more popular (compared to diamond league and non olympic running competition)

However track and field in the olmypics is more popular than the wnba.

It's too bad white people only started caring about women's basketball when Caitlin Clark came on the scene, lighting up the stats and popularizing her sport as an athlete and performance art. This diminishes the substantial achievements of black lesbians who quite literally founded the sport on their sweat equity, directly enabling the future success of Caitlin 🏀.

Parker Valby is no Caitlyn Clark. Ask 100 random people who Caitlyn Clark is and more than likely >50% will know. Ask 100 people who Parker Valby is and you'll be lucky if even 1 person knows. The only people that know who Valby is are those that follow the sport.

Caitlin *

Just about everything is more popular than professional running. and the WNBA is so popular now that it sometimes eclipses the NBA:

sportsmediawatch.com

Clark gives NBA TV its top audience (including NBA) of past year

@paulsen_smw

Caitlin Clark set yet another viewership record on NBA TV last weekend, and in the process topped all of the net's NBA games from last season.

Link:www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/09/caitl...

lol okay buddy

Running has gone from guys who were household names in the 1950s and 1960s trying to break mythical barriers like the four minute mile and the ten second 100 meters...

To guys who might get their 15 minutes of fame if they win a gold medal in the Olympics and are forgotten three weeks later. "Cole Hocker? Oh yeah, he's the guy who won the Olympics, right?"...

But it could be worse.... T&F could be wrestling.

Most sports are not meant to be watched by people who don't do the sport. Rowing, wrestling, equestrian, diving, sailing, skiing, gymnastics, swimming? Those are all a big deal during the Olympics but they really are unwatchable for normal people the rest of the time. Would you watch a season of swim meets? If not, why would you expect your neighbor to watch a season of track meets?

Only team sports connected to your home city have real emotional and psychological hold on us; Da Bears! A few non-team sports (such as NASCAR or golf) have broken through, but usually are still not even close to the NBA, MLB, NHL, and the mighty NFL.

I have never met someone in real life who watches or cares about the WNBA.

I have met lots of people who care watch Olympic sprinting and care about the 100m, Usain Bolt, etc. Mo Farah was I believe somewhat popular in the UK for a while.

People seem vaguely aware of and impressed by ultramarathon runners, but generally couldn't name a specific runner or race.

The media seems to really care about Caitlyn Clark.

I always though T+F was way more popular in the US than in Europe. Its only in the last few months of reading online that I've realised I was apparently wrong. The US is historically the most successful (I think), has the college + high school system, Nike + other companies, and european athletes move there to train. It seems like a huge paradox that its actually less popular there 🤔 🤔🤔

Precisely, there is a reason some sports are considered 'spectator sports' especially in the era of TV. Granted, some could consider T&F a spectator sport because of the nature of the competition (held in a stadium which allows for fans to sit and watch) but in comparison to NFL, MLB, NBA, or the NHL the 'product' is not nearly as television driven.

The above mentioned team sports have all altered their rules to translate onto television better and adapted their games to be true spectacles in ways that athletics have never done. The culture of athletics is conservative (not politically but in the sense of resistant to change/an emphasis on tradition) and 'innovations' are slow to be adopted especially if they are focused around making it more of a spectacle.

That being said, I think Paris was a good example of how you can make the sport far more entertaining for the crowd and draw more fans into the sport. Clearly, they had spectacular performances to market that not every pro/elite meet will have. But, the lighting, the DJ'd music that encouraged fans to sing along/get psyched all made the experience great for the fans and I assume the athletes were pumped by it as well.

Clark likes to run. She's showed up to a few local 5ks (I live in Indianapolis). Doesn't run under her own name. She can run about 19:00 for 5k.

Pretty sure there are more WNBA posts here on LetsRun than there are any discussions about road races or cross country on a women’s basketball forum (or any T&F outside of the Olympics.

Why would I look up ratings and attendance statistics on something nobody in the real world actually cares about?

Lol, boom, roasted