Trackshark in trouble

Holy crap!

The world of online advertising is crumbling as major brands cut back their budgets. Start asking for donations and get a bunch of smart track nerd interns to operate the site for free ... and buy non-perishables.

It's also pretty funny that some of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. have fallen, but trackshark.com going under ... OMG!

It's "funny?"

Is Wass in deep shit too ? So many in the 'me too' media space are biting the dust these days. Innovation has become a lost art in America.

Wejo/Rojo: Investment opportunity??

Semi-serious about that, but honestly, Trackshark needs to be kept afloat. They do a great job at reporting and keeping things clean and concise. Nice and organized; I'd hate to see that go.

they are preowned already

It is a shame that Trackshark is going under. But on a better note, I am glad to see Wasserman Media is having problems. They have so many scumbags on their staff (such as Rafael Furcal's agent).

One of the great things about TrackShark.com is the quality pictures they post. Not a bunch of fan shots taken with blurry point and shoot cameras, but real tight pieces of art that show the emotion as well as the athleticism.

We need more of that! LR is great for articles and discussions but where will the pictures be?

It also looks like eliterunning.com, another good site for pictures, is closing.

This is an interview Tom did with PreRaceJitters.com shortly after the Wasserman deal:

http://preracejitters.com/tag/tracksharkcom/

He had a lot of goals for the site. It's sad to see it go, especially right before NCAA's. TrackShark was the best place to go for college running news. I really hope Tom and the other guys at TrackShark continue to work in the sport.

EliteRunning.com is closed for redesign. It is coming back in a different format at some point later this year.

Trackshark was a great website. But the best parts (for me at least) were also the simplest: the summary of the weekend's results and event/team rankings. Every Monday morning I can go to the Trackshark results page and find out exactly how everyone did over the weekend. Then a little later in the week I can see exactly where everyone stacks up on the descending order lists.

Pictures, blogs, and features are fine, but if the site just existed as a ranking/results database I would be more than happy.

How much did he sell the site for?

mayor mccheese wrote:

Trackshark was a great website. But the best parts (for me at least) were also the simplest: the summary of the weekend's results and event/team rankings. Every Monday morning I can go to the Trackshark results page and find out exactly how everyone did over the weekend. Then a little later in the week I can see exactly where everyone stacks up on the descending order lists.

Pictures, blogs, and features are fine, but if the site just existed as a ranking/results database I would be more than happy.

The past few years I published a very comprehensive collegiate schedule, for example:

I didn't do one this past fall because I was too busy coaching/grad school/5 other jobs, but I got married in December and had to move away and quit most of those things, so now I have a little more time on my hands.

Last year I teamed up with athletic.net to create something more powerful and comprehensive than just a schedule. We finally got a good results importer up and running in December and I have been plugging away at it:

Since I didn't do a schedule last fall, I have just been adding meets on a weekly basis. However, with Trackshark about to disappear, I am going to spend the next few weeks getting as many meets into the calendar as possible.

Right now you can see the indoor calendar/results here:

This is still a mess that includes high school meets, but I hope to have a college-only calendar by this evening.

The outdoor calendar doesn't have many meets yet, and is currently divided by state:

Hopefully by tonight or tomorrow we will have a master calendar link for all college meets, and I will be working to get the meets plugged in.

This is not meant to replace Trackshark of course. It's a bit different from what they were doing. My main goal with athletic.net was to have stats for all college athletes and to provide the smaller conferences with rankings. But with the demise of Trackshark, I think we can help fill the void slightly.

I am very sad to hear about this turn of events. Tom and I have been friends a long time and it's been fun to watch both of our websites grow over the years.

I will let you all know when I have better athletic.net calendar links to share.

I wouldn't count it out yet. Don't worry.

Time to change the name and keep on chugging.

is track shark too big to fail?

is this old. ts went thru a crisis a few years back and made a big deal about looking for a buyer. maybe just move onto something else like x games or ufc ? t&f is dead.

banks fail, investments firms fail, unemployment is in double digits, automakers are about to go under and we are worried about trackshark?

trackshark is the tip of the iceberg, half of the little mom & pop places you eat will soon be closing their doors, unable to get credit or pay bills, your neighbors are losing houses and cars, or unable to pay their kids college tuition

I feel for trackshark, but if you thought that the big companies would fail without repercussions to the small ones, well I guess that's why we're half in this in the first place

TrackShark was a great website.

Does anyone know what other sites cover college track and field meets?

I visited

http://www.meetthetrack.com

which has some coverage