Tracktown Summer Series Draft #2 in the books

Longtime Track fan. If wrote:

I love watching track more than the avg person. Beyond Olys, I watch WCs, USA, NCAA and conferences/regionals. So I'm a huge track fan. So this is hard to say. The Track town format is stupid

People support teams because they have a connection to the team. I.e school or locale or something. Throwing a bunch of track people onto meaningless less teams with dumb names does Not do anything for the sport. The athletes have no ties to the "teams". None. I don't care if Portland or NY wins or loses.

The organizers, promoters and coaches seem to fail to see this. In the current format the product fails.

Totally agree with above. This event will fail big time in NYC. There will be less than 1000 people in the stands unless there is a mass ticket give away and even then I am not sure people will show.

I live in the NYC area and there has not been 1 mention of these event in the local press. I know that it is still about 50 days till the meet but still how about starting to build this up?

I wasn't able to watch it but would like to know what those of you who saw it thought.

From twitter here are the first round selections:

1st picks were Devon Allen and Chaunte Lowe for Philadelphia:

https://twitter.com/GoTrackTownUSA/status/865707445175201792

Portland Pulse went 2nd: Paul Chelimo and Gwen Berry.

https://twitter.com/GoTrackTownUSA/status/865708467079700480

3rd was supposed to be NY: Kibwé Johnson and Chrishuna Williams were selected but I think Chrishuna Williams is on Portland because of a trade.

https://twitter.com/GoTrackTownUSA/status/865711405042778112

4th - San Francisco

Shelby Houlihan and Ben True

https://twitter.com/GoTrackTownUSA/status/865712227201851392

I hadn't though much about what events were in the meets until I saw 2 hammer throwers in the first round. Hammer throw is in, javelin, discus, pole vault out.

Rosters as of now here:

https://www.gotracktownusa.com/events/tracktown-summer-series-2017-rosters/

AP recap of series coming back and mentions the draft tonight but doesn't have list of people drafted.

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article151657562.html

Last night, someone started another thread where they praised the work of Jordan Kent who hosted the draft. Poster "Clark Kent" wrote, "Really impressed with Jordan Kent's anchoring of this stream. He's been excellent."

You can decide for yourself as to how good he was by watching the draft below.

Video:

The dates of the meets will be as follows:

– JUNE 29 IN SAN FRANCISCO (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

– JULY 2 IN PORTLAND (MT. HOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE)

– JULY 6 IN NEW YORK CITY (ICAHN STADIUM ON RANDALL’S ISLAND)

yawns drowning out the sounds of the crickets

I watched most of the draft. It was very well-produced. The hosts were well-spoken and well-prepared and they were able to do video chats with many of the athletes who were part of the series, which was cool.

That said, it's a draft, and I find drafts fundamentally unappealing as live content. I think the most viewers I saw on the live stream was around 240, but it was under 200 for most of the second half. They would have attracted more viewers by having it on a Thursday vs. a Friday -- though maybe Friday is the only day they could reserve the convention center.

That said, I'm with Ken Goe, who wondered why the media wasn't invited to be in the room to witness the draft?

Or for that matter, why weren't the public allowed to witness it in person? Granted, you probably would've had 40 people there.

From watching the feed, I wondered if the three GMs were there just to read cards. I have no idea if any of them did any research on the available talent, or whether or not TrackTown just gave them a card to read.

Something about the draft looked fishy, even with Jordan Kent doing a great job hosting the event...

http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2017/05/thursday_morning_news_notes_li_46.html#incart_river_index

I agree that they should have allowed access to fans and media. In talking to the folks at TrackTown USA, they've already made it clear that the GMs were going to have help in making the selections. Allyson Felix has her own season to worry about. I don't think anyone expected her to spend a ton of time studying the list of eligible draftees. She's there as a face fans can identify with to lend credibility to the event.

Who knows how many fans would have actually showed up. But if the goal of the draft was to get publicity, why close it off to fans/media?

There is 1 male 5k runner between all 4 teams and only 3 in the 3000. I'm thinking those will end up somehow being combined.

Longtime Track fan. If wrote:

I love watching track more than the avg person. Beyond Olys, I watch WCs, USA, NCAA and conferences/regionals. So I'm a huge track fan. So this is hard to say. The Track town format is stupid

People support teams because they have a connection to the team. I.e school or locale or something. Throwing a bunch of track people onto meaningless less teams with dumb names does Not do anything for the sport. The athletes have no ties to the "teams". None. I don't care if Portland or NY wins or loses.

The organizers, promoters and coaches seem to fail to see this. In the current format the product fails.

Sounds like just about all pro team sports.

I agree beyond words with this. It would be great if Portland or Philadelphia etc were composed of runners originating from that region. On that note, I'm a little confused as to why states like Florida or Tennessee aren't included--maybe I'm missing something? It would be more logical to me if they chose the runnings hub states from each of 4 or 5 major regions in the US, and paired the runners to their respective regions.

