Left Hanging?? Running media coverage is the reason the sport has no appeal

And where do you live ? Get a flip cam and cover the sport yourself. Do interviews, take flash quotes, make podcasts, take snapshots, take vids of starts/finishes/fans/hasbeens/etc. Blogspot.com is free, post it there. I do some of myself and have done it for decades to contribute back to the sport I love. You probably already know that most sports media are volunteers, retirees, and high school coaches. Track meets/marathons/road race media are nearly 100% volunteers/retiree staffed.

The REAL reason the sport has no appeal: NO TITTIES!

The problem is not a lack of media outlets: Flotrack, Runnerspace, Letsrun, Runner's World ----it is the lack of access to the athletes.

There are always the "what happened to" threads on this board because the runners just crawl in a hole and disappear after their races. Where is Jenny Barringer? She graduated college ran one race and disappeared should I still be excited about her pro career/outlook? I assume Teg still running? How is Webb doing? Where's Hall--what are his plans now? Where's Ritz at mentally--outlook his take on NYCM? Adbi? Fam?

I blame the closed off athletes and their coaches. There are no interest stories. How can you folllow a sport without knowing the athletes?

Isn't JB in Co Spgs with USAF coach Julie Henner ? She ran at USATF Hi Pref in the summer. Under the US Constitution, as a person who inhabits the US, you have the right to inquire with JH and/or JB via email, telephone, in person, etc. and ask if they will do an interview. If they say yes, then call them up and interview them. Then post your name and article on blogspot, etc. Drop a link here for us to read it. Do that several dozen times as the months and years go by and people will get to know you. You don't need to travel, buy a camcorder, Canon Digital, nor spend any money, well only for a few phone calls. It's easy to do, and you'd be doing us a great favor because everybody loves JB.

I'm not a journalist I'm a fan. Should I call Lance Armstong, DK, and Ocho Cinco too? No I wouldn't need to because we know what they are up to.

I no longer care about JB she had potential to be a star but has not been on anyones radar. Kara while pregnant has had more media exposer. The fact is America's attention span is short the sport will never be popular if the runners only show up in the press/coverage 2-3 months out of a year.

The perfect example of the athletes being closed off from the press was the men's marathon trials in Birmingham AL. I had press credentials for that race but access to the athletes was severely limited. Thus, almost nothing was written about the race or the selection of the three runners to represent the US in the Olympics.

Does a falling tree make a noise in the forest if no one is there hear it fall?

The athletes loved the care and treatment they received from the city of Birmingham; the press hated the almost disdain shown them. Go figure.

I'm not a real journalist either. I have a different degree and job. But I've covered sports and newsworthy events since I was 13 years old. In those days we would be paid something. But now with the internet and cheap tech, it's all volunteer work. Sports media is nearly all volunteers. Newspapers and magazines is a dying business. Any person can get a credential and publish. You just have to learn the ropes and put in the years. But don't expect much money. Keep your day job ;-)

I'd leave dopers like Lance Armstong alone. He's a fake.

The USATF has the responsibility for promoting the sport.

There's nothing stopping it from being promoted and packaged like any other major sport.

Its works in the UK where international track and field events and championships get covered on network TV in prime time.

Look at the difference:

http://www.uka.org.uk/

http://www.usatf.org/

Ding - We agree with you. We want more coverage, but the other posts here are right, there's little to no pay for any journalists let alone for athletics.

As people who love the sport, we need to help connect the dots. We need to support the outlets that are giving us coverage and let the advertisers know where we the consumers are reading.

We also need to find a way to promote the sport to the wide group of fans - the midpack/fitness runners - who are learning to understand the sport. Too much time is spent trying to generate conflict between the groups of elites and midpackers, when in reality, the midpack runners should be treated as a fan base.

When there are large numbers of readers/consumers, then the media will pay attention. No money for the outlet, no coverage. It's pretty simple.

it has sucked for a really, really long time. be happy you didn't have to search through usatoday on tuesday mornings to find out results from zurich/oslo/nice from the friday before. be happy you have the internet. it cracks me up to see whiny little b$%^%es crying on here that the race results aren't up 5 minutes after the race. the only race coverage before the net was on wide world of sports, an occasional meet on espn or tbs, or the real live thing.

