College Entry Fees- Pricing the Little Guys Out

Thinkng about how other sports work I've been thinking lately how it's strange that we pay a team entry fee for university track meets. In every other sport there is either no money exchanged or the host school is paying the visitor cash to come. I'd like to see host schools drop the entry fees and do more work to get spectators in the stands to pay the cost of meet hosting.

Well, sure, that'd be great. It would also be great if ABC aired "Monday Night Track" every week, and if 50,000 people came out to watch the USA-USSR duel meet, and if top 10K runners signed $100 million dollar contracts like NBA players, etc.

Track meets need a small army to run them, they last 10 hours, they require a huge amount of equipment, and they attract little interest among the public. Those are hard facts. And big college meets, which is what we are talking about, are always lousy spectator events even for existing track fans, with 20 slow heats of the 200, etc.

Lancelot Link wrote:

Well, sure, that'd be great. It would also be great if ABC aired "Monday Night Track" every week, and if 50,000 people came out to watch the USA-USSR duel meet, and if top 10K runners signed $100 million dollar contracts like NBA players, etc.

Track meets need a small army to run them, they last 10 hours, they require a huge amount of equipment, and they attract little interest among the public. Those are hard facts. And big college meets, which is what we are talking about, are always lousy spectator events even for existing track fans, with 20 slow heats of the 200, etc.

add in the fact that most track and field programs and under-funded and you have a strong need for fundraising. what better way to make some money for your program than to host a quality meet?

Lancelot Link wrote:

Track meets need a small army to run them, they last 10 hours, they require a huge amount of equipment, and they attract little interest among the public. Those are hard facts. And big college meets, which is what we are talking about, are always lousy spectator events even for existing track fans, with 20 slow heats of the 200, etc.

Hmmm looks like we stumbled on the root of the problem. Our track meets last 10 hours. Yeah the common folk is going to jump on an event that lasts 10 hours.

What track and field needs is more college meets that represent the professional meet model. Small, hopefully competitive fields, that only take 2.5 hours like every other freaking sport.

Coaches at the college level are killing the sport with there own poison. just go to your average indoor meet with 45 heats of the 200m. Or an average outdoor invite with 5 heats of the 1500.

The focus is almost always on quantity not on quality. "The American Way"