Kate Murphy chooses NXN over FL, is this a sign of Footlocker's waning prestige?

FL will cease to sponsor the event within two years.

FL may bow out, but they still have the best meet (no questions asked).

If Nike wants the whole thing then they better get rid of the team concept it's a waste of time and who wants to hear that FM is the best for the 20th time.

If Murphy does go pro obviously she'll be looking to sign with Nike.

Lap Counter wrote:

The FL South region meet in Charlotte has grown a lot every year in the last 10yrs. 3500 total registrants in 2015, 3200 in 2014 and was in the mid-2000's most of 2010-12. FL in the South/SE is still very popular and pulls MANY!

In terms of raw numbers, yes the Footlocker South and Footlocker West meets have both been growing over the past decade.

However, Footlocker Northeast and Footlocker Midwest are vastly smaller than they used to be while both Footlocker South and Footlocker West are smaller than the Nike meets in the same areas.

Quick look at 2015 data shows that there were 2567 finishers at Footlocker West last year, 2141 at Footlocker South, 858 at Footlocker Midwest and 833 at Footlocker Northeast. The average numbers in the pre-NXR years were around 2000-2100 at Footlocker West, 1800-1900 at Footlocker Northeast, 1600-1700 at Footlocker South and 1400-1500 at Footlocker Midwest. That's about 400 more athletes at Footlocker West and Footlocker South, and about 800 less athletes at Footlocker Midwest and Footlocker Northeast.

Compare that to NXN's participation: South and Southeast (same area as FLS) combined to have 2589 last year, Northwest and Southwest (not even close to half of the usual Footlocker West contingent) combined for 3576 last year. Realistically, Nike is outdrawing Footlocker 2:1 if not more. And yes, there are more "team runners" at Nike than Footlocker, but there are also slower runners at Footlocker as well, just as there are top individuals at Nike. The ONLY region that isn't the case is in the South, were participation is very similar. When just looking at top talent, however, it is more split in the Northeast as well, and several of the top athletes in the Midwest compete at both.

tl;dr: XC in general has grown quite a bit over the last decade, Nike draws more than Footlocker, especially outside the South, but top-end talent is similar at both.

What state was she from? Oh yeah Alaska, probably had a lot to do with the fact that one, she either didn't want to be traveling back to back weeks a long distance to get to races,(not likely) or two could afford to spend almost two weeks out of state and afford the travel. Nike was much closer, both the regional meet and national championship, and way more spread out.

Samuel DeChamplain wrote:

What state was she from? Oh yeah Alaska, probably had a lot to do with the fact that one, she either didn't want to be traveling back to back weeks a long distance to get to races,(not likely) or two could afford to spend almost two weeks out of state and afford the travel. Nike was much closer, both the regional meet and national championship, and way more spread out.

I think you are significantly overestimating the difference in travel time/cost from Alaska to either regional or national meet. There are plenty of instances of athletes going to either, or both, regional meets. I don't think Nike draws any more Alaskan athletes than Footlocker does. Same with Hawaii for that matter.

Focused on one individual, Levi thomet same year I believe did footlocker nats, I gave reasons most likely why she did footlocker.

You gotta show me a really good trend of deeper fields and way bigger names doing nxn over footlocker which I don't believe you can.

Who would kids rather be grant fisher or Tanner Anderson?

Look at Austin Tomagno he wanted to run vs the best and beat grant, so where did he go? FOOTLOCKER. And he had a good team that made nxn.

no matter which race, she will do well

she would be a perfect athlete for Villanova

Samuel DeChamplain wrote:

Focused on one individual, Levi thomet same year I believe did footlocker nats, I gave reasons most likely why she did footlocker.

You gotta show me a really good trend of deeper fields and way bigger names doing nxn over footlocker which I don't believe you can.

Who would kids rather be grant fisher or Tanner Anderson?

Look at Austin Tomagno he wanted to run vs the best and beat grant, so where did he go? FOOTLOCKER. And he had a good team that made nxn.

I agree that looking at single individuals doesn't describe a trend, but replied to your post because you continued that trend (of looking at a single individual) - and used poor logic in doing so. Looking at Fisher and Tomagno (who went to NXN as a junior, and FLN as a senior) is another case of looking at small data to try to back up your viewpoint.

Here is as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you're going to get: A look at where the Top 5 ranked NY individuals (via Tullyrunners) went every year since individuals began qualifying for NXN in 2008. This seems reasonable, as NY has always been the top dog in the FLNE scene, Meylan (who runs Tullyrunners) has generally seemed to think FLN has been stronger than NXN (so it isn't going to be a case of his overrating NXN athletes vs. FLN athletes), and NXN qualifies 5 individuals to nationals.

Here is the breakdown:

27 of the 40 girls went to NXN, while 12 went to FLN (1 didn't go to either).

28 of the 40 boys went to NXN, while 11 went to FLN (1 didn't go to either).

If you remove athletes that went to the same meet multiple years, then 23 girls went to NXN vs. 7 to FLN, compared to 23 boys to NXN vs. 11 to FLN.

If you look at the average speed ratings of those that went to NXN vs. those that went to FLN (keeping the same # to retain an apples-to-apples comparison): 12 girls at NXN averaged 152.33, 12 girls at FLN averaged 151.33; 11 boys at NXN averaged 194.36, 11 boys at FLN averaged 191.64.

Of the top New York athletes, who have essentially identical accessibility to both meets and have to choose one or the other: NXN outdrew FLN by more than a 2:1 ratio, and the top athletes were pretty evenly split with NXN being a little deeper.