Farmer in the Deli wrote:

The REAL reason the sport has no appeal: NO TITTIES!

The real reason the sport has no appeal is - apart from a tiny minority of enthusiasts - the sport is BORING!

Watching runners you don’t know and don’t care about running for over 2 hours?

Gimme a break!

And as for interviewing them - what on earth could they say that’s of the slightest interest to the general public - all my training schedules - or “I slept with Lady Gaga?”

a barringer appearance was advertised at the marathon expo in new york.

Anybody else feel like on these pixelated streams they spend about a third of the race trying to figure out who is who? I'm ashamed to admit often the best I can do with the leaders is tell who's Kenyan and who's Ethiopian, especially when there's a bunch of identical sponsor singlets in the pack. I even have a hard time singling out guys like Ritz if there's another tall white guy in the field. The names on the bibs are often unreadable on the stream - numbers would almost be better.

It's not the media's fault, there's "nothing" to cover. The athletes these days race so infrequently, the "news" is mostly reports on how their training is going. That's like an NBA or NFL team playing 1 to 2 games a year, so most of the coverage is on their practices.

Back in the late 70's and earl 80's there was a well defined series of road races: Falmouth, Crescent City Classic, Bloomsday, Bolder Boulder, Steamboat Classic, Cascade Run-Off, Bay to Breakers, etc. And most of the top runner would race them. So you had all the runners in one place for the media to cover. The hardcore fan can see or get in the race with them. The burgeoning sub elite runner or the elite high schooler can say they lasted the 1st half of the race with them.

Back in the day, you "tuned in" to see what Shorter or Rodgers raced on almost a weekly basis. Now its a waiting game as the elite guys plan their races literally months apart. It would have been cool for Solinsky to jump in a few road races even if he ran them at sub 29 for 10k. Ritz and Hall could have jumped into a few roadies.

Then "the experts" started to blame the decline in US running due to over-racing. So now we have the top runners training in isolation, supposedly building towards a "peak" and racing less than a handful of times a year.

True the foreign athletes were starting to dominate the road scene. But the USATF could start some sort of "Project USA" Grand Prix to get runners out racing more and therefore exposed to the public. At the very least you may get even a slowish runner reaching "cult hero" status for his personality, style/running outfit, looks, etc. At best you develop a running and media superstar like Prefontaine or Shorter.

You said... "Back in the day, you "tuned in" to see what Shorter or Rodgers raced on almost a weekly basis."

I'm not sure where you were tuning in to back in the day. There was T&F News and a couple of other monthies, but very little else. Now, with the net, we have more coverage than ever. But, it's still a participant driven sport that is really pretty dull for those not directly involved and will likely never be a major sport in the US.

Others have said that fans need to be able to cheer on their favorites and I agree that knowing details helps to let us all feel comnnected to an athlete. But personality is really the key. Just look at how the world jumped on the Bolt Bandwagon. Yes, he set the track on fire, but so have a lot of other folks, but his personality made the difference. Look a Preontaine. Great runner, but was he really the mythic figure he has been inflated to? It's all charisma.

Sorry, off on a tangent... back you you!

I agree personally is what the sport needs.

IMO current US runners with "it" are: Wheating, Rupp, Fam, Torrence, Torres.

To a mid-packer a 28:30 10k and 27:30 are both really really fast --the same almost. Keying in on the runners as larger personalities and creating exciting races to showcase them through Wins and Losses.

I still watch out for Fam coverage and races because he is exciting to listen to and alittle crazy. He has never been a world runner and not a top US runner in years but he still brings excitment to following the sport.

For niche sports like running and major pro sports at the NCAA and amateur level, the media is US. I.E. we are the media. Sports by default are self covered by high school coaches, aficionados, and the retired. Your'e lucky if you get paid at all. We used to get free T-shirts, but those days are gone. We might get a backpack or cheap throw bag at national and international level meets. We still get a free sandwich and water though. Most of us pay all of our own airfare, hotel, car rental, food. Volunteer friends of mine bring to events personannly owned capital equipment worth $100K (Sony HD2 Video gear, Canon Still Digitals, MacIntosh computers). So if you are interested come on down and help us out. We need your help covering meets and races. Contact rthe meet directort, race direction, head coach. Welcome to the media world.

ding wrote:

I'm not a journalist. I'm a fan.