NCAA Outdoor Track Champioships in Oregon for the next 8 years!

Not a Duck wrote:

Historic Hayward Field will be the home of the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships for the next eight years.

On Wednesday, the NCAA awarded the meet to TrackTown USA from 2015 to 2021.

The 2014 NCAA Championships, of course, were already slated to be held at Hayward Field, making it the ultimate destination for Division I track and field athletes into the next decade.

Even though I hate Oregon, I'm really glad this is the case. The best venue in the U.S. for supporting Track and Field. Everywhere else sucks, honestly.

Regardless - Drake (and others)have spent a ton of money trying to support our sport.

Not allowing them to host will send the message that companies/alumni should not bother improving facilities around the country because they will always be passed over for Oregon.

Dago Penis Tucson Fayetteville Jacksonville Houston Terre Haute Columbia Lexington Durham Boise Fresno Austin Lawrence Boulder Columbus South Bend SUCKS!

THE City of Eugene in the State of Oregon is the ONLY Track Town USA is the 100,000 year history of our Kenyan Race of Human Beings!

And somewhere, tRg smiled.

Great move by the NCAA!!!! Needs to stay there always!

Drake Relays should immediately relocate it's yearly meet to Hayward Field in Track Town, USA.

love4drake? wrote:

Regardless - Drake (and others)have spent a ton of money trying to support our sport.

Not allowing them to host will send the message that companies/alumni should not bother improving facilities around the country because they will always be passed over for Oregon.

With all due respect, Drake had their shot. Did you see the large percentage of empty seats at the 2012 meet? That was definitely an embarrassing view during the television broadcast, and you can be certain that the NCAA site selection committee remembers, also.

In Eugene there will be an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd. That makes a big difference, both locally and on television!

Sure makes it cheaper for us on the west coast. F U C K the rest of the United States. If they don't like it then move back to Europe to be with your own kinds of white people.

Not a Duck wrote:

Historic Hayward Field will be the home of the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships for the next eight years.

On Wednesday, the NCAA awarded the meet to TrackTown USA from 2015 to 2021.

The 2014 NCAA Championships, of course, were already slated to be held at Hayward Field, making it the ultimate destination for Division I track and field athletes into the next decade.

I laughed when I saw this, as I knew it would give the haters and babies something to whine about for years to come.

I wonder if there is a board somewhere on college baseball where the fans whine about the NCAA baseball world series not being moved around instead of out in the middle of nowhere every year?

Would it be great if Drake, Sacto, SOMEPLACE could fill the stands for the NCAA Champs like Eugene does?

Sure.

But that isn't reality. Reality is that Track and Field has been a dying sport for a long, long time.

Entrenching, in the short term (well, okay, so this is the first step to make Hayward Field the permanent host) so that the sport can be showcased on TV with a full house of fans...is what the NCAA wants to see.

And it is best for the sport.

The next step will be seeing USATF make a similar decision.

Yeah, it sucks that TF can no longer pack 80,90,100k fans into the old stadiums (which are all gone now, or had their tracks removed). But, that is just the way it is.

Congrats to Eugene, the most important part of this is that all the kids will get to compete in front of an appreciative, well attended "house" during their college champs.

Yes, that is correct, good crowds. But no one ever wants to talk about freezing your rear off, or having to deal with heavy rains. The athletes and coaches do not like that, so Oregon isn't the great place that everyone thinks.

Agree. There are also up and coming venues (Sac State) that could put in a bid in the next couple years. To give $hitty Eugene 7 years in a row is unfortunate.

The irony is the people of Eugene don't give a snail's fart about the NCAA meet anyhow. Nobody wants to pay $70 to see a confusing college meet full of heats a month after they paid $30 to see world elites in finals only. It's for die-hard fans from elsewhere.

Good for Eugene and I'm happy for them.

Unfortunately it confirms the sad state of track and field in North America.

Having to further pidgeonhole DI Nats is a desperate act by the NCAA that is the fault of our sport and shows how we are at a loss for kids interest competing against BMX, X-games, Indoor Club Volleyball, Violin, Ballet, and Piano.

Not all is lost however.

Recently we've seen a dramatic resurgence in outlays due to the Obama Economic Recovery from the National Track League (Canada), American Track League, Mt Sac Stadium Renovation, Oxy High Performance Meeting, Sacramento Sports Commission and a few others.

Hang in their.

Ok - So basically... since the crowds are not there it is better to just hold the meet in one spot. Therfore, no more cash to new facilities in other parts of the country because Eugene gets it all so no one wants to invest.

Again... good times.

Maybe someday someone else will be capable of hosting the NCAA champs but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon. When it does, we're all open for a change. Face it though, Oregon is clearly the best venue for a track event. It would be silly to have it somewhere else.Then there's the arguement that keeping the champs at Oregon will keep other colleges from renuvating their stadiums. I disagree with this. I think the fact that the NCAA has implied that nowhere is as good as Oregon is more likely to motivate another stadium.

Has the college world series been hurt by being held in Omaha for years? I'm surprised by the decision, but I'm not sure it hurts T&F.

The logic of this move is inescapable.

It's always bad when there's little interest in a product your are trying to sell to the public in the United States of America.

The company blames the sales staff for not being able to sell, and the sales staff blames the company for not having a product that people want.

Which is it with our case here of NCAA Division I Track and Field?

Is it the sales staff or the product that the public doesn't want to buy?

living in reality wrote:

Has the college world series been hurt by being held in Omaha for years? I'm surprised by the decision, but I'm not sure it hurts T&F.

That is a good point. In fact, Omaha did a lot to make NCAAs a success there. The Road to Omaha is something that is known to sports fans. Omaha is a larger city than Eugene (408K to 156K) and from what I can tell has more hotel rooms which makes hosting an event easier for those from out of town. I have no idea about air service to either city. Seems like a lot of folks going to Eugene fly into Portland and then drive.

Not that Reality mentioned it but someone else did: I think a lack of TV coverage of the meet is far more of an issue, but track in high school and college is not dying. Runnersworld.com just pointed out that more D2 and D3 schools are adding track while D1 was cutting. In High School it has grown 17% (for boys) and 9% for girls since 2001.

I am also wondering if a problem each year was getting places to bid for the meet. (Speculating).

For several decades the NCAA tennis champs were held in Athens, GA. It was largely because UGA had an indoor facility that could keep the tourney moving if it rained. It also had great May weather and enough courts. Now other teams hated coming there (part of it was that we--and I went every year I was student--would WOOF WOOF WOOF at every UGA win) but until another school built comparable facilities it was going to stay in Athens. (It has rotated for the past 20 years among several locations).