Track coverage dying? Or is it evolving?

backstretch wrote:

Ironically, the last figures I saw published (which were from the 2004 or 2005 indoor track season) showed track consistently outdrawing almost all other sports for viewers when it appeared on network TV. In spite of these numbers, TV appears to be reluctant to cover the sport.

...If you focus on the emerging media, track seems to be doing quite well. Track related websites are an indication of this. For example, Dyestatcal has displayed on the it front page for the past week that they had 2.4 million hits in May.

#1: track doesn't consistently outdraw other major sports. big time track - say championships, outdraws national broadcasts of meaningless regular season contests in basketball/baseball/hockey. (local broadcasts aren't counted there.) but track doesn't draw nearly as many fans to its events - a bad baseball team will still draw 15,000 fans a game (except if you're tampa bay or florida). only the best track meets in the country draw nearly that well (see the adidas meet for proof)

#2: those 2.4 million hits aren't unique visitors. they're still getting an impressive amount, but nothing like 2.4 million

Here's letsrun by comparison:

and nba.com:

T&F fumbled the ball, and it's chances at popularity, during 3 "recent" occasions:

1. Dan vs. Dave '96 trials decathlon, after all the publicity prior. (Dan no-heighted the PV, and was out of it).

2. Michael vs. Donovan 150M. (Michael came up limp or chicken).

3. 2001 ESPN's showing of the USATF 1500M final to showcase Webb. (Webb was never in the race. Unfair to criticize this one, but true).

Wow.

I wasn't trying to write a blithely naive positive piece about T&F. In fact, I put in my jottings that dyestatcal was advertising their hits. I said nothing about individual visitors.

And yes, T&F has had some significant stumbles when it comes to generating momentum. But just noting those takes out of context of our recent history which includes moments that have had a positive spin (Alan Webb's shattering of the high school mile record which ghenerated huge media coverage, Jeremy Warner's emergence, women's pole vault!).

Coverage of our sport, and most sports, is changing quickly. I susupect it is changing for the better.

Well, backstretch, if you're right, the brothers johnson should work hard at developing a content delivery mechanism on this website. If they were all set up to stream track, field, and road racing videos to the masses, and given that their site is one of the top running websites on the internet, they could probably ink a deal with the networks to distribute content to the fan base.

The revolution may happen 5 years from now, but now is the time to put the technology in place and gain the first mover advantage.

Track does not get covered much because track is too hard to cover. I mean, in the sports TV does cover everything is taking place on a small playing area. Camera coverage is easy. And one person can announce the whole thing without knowing much.

In track you have to have multi-cameras; you have to be mobile. You have to have people who know high jumping, distance running, sprints, I mean, lots of people who really know and can announce well! That costs money and time. Don't need all that on a 90 foot court!

In Europe there is a lot of track coverage because in Europe enterprise is willing to spend the money to create a great event. They do their homework, know the competitors, understand the events, and have great people who do it because they love the sport. America has bottom-lined track to near extinction. If it don't bring in the big money without having to put out any effort, we don't cover it.

Another thing is ugly. If they were fixing their cameras on me, well, then track would draw millions of viewers cos I am so pretty. But because all you other runners are so ugly, what do you expect?

In the states we marvel when we see pictures of the Golden League meets n Europe. In Europe they marvel at the states having a track & field team at nearly every college, jr college, and high school. In Europe track is easier to cover because there are less athletes.

Alexa numbers have to be considered as of questionable value and validity. Webmasters can dramatically improve their alexa ranking by installing the alexa toolbar. Only a minute fraction, less han 1%, have installed the Alexa toolbar. Alexa stats measure only the traffic of those installed toolbars, which is not an accurate reflection of reality.

It's as if you want to measure the motor vehicle traffic volume of Mountain View by installing road counters on Middlefield Road, and another one on Stierlin Road, because that's all that's budgeted. That's only 2 of the many roads that traverse the city. Yes it's better than nothing. It would be better to have counters for all public roads that go in and out for a more accurate figure.

What if after that, they widen 101 and add two more lanes in each direction, and a new mall is built on 101 and Mathilda in Sunnyvale, east of Mountain View. Those 2 counters won't catch all the new traffic. That's the weakness of Alexa numbers. They are not imaginary numbers that's for sure, but they are also not accurate numbers, and do not relect *actual* website traffic.

What are you doing for track and field. Why rely on Wejo and Rojo. Why don't you get a server, build it with open source, and deploy it for us.

