Is it time to scrap the Olympics?

It probably would be a good thing

A lot of stupid sports are still around only because they are Olympic sports.

Time for a clean up...

pundit wrote:

do it wrote:

getting rid of the Olympics would increase the fame, money and attention of the world champs

How? Based on what? How is the Olympics preventing the world championships from currently seeing an increase of fame, money, and attention?

based on that the Worlds would become the pinnacle of the sport and attract large chunks of the attention otherwise diverted to the Olympics

trackfan. wrote:

Get rid of the IOC too and stick to world championships for each sport

Get rid of all the hypocrisy.

Too much money to stop.

It is time to rotate between 3-4 countries and have permanent Olympic stadiums.

I'm not so sure about the money. Consider the opportunities if there are no Olympics. The Diamond League could really take off in popularity. At least relative to it having no popularity right now. Problem with T&F is that every event outside the Olympics and WCs is virtually a "tune up" type race. Everything is just part of a plan to peak for those 3 races every 4 years. Maybe it is just me, but I really like the concept of the elite athletes competing against each other over about 10 races from May to October. Have some kind of point system attached to it, and whoever has the most points is the greatest runner. For middle and long distance races have some races with rabbits and other not to create some diversity.

North of the Wall wrote:

Too much money to stop.

It is time to rotate between 3-4 countries and have permanent Olympic stadiums.

do it wrote:

pundit wrote:

How? Based on what? How is the Olympics preventing the world championships from currently seeing an increase of fame, money, and attention?

based on that the Worlds would become the pinnacle of the sport and attract large chunks of the attention otherwise diverted to the Olympics

You are just repeating the statement. Again, how is the Olympics preventing Worlds from attracting more attention? How is Worlds getting attention going to be different than the Olympics track section getting attention? It's the same events!

No

Everyone who is thinking the Olympics is hurting the popularity of track and field is delusional. If the Games go away, why would the Diamond League become more popular? If anything, the Games allows for a chance for track and field to be on the world sporting stage, even if it's briefly.

The general public does not care about track and field on non-Olympic years mainly because the sport is not very well organized.

1) There is no home market. The competitions bounce around all over the world. Would the NFL be as popular if only 15-20% of the games were in the US?

2) There is really no season goal that coincides with an end goal. The Diamond League has it's own points system, but the WCs are just a one-off event. Each meet is pretty much an exhibition with one major championship every other year.

3) No team concept - also, athletes compete for brands, not countries in normal competitions.

4) Lastly, the sport is way too wide to be marketable. Certain events are just not bringing in revenue at all (race-walking). If you actually bring fans to the stands in our sport, you get paid. For instance, Brommell was not going to be hurting for sponsorship money and surely can ask for appereance money as well.

The OGs could still be a great tool for the sport to have a world platform, but I don't see it hindering the pro-side as much. I think the organization of competition is a bit messy. For the pro-side to grow, it needs a better stream of revenue, a more marketable format, and possibly a trim of events. And even if we get ALL that right, it doesn't mean track and field will become wildly popular still. The market just may not be as big as us fans think for pro track.

Turkeys voting for Christmas

The thing with the Olympics is that because the US doesn't know anything about their T&F athletes, NBC will find a couple of human interest stories to draw interest. So Americans will briefly learn about Centrowitz, Rupp, a few others. It would be a great capstone event if people already knew the team.

Track could really use a system of team competition that you don't need 3 different online accounts to stream. ( I realize it's not going to happen.) Right now track is like a poor version of boxing, where there's a few new brand guys who get all of the money from increasingly rare title events. The US has a decent number of, say, 4 minute-ish milers who are going nowhere near the Olympic team but race competively and could get faster. If you had a system that supported professional runners to actually run for a living, on even a fraction of what we pay other pros, we could better tap into some real potential.

Now the BS of the Olympics shopping around for some undemocratic or developing nation to fleece for new facilities every couple years is another issue altogether. Billions to have some guys sprint, throw a disc, and swim some laps is obscene.

The olympics allow people to care about T&F (or more specifically the 100m and the 200m) once every 4 years.

Without the olympics people would never care about T&F.

Olympics are way too expensive to host and hurt the host country.

There is way too much corruption.

Of course these things are endemic to international sport, not just the Olympics, so I'm not sure what you solve by getting rid of them.

cool. the OG would have no credibility without track. it is time to dump the OG. good riddance.

longjack wrote:

cool. the OG would have no credibility without track. it is time to dump the OG. good riddance.

And track has no credibility with the Olympics.

Laughing at the pinheads who think that without the Olympics, the World Champs will suddenly become relevant to the average sports fan.

The World Champs would actually become more like the World Cross, and you same pinheads think cross country should be an Olympic sport.