2026 World XC was great. How do we turn it into our sport's Kentucky Derby or the grass version of the London Marathon?

Offer large cash prizes. Larger than road races.

Glad you had fun being there. Watching it from afar though... Maybe the worst coverage of any running event in the history of mankind. Just absolutely horrible.

I think this is the answer. And the cash prizes have to go very deep like the PGA tour.

There has to be a financial reason for the pros to be there in top shape.

Then, market the hell out of it. Market so much that people are tired of the ads they see.

How many people in Tallahassee didn't know that was happening?

Pass, more interested in the Citius take.

1. Bring back short and long course format

2. Remove AutoQ/Time qualifiers for qualification purposes for all Major Championships go off ranking only

3. Remove Indoor and Road Time performances for Track Championships

4. Sponsorand develop one Gold Level XC meet in at least one of the following locations (UK, US, France/Belgium/Germany, Australia, Kenya) let Spain and Italy Keep one Each.

5. Include significant ranking Bonuses for world/regional (Europe, US, Asia, Africa XC to qualify for Major Champs)

6. Include additional Wild card spots at Major Champs in 5000m and 10000 be be awarded teams on the podium (one extra country spot to a max of 4 entries for any country who's team gets a medal)

7. Run it Annually.

8. Remove Parity of Distances for men and women try to encourage the female milers ro run short course and Female 5k/10k to run long course of <10km

And, unless its in the south, hold it at a favorable time of year. For instance, Dec/Jan in Boston or Chicago would not get a lot of spectators.

2. Lead up to it with a series of pro xc races worldwide - not just in Europe. Get people throughout the world hyped for World XC.

Larger cash prizes? GST would be the entity that could pull it off.

I'm reading your article (it's excellent) and I like your idea about the "Kentucky Derby" of our sport.

Why not start with the National Championships? Open and age group races.

Make it event and it's in Florida in the winter. It could be in January when nothing else is really going on.

The big city marathons have become spectacles for the cities there are in. We can do that for cross-country.

If you really want it to bring in spectators, particularly rich ones, like in the Kentucky derby….

It needs to have stakes. Bettors need to be able to have odds for the top runners. A “favorite”, a “runner up” purse. Big board and massive TV screen for viewing from a grandstand, with live odds.

Make it a ridiculous spectacle. Let the masses bet on each event (including the juniors).

The reason our sport doesn’t succeed as much as other modern sports? Not as much cashflow. What do NFL, NBA, college football, soccer, and horse racing have in common? Massive and rampant, practically infectious gambling (which, unfortunately, also leads to conflict of interest and sometimes cheating or throwing matches).

It’s a dirty truth, but it’s the truth.

The major team sports have a far superior product and have massive revenues from ticket sales and TV. Your bizarro spectacles with about a 100 people in the stands, will not close the gap.

Not gonna read all that. I already know the answer: there is no realistic way. What appeals to spectators about the Kentucky Derby is you can follow all of the competitive action from a single vantage point in the stands. Watching runners pass by 4 times or so over half an hour just isn't broadly compelling enough. What is the difference with the London Marathon? Participants, people turn out to see the people they know in the race or simply just to connect to the crowds of runners. If London were just 50 top runners, you'd get hardly any crowds.

Coe and his minions are delusional, cross country is not going to gain massive popularity as a spectator sport.

Public participation! You have to let the public run the course the day after the pros. Plus, you make more money on the entry and the shirt/swag.

1. Create an annual U.S. Cross Country Open (a prize money event for professionals) held in Las Vegas on MLK or President's Day Weekend.

2. The course is a temporary 2K loop on The Strip (including the Bellagio and Paris entry roads (for a long shallow hill and a big turnaround loop - surfaces covered with sod/turf/mulch/sand - 10 meter wide course after start zone) or The Wynn Golf Club if the city will not allow a street closure.

3. If on The Strip, hold the race on Saturday evening since there is plenty of lighting.

4. Major international airport, plenty of hotel space, loads of food and entertainment options, and a built-in party atmosphere.

5. Betting at the hotel sports books.

6. 10K races for men and women run concurrently. Women get a 3-3:30 head start, setting up a Battle of the Sexes race within the race (along with betting lines, of course).

7. Coordinate with USATF to hold the annual Club / Masters Championships on Sunday at a more traditional venue in the Las Vegas area.

8. Paid VIP spectator zone near the start and finish. Free viewing on The Strip. Video boards. Showgirls displaying kilometer markers. Music blasting for the whole event. Pyrotechnics.

9. Encourage footwear and apparel manufacturers to rent a convention space for "The People's Running Event" - a huge expo and showcase for new shoes, products, speakers, panels, etc.

10. Make this the Super Bowl / Comic Con of American running and running culture.

I think we should do exactly what Craig Virgin suggested and lobby to hold World XC at Tallahassee again in 2027 to avoid having a blank year next year. It was clearly successful. Tallahassee could be the Eugene of XC if planned out right.

