A lot of this bashing of Wittenberg and the NYRR is a little silly. They understood that they and Houston were the only serious bidders (Boston was not really serious) and they hoped to host one of the two Trials, figuring they'd be in two different cities as usual. Logan just learned that Houston had huge bucks and he went for it. It's not like he's some kind of visionary. Trust me, he surely is not. USATF can't even run an updated website.
The fact is NYC is NYC. If you want media attention that is where you have to be. Yeah everyone hates it, but it's true. It's the media capital of the world.
I don't doubt that Houston will do a great job, but as far as promoting the sport- you need it in NYC. I think Hall, Ritz and Goucher give UST&F it's greatest chance to capture a few of those new runners that "complete" marathons but dont race them, and the attention generated by the race being in NYC would help that.
Sadder than sad wrote:
I don't think that Mary and crew really want everyone to know how the process goes down. This story certainly paints the NYRR as a corrupt organization and the process as flawed. In 2006 when viewing the bids for 2008, was Akron given the benefit of changing their bid because it wasn't high enough? Why were the NYRR able to up their bid? That is not a legal bidding process.
This is a very good point. Was this bidding process supposed to be open so NY could counter bid or was this an 'under the table' process?
Archer wrote:
The fact is NYC is NYC. If you want media attention that is where you have to be. Yeah everyone hates it, but it's true. It's the media capital of the world.
I don't doubt that Houston will do a great job, but as far as promoting the sport- you need it in NYC. I think Hall, Ritz and Goucher give UST&F it's greatest chance to capture a few of those new runners that "complete" marathons but dont race them, and the attention generated by the race being in NYC would help that.
This is such a load of horseshit and I'm so tired of hearing it.So the trials were in NY last time. Meb won the NY marathon.
Tell me, how did the fact that they occurred in NY foist those two into national prominence?
What benefits did they get that they would have received if the occurred in Houston or Memphis or Scranton? Who the hell talked about them 2 days after the race? Oh, right, Meb read the top 10 on Letterman!!!! Wow, the NY influence!!!
They only people who believe your theory are the blowhards in NY and the rubes that worship them.
You are saying he'd get more attention or the same attention if he'd won Houston or some podunk marathon?
If you don't believe NYC is an important media market you're a fool at best.
What kind of attention did the receive? I'm a fan of the sport and I forgot.
Aside from the day of the trials, who remembers any talk of the trials?
The last MT only had local interest. Nobody else in the sports world cares about marathons, period. Bos, Chi, Ny marathons are spectacles like parades and are not considered sports worthy of national value.
nightline wrote:
But professional marathoning isn't in a vacuum, and there's salaries to be earned by the athletes.
Appearance fees and prize money are not "salaries." Also, marathons are far from the only opportunities for them to earn appearance fees and prize money. If they were really worried about maxing income from road racing, they'd forget about marathons completely and focus on 5K-25K races, which don't require such a dedicated training block, they can bounce back from much more quickly, and can race more often.
I'm going to bet right now that there was graft or a personal vendetta involved, because you don't take Houston over New York and Boston. Logan will eventually go down over this.
nightline wrote:
But professional marathoning isn't in a vacuum, and there's salaries to be earned by the athletes.
Also, there's relatively no money in the Olympic marathon, even compared with the OT, yet we expect top Americans to run that race. If their income is really taking that much of a hit from running the OT, then it takes a much larger hit from running the OG. They shouldn't run either, instead going for larger paydays spring and fall rather than the OT and OG, if it's really that much of an imposition. Somehow I think that anyone capable of making the team will be just fine, financially, probably still better off than most other Americans.
I just looked up Logan on wiki and read the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Logan
So the head of the USATF:
(1) is a 4 hour marathoner;
(2) is experienced with running soccer and rugby leagues;
(3) is a former NYC cab driver and
(4) came closest to participating in professional sports when he was a beer vendor at Yankee stadium.
Can someone please tell me why someone so woefully unqualified to be running the USATF is in fact running the USATF???
What are Mary's qualifications for running a marathon and telling the USATF to do?
What were her times?
""During her senior year in College, Wittenberg took up running. She won a few local races and trained with Canisius' Men's Cross Country team. Wittenberg also trained with the Men's Cross Country team while attending law school at University of Notre Dame. While training with this group, she finished 16th at the Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:46.[5]
After law school, Wittenberg moved to Richmond, Virginia to work for the Hunton & Williams law firm.[5] She would spend busy days working in the office, marathon training with the University of Richmond cross country team, and studying to pass the bar.[5] In 1987, she won the Marine Corps Marathon in a time of 2:44:34.[6] Wittenberg used a late surge to overtake the leaders in the second half of the race.""
She's no different than a fair club runner. Better than a beer vendor, but by no means elite.
She is Race Director for arguably the world's largest and most noticed marathon. She was also race director for the 2008 Men's Olympic Trials which was considered a success by nearly all. She also leads a running organization that is far superior to USATF in terms of realizing their goals and event execution.
Would a random 2:33 marathoner be more qualified?
I think that there's this race called something like the NYC Marathon that she somehow is involved with. Someone told me that she may have some picked up some knowledge regarding putting on marathons with her involvement with that race. I even heard that she has been involved with other races during the year and may have learned a thing or 2 from them as well. Supposedly professional and elite runners sometimes run in these races.
2:44 for a woman hardly is "club level." She qualified for the Oly Trials and has run a marathoner faster than all but a handful of the male clowns on letsrun.
Indeed. Plus nightline forgot this part:Firstly, its overall package of $1.7 million involved no calls for sharing of advertising revenue and its promise of $300,000 in prize money exceeded the USATF recommendation of $250,000 (which was the prize money awarded by NYRR and Boston during the previous trials).
hardset nipples wrote:
nightline wrote:
But professional marathoning isn't in a vacuum, and there's salaries to be earned by the athletes.
Appearance fees and prize money are not "salaries." Also, marathons are far from the only opportunities for them to earn appearance fees and prize money. If they were really worried about maxing income from road racing, they'd forget about marathons completely and focus on 5K-25K races, which don't require such a dedicated training block, they can bounce back from much more quickly, and can race more often.
2:44 would be an olympic trials qualifier in every or almost all olympic cycles.
Patrick Makau should be in charge!
I hope Houston is where NXN moves to this December. NXN is dying now in Portland due to the piss poor weather.
alternative wrote:
Patrick Makau should be in charge!
Come on. Makau's only the third-fastest Kenyan in history. He'd put on a third-rate race. Gotta go with Duncan Kibet. Kwambai could be chief of staff.