Europe Track is suffering poor coverage at the moment..no British or Irish Tv covered the Bislett Games unheard of 10 years ago...Sky Sports are not showing the Golden League this year after buying the rights instead the are showing Aussie rules football which has no following in Europe...the are buying rights not the show but to prevent other tv channels content....I blame the IAAF they haven't a bulls how to run Athletics....

RE - Dyestat's hits: A youth's sport's popularity is irrelevant to the professional state of the sport. Think about soccer. The #1 participation sport in our country has the near-lowest interest at the professional level.

RE - the transition of T&F media: The last 12 months of track coverage has been the most complete ever for the US consumer, thanks to the advent of WCSN. But I fear it could be the sport going out in a blaze of glory. You see, internet track is TV track somewhere else in the world. And as it becomes increasingly less profitable to produce televised coverage of the meets, we'll lose the European networks giving WCSN the feed for its programming. Enjoy it while it lasts, but I foresee a time in the future when the Olympics are the only televised event.

That Dan and Dave thing was '92, not '96, by the way.

In recent days I've seen things like Justin Gatlin's world record pursuits, Justin Gatlin's non-showdowns with Asafa Powell, Dathan Ritzenhein's decision to be a marathoner, and Marion Jones racing in the U.S. again get pretty considerable coverage. Maybe it's just a blip. We'll see.

To show you where track stands - they break in on a race 1/2 way thru to break away to Bonds(who the press keeps telling us we should not like) and has hockey go overtime so we miss a world record.

Then this past week the national spelling bee goes over and cuts into programing.

Just shows you where track stands in the minds of the networks

It's tragic for track and field how the IAAF and USATF always has enough money for 1st Class airfare and 5 star hotel rooms for the staff, yet claim they don't have any money for television.

If you don't count all the porn sites letsrun is #4 overall!!!!

Alexa.com is B.S. It's not an traffic accurate count.

Forums, blogs, chat sites have alot of hits, but that is not meet coverage, it's a bunch of little girls yaking away.

The sort of sports coverage we yearn for as track and field fans, are when journalists travel to a meet, witness it firsthand, writes a story, captures sound, records video, takes pictures, conducts interview.

Very few sites do this at all. I can count them on one hand. Most sites only have links, small abstracts, colorful illustrative graphics, old file photos, fan video from the stands. Very few reports are from professional journalists at the meet as actual credentialled onsite correspondents.

web stats are proprietary information. alexa is not meant as a rating service, and by no means should be used to determine advertising rates or popularity. alexa has a cute gizmo that made them popular overnight to websites battling for attention. that's the whole ball of was concerning alexa. it's an unscientific study of web traffic. interesting nevertheless.

a cook, you are wrong. Track does outdraw all other sports, including baseball playoffs. A big deal was made of this a couple years ago.

It is a tough and expensive sport to cover- many events (as opposed to two teams). A big coverage mistake is focusing on one or two athletes instead of the race between many competitors. Also, the obsession with first and only first is a problem. There are many racers, some running PB's, some emerging stars, a Kenyan wins, but three Americans run decent times- report it.

Really, who needs the newspaper? The reporters have no clue what's going on, the internet (letsrun, dyestat, tullyrunners) has knowledgable reporting.

Cable TV is taking over eveything anyway. Football, soccer, baseball, basketball- are all on cable more than network tv.

The public will watch whatever is crammed down their throats- poker, etc are cheaper. Spelling Bees are a curiosity- believe me, the Spelling Bee of the Week would not go over.

I love going to track meets and watching track in general, but if track and field is looking for a larger audience on tv, I suggest they do something different. The last two meets that got coverage were almost painfully boring to watch. They show one event, the 200m for example, that lasts a total of 23 seconds, after three minutes of warmup time and introducing the runners, then a few more minutes of false starts. After the race, about 5 slow motion replays, some bad interviewing of the winner, and then a commercial break. You add together one commercial break, all the other crap, and the race, and you get to see 23 seconds of racing in the span of 8 minutes. I often end up switching to tennis just to keep my brain occupied during the 8 minute break between events.

Agreed. Did you watch Bislett on OLN? OK, only about 3 laps of the women's 5000. But, it was constant race action. No goofy intro's: a graphic showed which event it was, they were lined up, they raced. The announcer was knowledgable and did not talk down to the audience. They showed a lot of racing in an hour.

Still, screw network tv. Let them show Arena Football and the NHL. I would love a track channel.