Obviously XC in the Winter Olympics would be fantastic, and it would be a huge boost for all XC races, including Worlds.

In any case, I agree that it was, on the whole, a good spectator experience, even if the parking situation afterward was a disaster. That really could've been easily rectified by having more volunteers helping out. There were a ton of people in the morning guiding people into parking spots.

As for the broader issues, I'm not opposed to the idea of rotating Worlds through a handful of different host sites. But the biggest issue is needing to get more of the big names on board. Yes, Kiplimo and Ngetich were awesome. But the depth was nothing like what you'd see at the Olympics or Outdoor Worlds. And to get that depth, you probably need more money. And that means you need more revenue.

I'd start by charging more for tickets. Tickets, including fees, were less than $11. That's a drop in the bucket compared to gas, food, and hotel. You can still have cheap (or free) tickets for kids if you want to get them to the event.

The next thing would be beefing up the community races. If they had had more runners, it probably would've helped with traffic leaving the course. And it would be a good source of revenue. Can World XC really use a business model similar to a London or Boston Marathon? I'm not sure. But I assume the major marathons don't get a ton of TV revenue, and yet they can afford to pull in the world's best runners. At the very least, do an 8K or 10K instead of a 4K fun run. And depending on the facility, you don't necessarily have to use the same loop that you use for the pros. You could have a longer loop to avoid issues with traffic and lapped competitors.

I thought the same thing about the Kentucky Derby when I saw this thread title. Being able to watch all the racing from one spot makes a huge difference for casuals.

The spectator experience at a cross country meet is more akin to watching a golf tournament. Fans can choose to stay in one spot and see when the athletes come by, or they can move around to try to see as much of the action as possible. With that in mind, the Phoenix Open golf tournament might be a better aspirational template. It draws huge crowds every year by combining golf with a party-like atmosphere:

golf.com

How the Phoenix Open Became the Biggest Party in Golf

Aaron Bird

The Waste Management Phoenix Open hasn't always been the raucous good time we see today. It used to have to beg tour stars like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to come. Now, thanks to a little boost from Tiger Woods, and the...

Open link

The caveat is XC racing is a tougher sell to casuals than golf. With golf, you don't need to recognize the players to appreciate someone making a putt. There's anticipation, and it automatically creates a crowd reaction whether the putt is made or missed.

With XC, there's not as much anticipation for casual viewers who don't know anything about the runners. Seeing unknown people run by isn't as inherently interesting. I suppose casuals could be amused by seeing the runners splashing in the water or hurdling the alligator logs, but it's not the same as seeing if someone makes a putt (and betting on it).

That said, as someone who was in Tallahassee last weekend, I don't think the World XC spectator experience would have been better with a much bigger crowd. Getting in and out of the parking lot was challenging enough with the number of people there. It would be a nightmare if there were another 5,000 people added to the fold.

There were reportedly more than 10,000 spectators in attendance at World XC, and I think that was the right amount to have. It was enough that it felt exciting to be there, but it was still fairly easy to move around the course, get to different spots, and get good views of the action. That's really important for the quality of experience. It wouldn't have been as enjoyable with a substantially larger crowd.

Rather than try to make XC into something that it's not, I suggest appreciating what it is. Tallahassee was a good time.

Sadly, the World XC race would be a way bigger deal if they had golfers run it instead of runners.

Some posters are throwing out some fun and creative ideas and getting downvoted for them. Why? Some of it seems unworkable but is LRC a board of boring old traditionalists?

I am sensing that a bunch of grey haired gate keepers are the fan base and they want the sport to decline with them. It’s like attending my high school league’s preseason coaches meeting. The young coaches try to spice things up to make it more fun and attractive to the kids (MVP points like Diamond League, JV only dual meets, a shorter 2 mile course for freshman, etc.) and the pot belly old timers use their veto to keep things like they’ve been since the 70s.

There needs to be a celebrity connection and fan involvement. I stuck around for the medal ceremony and slapped hands with some of the medalists as they were introduced. That was great fun. All were enthusiastic. But likewise it should have been available before the races. Beyond asinine to be standing 50 yards away and have the featured runners barely distinguishable. There should have been a funnel on each side where they are introduced with fans wearing shirts and carrying banners touting their names. That gives the home audience a feeling of this is the place to be and I'd like to experience it next time.

And all of that follows a celebrity race lead-in. Surely there can be a shortened version of the course for a celebrity race. Or merely having a different celebrity at each of the obstacles to demonstrate that section alone. They would have a blast. Make it a mixture of celebrities from different realms and you can grab from each of them. Make that the marketing feature. Track itself is not enough of a lure.

BTW, from the Kentucky Derby infield you can't see a damn thing. Everybody there understands that. You go to say you were there, not that you saw the race. Those tickets nowadays are $200+ or something like that, while it's north of $1000 to get into the stands and actually have an opportunity to see at least part of the race.

Also I learned from rojo's article that Saturday I not only screwed up by failing to attend the party, but also by walking past someone who looked like Jake Wightman but I told myself it couldn't be him.