Philly and NY are two major cities right next to each other, it makes no sense for them to represent 2 quarters of the runners. I personally would love to watch a Philly team composed of Mid Atlantic runners since I'm from around Philadelphia. I could care less about a Philadelphia team with guys from the West Coast, much less a Philly team without any real attractiveness to support(Phillies, Flyers etc have reason to be cheered, they're localized and committed to their town).

Until they give me a reason to support a specific team over another, I'll only take interest in watching when Nick Simmonds hits the track.

rojo wrote:

Last night, someone started another thread where they praised the work of Jordan Kent who hosted the draft. Poster "Clark Kent" wrote, "Really impressed with Jordan Kent's anchoring of this stream. He's been excellent."

You can decide for yourself as to how good he was by watching the draft below.

Video:

https://www.facebook.com/tracktown/videos/10154670732401267/

The dates of the meets will be as follows:

– JUNE 29 IN SAN FRANCISCO (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

– JULY 2 IN PORTLAND (MT. HOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE)

– JULY 6 IN NEW YORK CITY (ICAHN STADIUM ON RANDALL’S ISLAND)

Calling an event "San Francisco" and then hosting it at Stanford's track is like calling it New York and then hosting it in Scranton, NJ. It is a 45 minute drive with good traffic. 2 hours during rush hour.

Shrun wrote:

Until they give me a reason to support a specific team over another, I'll only take interest in watching when Nick Simmonds hits the track.

It's certainlly a big issue. When I talked to them about the draft, that was the #1 issue I said they had to overcome and I urged them to appoint LetsRun.com as a GM. When we talked to them, I said, "If you let us pick a team, then I'll care a lot about the team and we'll get our visitors involved." And plus, the 1/4th of visitors that despise me can root against our team like many people do with the NYYankees/Dallas Cowboys. Rooting against someone is sometimes more fun than rooting for them.

The other issue is track no matter how much we want it to be a team sport is primarily an individual sport where the only thing that matters is the championship meet. I mean look at Harvard and Yale. The Harvard women didn't even run their star runners in the meet this year as they wanted to run at Mt. Sac. If college coaches don't even stress the outcome of a meet like that, then how are fans going to really be into something like this?

Plus you have issues like Centrowitz was the #1 pick last year and then he shows up and gets smoked in the 800.

I applaud them for trying. Hope it works out. I've always wanted a really rich guy to throw 7 figures at track as a side project and now it's happening.

We can try to applaud the effort, but it is so poorly thought out. Did they just pick 4 cities out of a hat?

1/4 of *posters* may despise you, though this seems high to me, but certainly less than 1/4 of LR visitors despise you. Chin up!

Surprise despise wrote:

1/4 of *posters* may despise you, though this seems high to me, but certainly less than 1/4 of LR visitors despise you. Chin up!

You must be Momjo.

Here are the round by round selections.

ROUND 1

Philadelphia Force: Devon Allen & Chaunte Lowe

Portland Pulse: Paul Chelimo & Gwen Berry

New York Empire: Kibwe Johnson

Portland Pulse: Chrishuna Williams (acquired in trade for Queen Harrison)

San Francisco Surge: Ben True & Shelby Houlihan

ROUND 2

San Francisco Surge: Darrell Hill & Christina Manning

New York Empire: Edward Kemboi & Abbey D'Agostino

Portland Pulse: Sydney Siame & Chanelle Price

Philadelphia Force: Boris Berian & Charlene Lipsey

ROUND 3

Philadelphia Force: Ronnie Baker & Amber Campbell

Portland Pulse: Hassan Mead & Liz Patterson

New York Empire: Richard Thompson & Felisha Johnson

​San Francisco Surge: Conor McCullough & Aisha Praught-Leer

ROUND 4

San Francisco Surge: Shawuille Walker & Hannah Fields

New York Empire: Mike Rodgers & Amanda Bingson

Portland Pulse: Paul Dedewo & Taylor Washington

Philadelphia Force: Arman Hall & Kylie Price

ROUND 5

Philadelphia Force: Ryan Whiting & Janay Soukup

Portland Pulse: JaCorian Duffield & Madeline Hills

New York Empire: Stephen Mozia & Sanne Verstegen

​San Francisco Surge: Shadrack Kipchirchir & Inika McPherson

​

rojo wrote:

Last night, someone started another thread where they praised the work of Jordan Kent who hosted the draft. Poster "Clark Kent" wrote, "Really impressed with Jordan Kent's anchoring of this stream. He's been excellent."

You can decide for yourself as to how good he was by watching the draft below.

Video:

https://www.facebook.com/tracktown/videos/10154670732401267/

The dates of the meets will be as follows:

– JUNE 29 IN SAN FRANCISCO (STANFORD UNIVERSITY)

– JULY 2 IN PORTLAND (MT. HOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE)

– JULY 6 IN NEW YORK CITY (ICAHN STADIUM ON RANDALL’S ISLAND)

Can somebody please tell the Tracktown people that Stanford is not in San Francisco? For the record, it's also not in Palo Alto.