Attendance Record at Hayward Field

you don't think that any major metro area could squeeze out an average of 10,000 a day for 4 days? please. upenn does it with its largely meaningless penn relays every year.

i don't know why you are so proud of a town that has nothing else going on and is the self-proclaimed track capital of the country when it had more empty seats this past weekend than the new yankee stadium in april.

haha burned. "dick hertz" has a point, penn relays has an average of 35,000 for 3 days, just hold it there...but it would probably be 2/3 empty without the jamaicans

These meet directors regularly exaggerate attendance figures, so take it with a grain of salt. My guess is that it was half, or 20,000 for 4 days based on the LR threads that say the lines for food were never long at all.

Exaggerated wrote:

These meet directors regularly exaggerate attendance figures, so take it with a grain of salt. My guess is that it was half, or 20,000 for 4 days based on the LR threads that say the lines for food were never long at all.

I guarantee it was well over 20,000 for the 4 days. I'll take how full the stands actually were as a better indication than a post on food lines. Sure attendance is always given the best spin as possible, but the crowd was decent all four days.

Last year it was great. This year not at all. Plenty of places would have been as good without the self proclamation.

I've been to every Oly Trials or USATF Outdoor Championships since 1995. The turn out for 2009 USATF by far exceeded anything I saw in Indianapolis, Carson, New Orleans etc for a non-Olympic year. You can always get the non track and field fan to show during the Oly Trials to get that "Team USA" experience. It's completely another thing to get people out the other three years in between.

Even with a possible track overload of major meets (PAC 10, Western Regionals, USATF) in a short period they still had good attendance. I don't think that could happen in many other cities.

none of the cities you listed is a major metro areas. put nats in nyc, la, boston, chicago, houston or philly and you will have a lot more people show up. actually, if you have it anywhere in the northeast, you have going to have a lot more people show up because it will be within driving distance of probably 50 million people. how many people are within driving distance of eugene? 5 million? there's a reason why the college lax final 4 isn't in the bumblef*** places you listed in your post and draws over 100K.

Uh, Carson City would be Los Angeles. I would consider that a major metropolitan area.

dick hertz wrote:

there's a reason why the college lax final 4 isn't in the bumblef*** places you listed in your post and draws over 100K.

What did u say? are u talking about lacross and the final four?

uh, carson city would be in nevada. carson is in california.

T&F will remain the lowest paid sport if meets are still in Methville. 1/10 you troll.

Your correct, my error. But USATF was in Carson, which is in LA County, and the attendance was abysmal. Attendance isn't predicated on putting it in an area where there are a lot of people, it is putting in a place where a lot of people who will attend. I may have called it by the wrong name, but I'm pretty sure Carson City, NV has never hosted a TAC/USATF or AAU national champs. I'm pretty sure you knew that, though.

And by the way, when it was at Stanford there weren't a whole lot of people there either. That's not to far away from San Francisco and the rest of the Bay area. I think there's only one San Francisco that we commonly refer to. I'll also clarify Stanford University just to make it exceedingly clear for you.

Thanks for playing.

Have a nice day.

There is a real reason the college LAX final 4 is in the northeast. LAX is no larger in terms of importance than track and field on the college scene though it has made strides over the last few years. It is still mostly a niche sport with the epicenter of the niche in one area of the county in particular. Only 3 of the top 15 schools this year are from the south with 0 from the west coast and 1 in the midwest....

1. Syracuse

2. Cornell

3. Virginia

4. Duke

5. Princeton

6. Notre Dame

7. North Carolina

8. Maryland

9. Harvard

10.Johns Hopkins

11.UMBC

12.Loyola

13.U Mass

14.Brown

15.Bucknell

Whoever said to have the LAX finals up there didn't have a northeast bias like you but rather a brain and used it to figure out that lacrosse has the most support and following in the northeast. Look at the stands at the reebok grand prix in NYC every year! Pathetic! Every year in the week that was segment for that week there is always lamenting over it. I saw full stands on a TV camera Sunday at USATFs in Eugene and see empty stands on a TV camera in most other places.

Exactly.

dick hertz wrote:

you don't think that any major metro area could squeeze out an average of 10,000 a day for 4 days? please. upenn does it with its largely meaningless penn relays every year.

i don't know why you are so proud of a town that has nothing else going on and is the self-proclaimed track capital of the country when it had more empty seats this past weekend than the new yankee stadium in april.

dear dick;

No, because in 40 or so years it hasn't happened.

That is 10 Olympiads.

Other cities have tried.

And failed.

Only Eugene had succeeded, and it succeeded because it all evolved naturually over 100 years plus of a community loving athletics.

The fact that a few morons, like you, can't seem to understand the thousands and thousands of gleeful comments from athletes after their races in Eugene over decades and decades...

Is in fact testimony to how thick headed, blind, negative and well, just plain emotionally immature that you and a few others are.

You are fortunately in the minority.

Good post. Another couple facts....The Penn Relays claim 35,000 every day, and just how many of those are paid? How many are competing athletes (maybe a third of them), how many are parents and friends of the competing athletes (maybe another third), how many get in on comps or as coaches (maybe another quarter), how many pay as spectators of the sport (maybe a few thousand), how much do they pay (a small fraction of what is charged for a USATF meet), how many of them would pay a USATF championship meet price (probably almost none of them). The final question, why don't these metro sites bid for USATF championships (because it costs a lot of up-front money, and the meets don't make money, they are for the love of the sport). Hey guys, we have had poor experiences in metro areas such as Carson and New Orleans--let's not go there again. Places like Drake or Fayetteville would be great options, but they have to be willing to bid and potentially lose large sums for the good of the sport.

I am in LA and I went to the Carson meet this year. As much as I would like to see the USA meet in LA, I must say that attendance at Carson this year was pathetic. It felt like friends and family at a high school meet. And EVERYONE left during the men's 5k at the end. It looked like runners doing a workout.

I could not see the national meet selling out there.

On the bright side, it was cool to sit next to lots of Olympians who were hanging out in the stands.

I am sure someone will call this racist, but I have been at so many meets and it seems like most of the sprinters are black, and they judt don't care about the distance races. Most of the distance runners are white, and they will watch the sprints.

Maybe it is because the sprints are shorter and quicker to watch, but I have never seen distance runners just be rude and walk out during sprints.

A lot of people commented about how rude the black fans were in Carson, and at other meets, about respecting all of the events.

It is too bad that the team aspect gets lost after high school and college.

The best part of college meets sometimes is the 4 x400, when you have some white runners and black runners running the same event, handing off the baton, and every one screaming and rooting for everyone...because the meet has come down to that last event for the win.

I doubt you would get the attendance anywhere else> I live in NY they cant even give away tickets to the Millrose Games anymore. I've been to the Penn Relays and I guarantee you that on "distance night" on Thursday there are not thousands. Wondering does the Penn Relays figures include participants??:)