HELP – How popular is distance running worldwide?

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it's pretty popular in japan isnt it? (and maybe china)

maybe you could look for all of the big races worldwide (like at least the major marathons) and analyze the number of their participants and the prize money involved and compare that to other sports

I would like your precise definition of "distance running" and also "popular," but my intuition is that your argument may not be correct. Especially not if you mean "for exercise, for the masses," rather than "often contested by serious athletes."

I can tell you that distance running is not popular in South Asia - not with men and certainly not with women - and I suspect that the same is true across Asia. With the exception of tai chi in China, I'm not sure that formal/regular exercise, let alone aerobic exercise, is a part of the adult life in any Asian culture.

maybe not so popular wrote:

I can tell you that distance running is not popular in South Asia - not with men and certainly not with women - and I suspect that the same is true across Asia. With the exception of tai chi in China, I'm not sure that formal/regular exercise, let alone aerobic exercise, is a part of the adult life in any Asian culture.

See the post above you.

Popular in what sense?

Participation in running as exercise - very popular, at least in the western world.

Participation in running as an event or personal challenge - e.g. completing a marathon or half marathon, also very popular.

Participation in running as a recreational competition - e.g. recreational runners who are running to beat a personal best or age group placing, as opposed to elite level competition - this is also quite popular.

Distance running as a spectator sport - not particularly popular, except for once every 4 years where people take notice of the Olympic track events and marathon, only to ignore distance running for another 4 years.

Distance running as a means to a professional sporting career - this has become a popular career option in some parts of the world, but in most parts of the world would not be the sport of choice.

Regarding books... Noakes has something on the growth in mass running events such as London and New York Marathon, but I'm sure that same data can be found in many places.

big in japan wrote:

See the post above you.

I know about Ekiden. But what percentage of Japanese adults regularly run long distances?

Like I said, it goes back to the OP's definition of "popular."

I'm pretty sure your argument is wrong.

well, if you really are a professor (i am just a lowly adjunct) i would say you are going about this all wrong. You have come up with a conclusion and are now going to try to find some evidence to back up your contention.

wouldn't it be wiser and more academically credible if instead of reaching a conclusion first, you started with an unbiased gathering of evidence...and then drew a conclusion.

My hunch is your conclusion will not be proven, but that doesn't mean you can't find evidence to support it.

Here are just a few thought: if your goal is to find the most popular sport - you could look at participation primarily and fans secondarily; see where the chips fall and report on those results...and speculate as to why running falls where it does.

If the objective is to see how popular running (distance running is: you could compare longer events participaton rates with the past to now. You could include if people are getting faster or slower - which might indicate something about the people who do run (their motivations).

You could list all sports - determine participation rates and see where running falls. How you define sports, of course, needs to be spelled out. Does bolwing count, Does curling count, does chess/checkers count? Darts?

Well, I take it that the "nutty professor" is actually just nutty.

There IS data on the web, but it doesn't provide the "right answer," does it? I know that the most popular sporting events in the world are, in order:

Olympic Games

World Cup

IAAF Track and Field World Championships

The #1 TV spectator sport in the world appears to be auto racing, which is really Formula 1.

This is a list of most popular sports on TV in the US, with Track and Field well up on the list:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2011/01/Jan-25/Ratings-and-Research/Harris-Poll.aspx

Track and Field seems to be one of the few sports to not lose TV audience in the last 25 years as football has become more popular. But that is TRACK AND FIELD (which is sprints, hurdles, throws, and jumps to most people) and NOT distance running.

Distance running is probably one of the most popular fitness events in the world, but it is NOT popular as a sport. You can see this in the IAAF de-emphasizing World Cross to every 2 years now, and the lack of 10000s on the track in the Diamond League.

Track and field (Bolt, Lagat, etc.) is still popular with sold-out stadiums in places like Zurich. But nobody much gives a shit about the long distance stuff except the people doing it.

Where the marathons are:

http://www.marathonguide.com/races/races.cfm?place=intl

Wikipedia list of marathons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_marathons

Only one marathon listed in Kenya and none in Ethiopia....

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and feedback.

I apologize for doing a poor job explaining what I meant by “popular” – I mean a sport/physical activity that many people participate in and on a regular basis. I’m not interested which sports generate the most television ratings, ticket revenues or web traffic.

I’m “not assuming” that distance running is the most popular sport. I’m just trying to make the point in the paper that it is quite popular in many parts of the world (not everywhere). I think it’s fair to say that it’s more popular (in terms of participation) than curling, biking, equestrian, baseball, or in-line skating, and many, many others. In other words, distance running is not a marginal sport, not even remotely, at least in many countries. But what kind of evidence can I cite to support this? (And if you disagree that running is fairly popular in many countries, what is your evidence?)

I was thinking that perhaps there are some epidemiological or clinical studies where patients report to their doctors what kind of physical activity they had engaged in the past X months. Any thoughts on this? Any ideas for what fields or key words I should search for? I spent about an hour on web of science last night and couldn’t find a way to narrow the search effectively.

My paper isn’t primarily about the popularity of distance running. This is just one element in a long argument.

Thanks again for the ideas.

Nutty Professor

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