TV ratings dud in spite of Max Siegel pandering to L.A. retreads Rafer Johnson, Bruce Jenner, Khardashians, Paris Hilton

Why the half-assed, pitter-patter, sissy slapping attempt by USATF ? Max should relocate USATF High Performance and Long Distance Running to offices in Century City where the TV deals are made.

nbc has to show the us t&f trials as part of their olympic contract.

nbc doesn't want to be in eugene so why make them do the trials ?

cbs also does not want to have ncaa t&f on tv but does it as part of their final 4 ncaa basketball contract.

shut the eff up you anti semite

Bruce Jenner and Rafer Johnson are Olympic Gold Medalists (and silver in Johnson's case). I think it is great that they are there. Not a fan of Jenner's Kardashian connection and their schtick, but both Jenner and Johnson should be there.

Great that the WR went down with them (and other decathletes) in attendance.

Also, I do not think Siegel had anything to do with Paris Hilton, that sounds like it was all on Symmonds.

UCLA's Rafer Johnson and APU's Bryan Clay are Olympic Gold Medalists. Olympic medlaists in Los Angeles get a great deal of international media exposure from the foreign press corps since Los Angeles residents earn a large fraction of the Olympic Medals for the United States. Bruce Jenner moved from San Jose to Los Angeles. Hope this helps.

L.A. is where the TV industry is.

What were the actual ratings?

U.S. Swimming Trials are the ratings king. The U.S. Navy loves the speedos Micheal Phelps wears.

3.9 million on saturday. 4.5 million on Sunday. I'd say they did alright.

http://deadspin.com/5921519/phineas-and-ferb-had-18-times-as-many-viewers-as-the-nhl-draft-last-weeks-tv-ratings-in-context

Saturday

Fox Saturday Baseball [multiple games] (FOX): 3.9 million viewers

US Olympic track & field trials (NBC): 3.9 million viewers

Crimetime Saturday (CBS): 3.4 million viewers

Sunday

ood Luck Charlie (Disney): 7.4 million viewers

The Mentalist rerun (CBS): 6.2 million viewers

NASCAR Sprint Cup at Sonoma (TNT): 5.2 million viewers

US Olympic track & field trials (NBC): 4.5 million viewers

Sunday Night Baseball, New York Yankees vs. New York Mets (ESPN): 2.9 million viewers

College World Series Finals, Game 1, South Carolina vs. Arizona (ESPN2): 1.5 million viewers

MLS Soccer, New York Red Bulls vs. DC United (NBCSN): 137,000 viewers

Sucks. It took Lolo announcing her penis-less life to get people interested again. Hell, even early season MLB beat T&F out.

Those look like decent numbers to me.Track beat baseball. Maybe it is a positive trend.

Awful ratigs. Very bad. What a dissappointment. T&F is dead in the U.S. in 2012. Max Siegel has got a Mt Everest to climb bear handed, in pouring rain, and with frozen temperatures. Glad he went to Notre Dame.

The Fighting Jews of ND wrote:

Max Siegel has got a Mt Everest to climb bear handed

Bears have paws, not hands. Deer Adam Goucher will back me on this.

As splintered as TV viewership is, I think that's pretty good. Tied with baseball on Saturday and beats MLB, College WS, and MLS on Sunday, only coming in behind NASCAR.

Especially in an Olympic year, I think the potential interest is there. USATF just needs to be capitalizing on it.

HoNo wrote:

Those look like decent numbers to me.Track beat baseball. Maybe it is a positive trend.

Track (being broadcast on network) beat out a single baseball game (being broadcast on cable, albeit ESPN). Moreover, while the trials constituted the only T&F being shown on television that night, there were any number of baseball games being shown that night on local broadcast and cable affiliates all over the country. Put simply, more people watched baseball that night than watched T&F.

Meanwhile, viewership of the trials broadcast was easily surpassed by a repeat broadcast of some television drama.

Add to that... Cable subscribers are less than 5% of U.S. households and cable TV news anchors are paid the same as medium-sized market broadcast TV anchors. T&F has got a long way to go to get out of the cellar.

The average person doesn't care about T&F, and why should they? Therefore ratings will never be "good". BUT, those who are interested in the sport may well watch. It's hardly a "normal" betting sport, which attracts many (even some women) who otherwise wouldn't watch i.e. baseball (can a sport be more boring?!). TV dramas appeal to a broader range of spectator, so it would hardly be fair to pit T&F against it.

Cable or not. Track beat a baseball game. Not too shabby. And look at the numbers for MLS. Consider too it was not heavily promoted - I say not too bad.

Far too many tangential interests are involved in marketing. The LOC is concerned about homeless, methamphetamine prohrams, and green this and that. USATF has a new CEO and COO. USOC is totally dysfunctional with politicians who know nothing of sports. It's up to Max Siegel and Renee Washington to grab control of USA T&F and market it properly. I'd like to see High Performance and Long Distance move to Westwood or West Los Angeles to be in the middle of the sports and entertainment center of the planet earth in order to sell track and field to the broadcast TV networks.