It's not hard to realize that that trend would likely only expand when Nike's meet is actually more accessible than Footlocker's, which is the case for the majority of the nation (due to there being 8 regional sites instead of 4). This is especially true in the two largest states, California and Texas, for different reasons: California kids qualify straight from their state meet, while Texas hosts a Nike regional but would have to travel more than 1,000 miles to get to Footlocker South.

States like Alaska and Hawaii have ridiculous travel to either meet, which means Nike doesn't really have any advantage there. Same with the Southeast and Northeast states, where the Nike and Footlocker meets are held near eachother.

The ONLY Footlocker region that seems to be getting near the same numbers as the Nike regions is Footlocker South. The top athletes are pretty evenly spread out. It is only logical to assume, then, that the athletes towards the top at NXN are roughly on par with the athletes towards the top at FLN, while the depth at NXN would exceed that of FLN. This is especially true when one considers the situations in the two largest states, California and Texas, where there is an overwhelming trend towards NXN.

Samuel DeChamplain wrote:

Focused on one individual, Levi thomet same year I believe did footlocker nats, I gave reasons most likely why she did footlocker.

You gotta show me a really good trend of deeper fields and way bigger names doing nxn over footlocker which I don't believe you can.

Who would kids rather be grant fisher or Tanner Anderson?

Look at Austin Tomagno he wanted to run vs the best and beat grant, so where did he go? FOOTLOCKER. And he had a good team that made nxn.

By the way, just looked up the figures to explain in better detail:

According to Google:

Flying from Kenai AK to Boise ID (site of NXN-Northwest) would take 7:20 and cost $703.

Flying from Kenai AK to Walnut CA (site of Footlocker West) would take 7:40 and cost $558.

20 minutes vs. $145, I would say that if anything Footlocker is the more accessible meet for Alaskans. I would imagine the same would be true, probably to an even greater extent, for Hawaii athletes.

Those two states are outliers. Nike doesn't pull even or ahead with athletes from those states based on accessibility, as you suggested was the case for Ostrander choosing NXN over FLN. Both meets have gotten the best athletes from those states in the past.

Oh? wrote:

Footlocker Northeast and Footlocker Midwest are vastly smaller than they used to be while both Footlocker South and Footlocker West are smaller than the Nike meets in the same areas.

Less slower runners (team people) are going to FL now because they'd do better at NX meets where the competition is easier.

Apples & rocks wrote:

Oh? wrote:

Footlocker Northeast and Footlocker Midwest are vastly smaller than they used to be while both Footlocker South and Footlocker West are smaller than the Nike meets in the same areas.

Less slower runners (team people) are going to FL now because they'd do better at NX meets where the competition is easier.

To an extent, yes, you are right. Since Nike has the larger meet, there are bound to be more "slower" runners there. However, at the same time, Nike has more "faster" runners as well. Also, at least on the Southeast boys side, a greater portion of the championship field were not "slower" runners at the Nike meet: I think WakeMed is generally considered to be about as slow if not slower than McAlpine, so times can be fairly comparable.

There were 50 boys under 16:00 at NXN-SE (out of 254) in the championship race, compared to 43 at FLS (324 runners). That is almost 20% vs. about 13%. Under 16:30, it was 101 vs. 93 (about 40% vs. about 29%). Under 17:00, it was 163 vs. 173 (64% vs. 53%).

Yes, that's right, on the blazing fast McAlpine course at Footlocker South, nearly HALF of the boys field was over 17:00.

I imagine that it would get closer to even if you included all races on the day (NXN-SE has their Open/JV races, and FLS has their class level races), although I'm not sure whether FLS would pull ahead or not. However, clearly, it is not a case where the bulk of runners at NXN regionals are "slow" and only there because of their team while all of the good runners go to Footlocker where they don't have to deal with such slow hobby joggers. Both meets have faster runners and both meets have slower runners. Both meets are very high quality.

Once again you missed the point, you're trying to give one individual example, and my point still stand on her as well, you don't know what her schedule was and what they could do flights wise, also, FL West is the week right before FL nationals, on the other hand her northwest regional was about a month before maybe 3 weeks at closest. So like I said maybe she couldn't be away for almost two weeks at one time, or maybe they didn't want to be flying back and forth 4 times which wouldn't make any sense.

And again give me a list of deeper nxn fields than footlocker, one person means nothing almost.

Samuel DeChamplain wrote:

Once again you missed the point, you're trying to give one individual example, and my point still stand on her as well, you don't know what her schedule was and what they could do flights wise, also, FL West is the week right before FL nationals, on the other hand her northwest regional was about a month before maybe 3 weeks at closest. So like I said maybe she couldn't be away for almost two weeks at one time, or maybe they didn't want to be flying back and forth 4 times which wouldn't make any sense.

And again give me a list of deeper nxn fields than footlocker, one person means nothing almost.

Really, your pointing out 2 people and arguing for why one person who chose NXN doesn't count because of the accessibility of the meet (which I just addressed in the post you are referring to) is more valid than what I just posted with regards to the top athletes each year in New York, using a more or less unbiased and expert rankings done by someone else as the basis?

Makes total sense.

Cool.Can you figure out which travel itinerary would be cheapest for a runner from NW Colorado to go to either FLMW or NXNSW?....I miss the days of travel agents.

google is your friend...

When has nxn had a deeper field than footlocker? When do more big names go to nxn?

Why do you think people want guys who run at nxn that are good to get a bid to footlocker?

The nike people always post this nonsense during cross country season.

I'm don't replying unless he can show evidence, classic avoid the question and try use on person lol, apparently one person means more than a deeper field.

Stupid nike wrote:

The nike people always post this nonsense during cross country season.