Whats the deal why has the IAAF turned its back on USA?

This is one thread over at TFN that goes into a lot of the details of the US not getting a WC bid. I'm sure there are many others over there covering the same territory.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37749

Highlights:

1) Where? What location has the facility to put on a WC? There are a lot of stringent requirements for hosting.

2) Money? The US government isn't going to put money behind it, and probably few cities would take on the burden. Sponsors from the area? Not likely.

3) Taxes? The prize money has to be tax free to the winners, meaning that the local organizers would have to come up with prize money plus 30% or more for taxes.

The IAAF doesn't just pick a city. There needs to be an attractive bid from a candidate city and that has never happened. The US had bids for the 1999 and 2003 World Championships, using Stanford's stadium but lost both bids. It costs a lot of money to get an IAAF Championship event and all that money needs to be privately funded in the US, whereas there will be government backing in virtually every other country. TV will be provided by a publicly funded channel (never going to happen in the US) and the total cost of the event will be guaranteed by the government (the UK couldn't secure this for their 2015 bid which is why they dropped it and will try again for 2017).

I can assure you that if a US city had a bid that offered the necessary facility, tv and funding requirements, it would win. But I can't see a scenario where that could happen. The NYRR have tried to get World Cross Country to Van Cortland Park and recently were a finalist for the World Half Marathon Championships but lost out to Kavarna, Bulgaria because (no doubt) the Bulgarian federation has the backing of government funding, something that would never happen for an IAAF event in the United States.

The problem isn't the funding in the U.S. If the head of USATF, President of NYRR, and a few other prominent former/current track stars approach NIKE with a plan and pitch, I'm sure NIKE would jump at the opportunity to fund Worlds Outdoor.

NIKE in 2008 had sales in excess of 18.6 billion dollars and could easily afford to fund the World Championships by itself as the sole sponsor. The publicity and marketing angles they could spin off being the sole sponsor would be one of the biggest marketing moves of the 21st century.

Especially since hosting the World Outdoor would be much cheaper than the Olympics. Track and Field remains one of the most popular disclipines in the Olympics and World Outdoor could be marketed in US as "Athletics Olympics" or something to that effect.

The World Outdoor Championships is about a 7-8 day meet; therefore, in my opinion the possible benefits far out weigh the cost. As a resident of Chicago I would love for our city to host such an event.

VIPAM wrote:

The problem isn't the funding in the U.S. If the head of USATF, President of NYRR, and a few other prominent former/current track stars approach NIKE with a plan and pitch, I'm sure NIKE would jump at the opportunity to fund Worlds Outdoor.

Nike is Chinese owned. Why would they have any connection to a US bid?

Vipam,

Funding is a huge problem for a US-based World Championships. First of all, adidas is the official athletic gear sponsor of the IAAF World Championships. It will stay that way at least through the 2019 IAAF World Championships.

http://www.iaaf.org/aboutiaaf/news/newsid=48385.html

Furthermore, Nike has stated that they don't sponsor championships themselves (adidas is the official sponsor of the World Championships and the Olympic Games) but instead put their investment in the winning athletes themselves (and the individual federations).

You can site Nike's total sales numbers, but that doesn't represent their profit (which is very good in any case). But let's suppose hypothetically that Nike wants to get involved, and is interested in the 2021 World Championships. They're whole track and field marketing budget in 2008 was less than $30 million. That covers every athlete, every event they sponsor. A world championships would need to provide an athletics stadium, seating around 50,000 people, with the horizontal jumps taking place outside the track rather than on the infield. You would need to fly in and house over 2000 athletes, in addition to coaches, officials and federation members. And then you would need to have the whole thing televised and broadcast to the world which would cost, at a minimum, many hundreds of thousands of dollars for each day of the championships.

Just look at the most recent edition of the World Championships for some perspective. The organizers had a budget of just under €50 million ($68.2 million today) and took in €24 million from ticket sales and sponsorships, with the city of Berlin picking up €20 million of the shortfall. And Berlin was considered a huge success.

You are asking a private, for-profit company to spend more than twice its entire annual marketing budget on a nine-day event. And keep in mind that Berlin didn't have the TV costs that you would find in the US, since there is no state-funded channel that would provide TV production.

It couldn't be marketed as the "Athletics Olympics" since the IOC has full rights to the Olympic label and won't extend it to another event.

Ignorant posters like you are a penny a dozen.

Nike is a publicly trade company with its headquarters in the U.S. The founder and chairman is Philip Knight and CEO and President is Mark Parker. Great idea for Nike to be sole sponsor but the odds are against it happening anytime soon.

There are a few cities in the U.S that could have the seating capacity for such an Outdoor Championships. The major problem wouldn't be sponsorship or any aspect of housing or travel for the athletes.

