NYC Olympic Marathon Trials Marketing Questions

wejo wrote:

My take is I don't see why the Olympic Trials aren't on live Tv on NBC. It seems pretty simple to me to market. Athletes dedicating 4 years of their lives for 1 chance to make their dreams become reality. It's the ultimate reality show with a ton of drama. Perfect way for NBC to market the leadup to its own actual Olympics.

How many threads did we see around here talking about how having the trials in NY "The media capital if the world" would bring more exposure than any of the other cities? What happened to all the big talk around the time the NYRR bought the trials?

Where is the exposure? They can't it get on national TV, even in the morning?

Oh, that's right, there will be 200,000 people jostling for position to watch in Central Park, but what about the rest of the country?

I haven't seen the billboards but I would like to respond to two things.

First, your first question--the wording of the event. I completely agree that it is not only convoluted but off-putting to the average person who might encounter an advertisement about the trials. I too suggest that the USOC, or maybe the private sponsors, are being controlling about the terminology. But it's like if we took the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign and said, no that's not grammatical enough, let's change it to "Excuse me, do you have any milk which I could consume?" Garbage.

Second, you say "I don't see why the Olympic Trials aren't on live tv on NBC," and to me this is the real question we should all be asking about this event. It's guaranteed to be an exciting race, but more to the point is this: I can't think of a more anticipated race in the history of American distance running. With the internet running community what it is, I don't think there has ever been an event with more pre-race coverage and discussion WITHIN the running community. Therefore, I think that NBC is really missing the boat by underestimating the size of the running community. Our market is absolutely starved for coverage, and the growing popularity of marathons has dramatically expanded the audience that is at least marginally interested in the sport. NBC, and not nyrr or USOC, is really the entity with the power to spread the word about this event, and if pumped even half of the resources into broadcasting and publicizing a live, national showing of the trials that they pump into NFL games or the crap sitcoms they run, I think the airing would be a huge success.

I don't know. While I'd like the trials to be live on NBC, you can't compare them to the NFL. The Olympic Trials is a one-time event, while there are several NFL football games every week and we can all agree that running is not the most popular spectator sport like football, basketball, baseball, etc. So basically TV coverage requires TV advertising from the sponsors. Therefore, billboards, bus signs, and other print advertisements are more cost effective than buying TV spots for a one-time event. In other words, it's all about money.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

In other words, it's all about money.

The trials start at 7:30 eastern. What the hell is on NBC at that time? Infomercials and cartoons?

That "US Olympic Team Trials - Men's Marathon" is what USATF calls it...maybe it even comes down from USOC. I notice the NYRR insists on using it in all their literature and releases and their own magazine even though no actual fan of the sport - or more importantly, potential fan - is ever going to use that cumbersome construction.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

So basically TV coverage requires TV advertising from the sponsors.

and TV commercials. that interrupt the action. usually at inopportune times. i don't really care whether they're on TV. i'm sure there's the whole "grow the sport" crowd out there hoping that people will stumble across the marathon and be mesmerized and become fans. i don't care. i'm a fan already and i want to watch it basically uninterrupted. nbc is providing that online.

Well what happened? wrote:

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

In other words, it's all about money.

The trials start at 7:30 eastern. What the hell is on NBC at that time? Infomercials and cartoons?

considering the start will be on nbc's morning show, i think everyone who has followed this story knows what's on then.

I don't know why we even need a message board. Wejo should just allow questions and let chuck d answer them all, because he has the answer to everything.

Isn't the NYC Marathon on ABC most years? If so, why in the hell didn't they just negotiate into the TV agreement that the 2 races must be lumped together and broadcast live? Seems like ING/NYRR should have some pull in that town...

I think that the billboard design is a classic case of design trumping function. Its clever use of the two torches is arguably visually striking, but conveys nothing in the split second of a passerby's attention that an advertisement can command.

I would argue that the Olympic Rings conveys far more information than torch imagery, yet they occupy maybe 1% of the billboard.

I agree with your first point: the language is cumbersome.

Who was the last american to win a major marathon...

sOME DUDE IN THE 80'S 20 SOME YEARS AGO!

uNITL an american wins the big one! fuggetaboutit.

TV? keep in mind, NBC can pretty much do whatever they want--has nothing to do with how much money NYRR has, or anything else for that matter, if NBC thinks its a good idea, they'll show it, othewise they can say "forget it--not worth the effort". I do think having the start and coverage during the Today Show is a great idea, and this exposes the race to a HUGE demographic that normally would not even think of turning on the TV. You have to realize that LetsRun is the top 1% of 1% of running geeks that would do anything to catch the race, but even for the average Boston Qualifier, they really probably have better things to do on a Saturday morning. The nature of this board is people gripe and gripe, but most have VERY little experience in putting these things on. I work in the running industry, and I can promise you that 90% of the things that people metion on this board are GREAT ideas, yet in many cases about 90% of these things can't be done as easily as folks make it sound. NYRR is by far the most powerful organization in US Running (sorry USATF), and I do think they are going to do a GREAT job with the Trials---NYC is going to be a great venue. I was in BHam and they did a great job, but there was not more than 100 folks watching the race, and even if they get 5000, this is a huge shot in the arm for US running and exposure for the Trials. Best of luck Sam and co--see you there.

More people in America would rather watch the Today Show. The OT will actually be interupting their TV experience. Plus, people sleep in on Saturday. It's not marketed better because either 1)people don't care and/or 2) NBC tells them not to care.

Alan

well....... wrote:

TV? keep in mind, NBC can pretty much do whatever they want--has nothing to do with how much money NYRR has, or anything else for that matter, if NBC thinks its a good idea, they'll show it, othewise they can say "forget it--not worth the effort".

we're acting like NBC is a single entity. sort of, sort of not. this may be a top down decision. but i'd bet it was put to the affiliates and they said "no thanks, we'll take our revenue from ads for the today show instead of this people running for two hours thing."

my expectations for coverage of these things has been lowered so much by years of no coverage or clip coverage of distance events that i don't really care anymore as long as i can watch it basically uninterrupted. the internet is a niche sport's greatest friend.

5 minutes of the start live on the today show..well, that's an improvement over the last few trials. Oh Yeah, almost forgot. A half hour tape delay "highlight" show later that afternoon. Are you joking/ Yep! NBC, USATF, all of them missed the boat on this one. PATHETIC! The most anticipated race in a long, long time and this is the coverage we are going to get. It won't get much better than this race coming up on Nov 3rd. I just hope that the live internet feed start to finish is not a hoax.

NBC owns the right to ALL Oly related coverage---and they can do whatever they want. As mentioned, sure WE (LetsRun core demographic) are interested....the rest of the world? Not so much.

That reminds me... I was watching Conan recently and he said that he was supposed to promote the Olympics being on NBC, so he and Max Weinberg made some jokes about it (in a funny way). Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning this is that I'm going to the show November 7. So I think I'll make a sign to hold up when they pan the audience that says something like "US Olympic Marathon Trials Were Last Saturday!" I think it will be very effective.

NBC will be busy showing the Notre Dame game, a tape of a Notre Dame game, Notre Dame pre/post game analysis, or a blank screen with the Notre Dame logo.

The point you have missed is the general public watches Notre Dame and that is why they are on. TV execs are very good at what they do, if there was a legit audience outside of the couple thousand of us diehards than they'd show it live.

I don't know the exacts on the sponsor rights deals but I have done work soliciting them and I would imagine that buying into just the Trials would not be money well spent with the full marathon the next day and full coverage. They undoubtedly cross promoted the two.