Does anyone care about FootLocker CC Champs?

I watched the Nike turkey trot, and am clueless about anything else, so I'll just call it a national championship.

Anyone who wants to contend that Foot Locker is a true, representative national championship needs to take a look at these numbers.

http://co.milesplit.com/articles/117534-foot-locker-regional-participation-by-state#.Uqn04fRONK0

Yes and no. It's misleading to an extent. With the advent of NXR, FL regional participation has been declining; however, that doesn't mean that the majority of the top talent isn't choosing FL over NXN. I'll let others, if so inclined, post data about where they think the top talent ended up this post-season.

I do think FL has a lot of life left with the top end, but overall participation has certainly swung towards Nike's regional meets. A quick count shows just over 6500 FL regional participants and I believe I read somewhere that NXR had a little over 8900. FL is actually hanging on better than I thought.

Agreed that it's not just the numbers, but who is in those numbers. But, at some point it becomes the numbers, too. I don't have time to trace it down right now, but it would be interesting to see how many of the fastest male and female runners at each state meet ended up at a FL and/or a Nike regional.

One important fact about the numbers for Nike and FL regionals is that there is no California Nike regional. So FL gets a big bump there that Nike doesn't get. Also Michigan is essentially precluded from Nike regionals.

Nobody cares about the non-elites with the exception of the runner themselves and their parents, so it was, is and always will be about the elite runners.

Thus far, over the last 5+ years and across both genders, the elite talent seems pretty much equally divided between FLN and Nike Nationals and it seems to be holding steady. The fact that it is holding steady has been surprising to many, including me, as I would've thought that Nike would've emerged on top once they began including individuals.

There were a ton of college track coaches at FL so someone thinks it matters.

http://tonireavis.com/2013/12/15/foot-locker-2013-world-class-reunion/

clatter of hooves wrote:

There were a ton of college track coaches at FL so someone thinks it matters.

http://tonireavis.com/2013/12/15/foot-locker-2013-world-class-reunion/

The college coaches get a free vacation to San Diego, they go to the race because they have to to get the trip paid for. That is thr truth.