AH'S VISION FOR SUCCESS

Have all relay.

Have all events run paraell to other sports when possible--like Football. That way people will know about what day and time to tune in better. Have 16 meets--and final tournaments same day as football playoffs--maybe not same time. Have summer competition in same 16 meet format.

Have Midwest Conference: Dayton, Fort Wayne, Duluth, Ann Arbor

Catman, you can be my vice president, maybe. I'll let you run the youth farm league.

Excellent post Ah

It's Just Ah some!!!!!!!!!

seriously great ideas, it's exactly what the sport needs to bring it to the forefront, creat excitement well done!!!!!!!

kick yall ass - gay landover baptist brothers n' arms! - catman/Ah. Politically incoherent!!

Good idea Ah. The US needs to something dramatic at this point that will actually work. I don't think the dumb Mascot idea was part of the solution.

Hmmm, I was getting all ready to shoot this idea down, but it's not half bad. Especially in that there are only 6 meets, the rest of the year could be used for training, yeah not bad at all.

I can't see something like this ever happening, but it would be beneficial for the athletes and fans, no small feat. It would even give all the post-collegiate guys here something to do, and it would take the focus away from WRs, some of which are probably drugged beyond reach.

Glad to hear something positive from you Ah, good ideas there.

NO FAIR CATCHES!!! AND AN OVERHEAD CAMERA ON A WIRE!! AND ALLIGATORS IN THE SC WATER JUMP!!! AND SOMEBODY PUTS "HE HATE ME" on the back of their singlet.

Ah thank you for positive comments.

It would definitely work. Currently the sport has too many events to be marketable. Too many individual winners. Sports like golf and tennis are also individual sports but they only have one winner per event. Turn on a golf event and you'll be sure to see Tiger Woods during the duration of the event. In a tennis match you'll see someone like Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras going at it the whole match. That's why in order to market the sport and be competitive you have no choice but to eliminate all the field events.

Just because we know the sport traditionally as track and field, it doesn't mean that a private organization can come up with their own structure of the sport and just call it track. They don't have to be connected with USATF in any manner. Again, 10 running events max that covers only 1 hour for television. But I think that a relay race at the end of the meet would be best if it involved a combination of both sprint and distance events, instead of the traditional sprint only events (100 & 400). And who says that the events have to be traditional either? How about events such as the 500m or 1000m races instead of the 400 or 800m? I'm not saying that I'm serious but in terms of attracting interest by breaking records it might not be a bad idea.

The All-Star meet can give winners $100,000. This is $1,000,000 in prize money for winners. A few commercials could cover this.

Anyway, I don't want to go in too deep with this. Obviously nothing like this is going to happen because USATF is too deep in the dark to understand the changes necessary to make track a marketable sport, especially when you have clowns for leadership who come up with a hand-me-down mascot to "attract" kids.

Ah is smart. Ah is cool. Ah is great. Ah say thank you.

I say make it an Indoor league. Indoors is more exciting on a local level, and easier to fill the stands. It will be noisier and wilder. And it will not interfere with Summer Euro Grand Prix big meets. Because if it interferes with that, some top runners won't participate in your league. The US has lots of great indoor tracks. Hell, the Boston area has 3: new BU facility, Harvard, and Reggie Lewis.

Trust me, most fans in this country find outdoor track boring, but find indoors better. It would even cut down your events more:

60, 60H, 200, 400, 800, mile, 3000. 4x400 & DM relays. That's it for running!! No heats, ALL finals.

Why not keep a couple field events, such as: Shot, High Jump, and Long Jump. But you only get 1 miss in the HJ, and a couple tries in the LH and SP. That will speed things up.

Yeah--indoor is a great idea. That way weather needs never be a factor. Could still have relay field events--adding up distances--probably couldn't do discuss and javelin. Could do pole vault--a crowd pleaser--long jump--triple jump--shot put.

Could have precontest entertainment to lure people in--as well as a closing event as people leave for the kids to meet the athletes--baloons, clowns, moonwalk, sack slide with prizes to the fastes under 10, souvenire shops carted in along with other paid venders (the music industry wouldn't be able to pass this up), free hot dog eating contest with prizes, and hooter dressed girls going around taking and having pictures with fans--a football throwing and kicking contest.

Also, significant team random drug testing. Make the teams up from the start with half males and half females but don't have mix events--unless you want to turn it into something porno, and I am sure someone would. Contract athletes so that they wouldn't perform too many international events.

I am a little confused. Miles is not quite as smart as Ah obviously. Why would be listen to your posts Ah about making the sport better when you have told all of us to give up the sport? Wearn't we supposed to quit? If we can't be professional football players (according to you) then we should do anything. Some people around here try to help the sport you on the otherhand keep telling everyone that American runners should all give up because we aren't the best. If people actually listened to you eventually there would be no runners left in the world. Lets see if I can't be Kalid K. then I should give up. OK well everyone should quit then. Then there is 1 marathoner left in the world, then he retires because no one else is left to run against. Yeah Ah is smart, yeah right. Probably some 14 year old kid that is full of himself. Oh and if Ah really is so smart, then why doesn't he go out and start this Track league. I think anyone on here could come up with an idea for a track league, doesn't take a brainiac.

trust me, when GBTC's IRS non-profit papers finally go through this year and our club can start accumulating some serious sponsors -- I will personally push for our meet at Harvard (which has some pretty decent records, by the way, starting with Sydney Maree's 3:57) to have big time prize money. Maybe we'll call it "an old-fashioned board meeting" or something cheesy like that

Indoors would ensure that all the meets would be run on time since you wouldn't have weather factors to worry of. But the likelihood of signing big names from Europe is unlikely, since it would interfere in their base period prior to the European season. The idea of the league is that it should evolve into something more marketable and profitable than anything going on in Europe. It needs to be attractive and lucrative to lure individuals outside the country and that won't happen unless it becomes marketable. I'm not looking at this as a USA participant only thing. There are many Kenyans in the US who run the road races to collect prize money. I think the league can do much better than that. But again, the number of events has to be limited. That's the key to get it off in the right direction.

I don't think USATF is the organization to do it. They have their heads stuck in buttholes mired in tradition that lacks that creative marketability needed to be successful in corporate America. It needs a fresh new private organization with money to invest. I don't think it would take a lot of money. There are a lot of people out there who would sign a contract to run a minimum of 4 meets easily for a few thousand dollars. Some would probably do it for free. Their incentive would be making the All-Star meet where winners make $100,000 or winning the team competition. And I think there is a lot of big names who would run the races for a guaranteed $100,000 plus bonus performances.

The one major element that hasn't been mentioned yet is that it would be a men's league. You can't start a separate women's league until the men become successful. Kind of like the NBA and the WBA. It's not discrimination by any means, just business. Like I said you have to cut down the events to make it marketable. The women's program simply doubles it. That's probably why USATF couldn't pull this off and why the sport will die if it continues to remain mired in outdated tradition.

Have womenb from the get-go as I stated on my previous post.

AH, why don't you just pull the $1,000,000 it sounds like you need for your bright idea out of your ass and get this "league" started. Or maybe you are so smart you invented a money tree?

I barely have a million dollars--I could spare maybe $23,400 of it to get this off the ground.

Ah, you are on the button.

Just curious on how you will raise a million. Any clue on the going rate for commercial? How much does it cost to rent a track, fly athletes in, hite TV cameras, etc? Why not start smaller. Other than MJ, MG and a few others, I cannot imagine anyone turning down 5 or 10 grand to run. The old days of 20-50 thousand dollar paydays are long gone. Put on a meet for $100k.