The major problem would be public interest which could no doubt be overcome with proper marketing. That's the biggest obstacle in the U.S is poor marketing of its star athletes and it's GP events. The U.S doesn't have a chance to host a World Outdoor Championship until it revive the popularity of athletics in the U.S. The puzzling thing as stated previously is that track and field is one of the most popular disclipines every Olympic but U.S does nothing to capitalize on its athletes success to enable it to thrive in non-Olympic years.

The NYRR did not lose out to Bulgaria for the 2012 World Half Marathon Championships. They never made a formal bid.

Does anyone here have a clue as to what the minimum championship criteria are?

Stadium size

Budget

etc

I have some knowledge of what it takes to host a world cup event in another sport. The organizer has to pay the prize money (taxes are a huge issue), pay for athletes lodging (travel?) and all the sycophant IF folks (and there are plenty of those!).

What stadium in the US has the seating capacity, much less could fill it? Hayward, Sac, Stanford and Home Depot may be fine for league events, but a world championship?

As for the person who believes the benefits outweigh the cost, that is fine as long as private entities absorb the cost and not the tax payer.

oldmanbythesea wrote:

The NYRR did not lose out to Bulgaria for the 2012 World Half Marathon Championships. They never made a formal bid.

They put in a letter of intent last year but it was ultimately too expensive.

luv2run wrote:

Does anyone here have a clue as to what the minimum championship criteria are?

Stadium size

Budget

etc

I have some knowledge of what it takes to host a world cup event in another sport. The organizer has to pay the prize money (taxes are a huge issue), pay for athletes lodging (travel?) and all the sycophant IF folks (and there are plenty of those!).

What stadium in the US has the seating capacity, much less could fill it? Hayward, Sac, Stanford and Home Depot may be fine for league events, but a world championship?

As for the person who believes the benefits outweigh the cost, that is fine as long as private entities absorb the cost and not the tax payer.

It needs to be an IAAF certified facility of the highest rating with seating for at least 50,000 spectators. You also need to have facilities for media, VIP areas, etc. You also need a 400m warmup track within short (walking) distance of the main stadium. There is no facility in the United States that would meet these requirements at this time.

Use Berlin as a model for an ideal outcome. Bolt exceeded his own records and became a bigger spectacle than in Beijing and the Germans had an excellent medal haul. Here are some numbers:

The stadium was refurbished at a cost of €250 million (in conjunction with the World Cup)

The organizers had an initial budget of €49.8 million

They had more than 400,000 stadium spectators over the nine days (which doesn't necessarily mean 400,000 tickets were sold)

The local government rented out two hotels to serve as athlete villages and ended up shelling out €20 million in public money on the championships

You would also need to pay a US broadcaster to put the championships on TV. The 2009 World Championships were produced by BERTA (Berlin Radio Television Athletics) that was formed by ARD and ZDF, Germany's top public broadcasters. You can follow this link if you want to read more about the technical and logistical aspects that went into putting the World Championships on TV and broadcasting them to the whole world and know that, for a US-based edition, all of that would have to be privately financed.

Unless something changes, you can count on the IAAF having government underwriting as a prerequisite for hosting an IAAF Championships.

luv2run wrote:

Does anyone here have a clue as to what the minimum championship criteria are?

Read the thread link posted by mcgato above. It answers all your questions.

VIPAM, I think you're confused on who has turned their back on who.

That's terrible the World Outdoor Championships never had been held in the USA. Have the World Indoors ever been held in the USA?

Come2America wrote:

That's terrible the World Outdoor Championships never had been held in the USA. Have the World Indoors ever been held in the USA?

Indianapolis 1987

The US has to bid before it can win.

From what I've heard this week it cost $80 million to host the worlds. Generally $20 million comes from the tickets, $20 million from sponsorship and I guess that leaves $40 million from undetermined sources but I think a lot comes from the governments. In the US no government will pledge the money.

I talked to Seb Coe today and he talked about the importance of the US having a worlds and about possibly shortening the program and making it quicker for today's younger audience.

However, if the IAAF really wants a worlds in the US then it likely will have to put its money where its mouth is and accomodate the US's unwillingness to put up government money.

People think the Worlds is a money maker. It's not for the cities involved. They are paying for the privilege and the goodwill and added business that comes with it.

Wejo, there are other world champs besides T&F.

How can Kenya & Jordan host world champs, but USA can't?

I thought the primary issue was prize $$$ and the taxability of same. That IAAF demands a tax waiver for prize $$$ earned.

The US hosts the Olympics pretty damn regularly.

It was the tax issue that killed the attempt to host the WC at Stanford. If the Federal Government can't (won't) grant a waver, the organizers have to raise a lot more money, and they couldn't cover it.