As an Oklahoma State fan who follows their cross country team, I can name all of their top 7. I can’t name a single guy running for NAU, Arkansas, etc. and that wouldn’t change based on their nationality. The only time I might be aware of those other teams is when looking through a ranking list or reading and article about contenders for nationals. People who complain about this type of stuff are losers.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
As an Oklahoma State fan who follows their cross country team, I can name all of their top 7. I can’t name a single guy running for NAU, Arkansas, etc. and that wouldn’t change based on their nationality. The only time I might be aware of those other teams is when looking through a ranking list or reading and article about contenders for nationals. People who complain about this type of stuff are losers.
I find this disingenuous - I'm a big fan of NAU and can def name multiple people on all the other top teams both mens and womens. When you are a fan of the sport not just the specific team maybe that's a difference. Let's get people to be a fan of all of it. People transfer school or make Olympic teams etc so why not cheer on all of them not just the school you went to?
I knew of Nico. I legit have zero clue of Nau now. So no, not disingenuous. I know of Graham Blanks. Not sure I can really name any other runners in NCAA right now. I would guess I probably know more about NCAA cross country than 99% of the general public too. So it isn’t an international athlete issue. It is that not very many people care about the sport.
Naming runners on a particular cross country team isn't even scratching the surface.
The sad truth is that most people don't even know what the sport of cross country is. Do you run? Do you ski? Do you drive a car like the Gumball Rally? Most people don't know and don't care.
You could probably do a survey of sports recognition and more people could correctly tell you what curling or quidditch is than cross country.
It's sad because getting out and running on real grass in cool fall weather is about as good as it gets, but unless it gets added to the Olympics, to the public it's a very niche event within the niche sport of running.