Why are world championships only held on the odd numbered years?

It's stupid. There are many calls for an IAAF Outdoors every year but the Summer Olympic year. There's no other sport that has a year off with no world championships. It really hurts elite athletes to have a bye year and ruins the fan base as well. Elites already take off the winter months to relax, finish that MBA, paint the house, ...

Nordic skiing has their World Championships every other year, I believe.

It probably is allow people to focus on world records for a year.

Gravity games are not athletics.

Ice games are not athletics.

Golf is not athletics.

Shooting is not athletics.

Fishing is not athletics.

Nintendo is not athletics.

Staged fights (UFC, WWE, Roller Derby, MMA) are not athletics.

Humans on Horseys are not athletics

Food Eating (Stomach Enlargement Surgery) is not athletics

Billiards, Chess, Mah Jong, Cribbage, Poker, etc. are not athletics

Are you aware that before 1991 they were only held every 4 years?

Several reasons why it is not likely a good idea to go to every year:

- finding hosts - it costs a lot of money to put on these things and you may not have enough cities willing to step up each and every year.

- prestige - even with the biannual schedule, there is still prestige and glory of competing and winning at Worlds, even though many of the top competitors wont be getting a pay day. Make it every year and you'll get many top athletes deciding it is not worth it to for them to focus on that one meet. Now you've got a watered-down meet (meaning less public and commercial interest). See the first point.

There's no more prestigious meet for T&F than the Olys and IAAF Outdoors. Every year there should be an IAAF Outdoors (exc the Oly year).

B.S. Detector wrote:

There's no more prestigious meet for T&F than the Olys and IAAF Outdoors.

Bingo. But hold Worlds every year and you'll start getting many big names sitting one out. That waters down your product and makes it less prestigious.

Swimming is the same as track and field. They have world championships only on odd years, with the olympics every four years of course. They also have short course world championships on even years just like track has world indoors on even years.

Baseball, Nordic skiing and alpine skiing world championships are also only in odd years with an olypics every four years.

Soccer has the world cup only every four years (once between every olympics). Same with basketball and volleyball.

They should DECREASE the number of World Championships. Make it every 4 years like the Olympics.

2010 - WC

2012 - Olympics

2014 - WC

2016 - Olympics

etc.

I agree

be real here wrote:

They should DECREASE the number of World Championships. Make it every 4 years like the Olympics.

2010 - WC

2012 - Olympics

2014 - WC

2016 - Olympics

etc.

Every 4 would have worked well but it should have been in even years. In the odd years you can do the crap championships (Euro, Commonwealth, PanAms, African) if you want something to fill the schedule.

Um, yeah wrote:

Are you aware that before 1991 they were only held every 4 years?

Several reasons why it is not likely a good idea to go to every year:

- finding hosts - it costs a lot of money to put on these things and you may not have enough cities willing to step up each and every year.

- prestige - even with the biannual schedule, there is still prestige and glory of competing and winning at Worlds, even though many of the top competitors wont be getting a pay day. Make it every year and you'll get many top athletes deciding it is not worth it to for them to focus on that one meet. Now you've got a watered-down meet (meaning less public and commercial interest). See the first point.

Yeah, lets have the Super Bowl every 10 years. NCAA DI, DII, and DII Cross every 3 years, one year have only one of those. Lets have the Prefontaine Classic every 4 years. We don't want them every year since it waters it down.

asdfasdfas wrote:

Every 4 would have worked well but it should have been in even years.

Commonwealth Games are every four years on the even.

Up until 1991 Worlds were every four years, but the IAAF saw more money to be had going every two years.

Super Bowl every 10 years wrote:

Yeah, lets have the Super Bowl every 10 years. NCAA DI, DII, and DII Cross every 3 years, one year have only one of those. Lets have the Prefontaine Classic every 4 years. We don't want them every year since it waters it down.

If you don't understand the nature of professional athletics and what the pay off is for the top runners in the world to compete at Olympics, World Champs or Diamond League meets, then there will be a great difficulty in explaining the 'watering down' concept to you.

I also wasn't aware Prefontaine Classic was trying to be a gathering of all the best athletes from all around the world to decide who is the absolute best in any given year. Silly example.

CG is not a major. The Summer Olympics, IAAF Outdoor Worlds, and NYC/LON/CHI/FUK/TKY/BOS/BER marathons are the majors in our sport.

Yeah, lets have the Super Bowl every 10 years. NCAA DI, DII, and DII Cross every 3 years, one year have only one of those. Lets have the Prefontaine Classic every 4 years. We don't want them every year since it waters it down.

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You clearly don't understand the difference between a meet and the World Championships. If you win the Prefontaine Classic 5000m then the commentators might be like, "And we have the Prefontaine Classic 5000m champion Tariku Bekele here hoping for a Gold Medal.(Goes to Pre- Race Interview). Well we we'll find out tonight if he manages to achieve his dream. But largely overshadowing him is Kenneisa, his older brother. He's the current World Champion at 5000m and 10000m and judging from his championship win he is ready for this race. Other commentator comes in says he's in great form yeah ok.

What I meant to show is that you get alot of Prestige by winning the Championships and alot more appearance money too. It also kind of gives you a boost over your competitors because they will be scared of you. Do you really think the commentators believe that the Prefontaine Classic winner would be the World Champion? My point is if you made it every year it would water down the achivement and less people would go to the meet.

I can see you are not a professional runner. Global events on a yearly basis are needed to keep fans. We must add an IAAF Worlds in the empty fourth year. It's stupid and costs professionals appearance fees and bonus opportunities not having a WC or Olys every year.

Pre is a TV meet. I.E. a minor teaser show with small time revenue. The Olys, Out Wc, and mara majors are the big media extravaganzas that rake in massive money.

Yeah, and how do you think athletes would prepare for World Championships? Having one every single year? They would have almost no break for Track. They would be preparing all year long and would there performances be as good? No. And it wouldn't be as exciting. Maybe it works in other sports, but in this case, no.