Why Cross Country is Losing Popularity

So You're saying that if there were no Foreign runners, age cheaters etc. then XC would be as popular as football or basketball?

Running is a niche sport because it just is, and track and field is only marginally more popular because once every 4 years it's in the olympics.

Cross country has mostly smart, white upper class kids who's parents will pay money to the university. I could see more programs going distance-only for XC/track because it's low cost and brings in more paying student-athletes than T&F.

It isn't losing popularity.

To say it is losing popularity would indicate that it once had popularity.

No, it will never even approach football or basketball for popularity. One of the reasons (among others) is that XC types (skinny, pimple-faced white kids) whine and complain and accuse and bitch and moan about everything, expecially anyone, or any school who has success. This, which is now pretty much ingrained, is eroding any remaining interest in xc. Track and field is different in that it includes poor kids, athletic kids who are in it for the fun and the love of competing. So much different than xc. If you don't believe me, read the posts on this board. All the schools like Syracuse get trashed and the runners get trashed by the skinny little white nerds who lurk on the edges of the sport of xc.

neanderthal dream wrote:

It isn't losing popularity.

this - what indicates that there's any change in the sport's popularity?

Who cares? As long as the times, teams and individuals remain competitive in contrast to the times of yesteryear, I don't care. What are we trying to promote here? Just more Runnersworld joggers? I mean, quality of quantity people, c'mon.

Cross-Country has more participants than any other high school sport.

It is very popular. Our local high school invites get thousands of spectators and there are web pages and facebook pages with ,many followers.

I'm a coach of a very good, local, team and people know who I am out in public- as they know the top runners.

Maybe you just live in the wrong place.

Try Upstate New York!

For the past 10 years, more often than not, the XC Worlds have been held in Africa (Ethiopia/Kenya) and with enforced drug testing around the Diamond League those were one of the last events where you could just show up and not care about your "cycle", microdosing and everything...

Not sure if this will change now. There is pressure that Kenya starts testing but so far nothing seems to have happened yet.

It's time to get rid off this snoozer.

No one wants to watch SCRAWNY boys run. No. One.

Also, what really annoys me is how much money is taken from the football teams earnings to finance this BS.

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

It's time to get rid off this snoozer.

No one wants to watch SCRAWNY boys run. No. One.

Also, what really annoys me is how much money is taken from the football teams earnings to finance this BS.

No one wants to watch SCRAWNY boys do CrossFit. No. One.

Man, and about that funding comment, my high school XC team had pretty shit funding because of the football team. I wouldn't say XC is draining football, more like the other way around, and it's pretty sad.

runn wrote:

Cross-Country has more participants than any other high school sport.

It is very popular. Our local high school invites get thousands of spectators and there are web pages and facebook pages with ,many followers.

I'm a coach of a very good, local, team and people know who I am out in public- as they know the top runners.

Maybe you just live in the wrong place.

Try Upstate New York!

Why would you say this? Football is the largest, closely followed by T&F (that is boys & girls combined to give you an idea how big football is!).

Wrong Cross country is 7th in participation for boys and 6th for girls in high school. Even wrestling which a for real dying sport has more participants than cross country. Maybe your area is good but as a whole the sport is not even top 5 in number of participants. here is the link if you dont believe me.

http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/PDF/2013-14_Participation_Survey_PDF.pdf

Running s For Fun wrote:

I'm willing to predict that within 10 years, many Cross Country programs will be cancelled.

And you would be wrong. Wrestling, swimming & diving, track & field are the sports that are being vaporized. And to some extent football too. Boston University, Hofstra, Iona, Fairfield, Canisius, St. John's, Siena, La Salle, and Northeastern have all scrubbed their gridiron teams.

Running s For Fun wrote:

Reading all the complaining on this board about Foreign Runners, Age Cheaters, PED Users, and so on, no wonder Cross Country is such a niche sport within the sport of Track and Field. I'm willing to predict that within 10 years, many Cross Country programs will be cancelled. With limited scholarships to offer, it makes sense to expend very few rides to Cross Country. Track and Field athletes actually appeal to the public much more than Cross Country because it involves running, throwing and jumping (athletic expressions), as opposed to skinny cross country runners who very few can relate to. Programs like Colorado and Portland, that have basically no track and field program will have to either get on the bus, or they will get left behind, bragging about how good they are in a non-sport.

1) Don't read Letsrun then.

2) If anything cross country has become more popular in the US (maybe not world) since the early 2000s. You must not have run during the 90s. Track and XC were no where near as popular then as they are now.

not true wrote:

wrestling which a for real dying sport

Are you kidding me? Where have you been. You should have watched TV last night. STING (yes, the one and only STING) made a showing at WWE last night. In case you don't remember, he is a living legend.

Wrestling is anything but dying.

Moron.

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

not true wrote:

wrestling which a for real dying sport

Are you kidding me? Where have you been. You should have watched TV last night. STING (yes, the one and only STING) made a showing at WWE last night. In case you don't remember, he is a living legend.

Wrestling is anything but dying.

Moron.

That actually sounds like an awesome idea.

Combine high school thespian clubs with the wrestling team to make WWE fights.

Schools would make so much money.

I think you're misinterpreting here. Cross country now is much more popular than it was when I was in school in the 60s and 70s. The Internet allows for so much more interaction and discussion about the sport than when the only other cross country runners you really knew were the guys in your own team. The things you cite, discussions about cheating, foreigners, etc. is a sign of interest. People don't complain about stuff they aren't interested in.

At the high school my sons attended it's not uncommon for the boy's cross country team to have more athletes than the football team does now and given the concerns about football and concussions it's not difficult to think that's part of a growing trend. And from what I've seen at the collegiate level, it's much more likely that programs that are really focused on distance running and little or nothing else are much closer to being the wave of the future than places that have full track teams are. Cross country is a much cheaper sport to fund than track is and the smaller number of male athletes creates fewer Title IX troubles than a full men's track team does. It's much easier for me to think of universities that have cross country but not track than to think of the reverse. Yes, cross country is a niche sport but the niche seems to be growing.

No, and football is dying- youth leagues are losing kids and some schools can't field JV's.

The point is- XC is NOT losing popularity. It is gaining.

I've had football players quit football to join XC- some don't want to scramble their brains and some don't want to sit the bench.