Centro not running Pre is the perfect example of why our sport isn't more popular

rather compete than watch wrote:

rojo wrote:

Of course I see the difference. I'm tired of being asked every 3 months - how can we better promote our sport? Sure we can improve the marketing but marketing didn't make the NFL or soccer popular.

Our sport is popular. How many people play football? How many people run?

^^^this, in many ways distance running is much more popular, for various reasons the monetization of it for elite athletes hasnt happened and people seem to think that is the end all be all.

rather compete than watch wrote:

Exactly. Football is a sport that centers around spectators. Running is a sport that centers around competitors. It doesn't diminish my joy of competing (or coaching others who compete) that people aren't sitting around drinking beer and watching track meets.

This doesn't explain though sports like golf and tennis where there are large numbers of participants who are also fans of the pro sport. This doesn't happen in running for some reason.

the sport is irrelevant because of the widespread corruption. That's not changing anytime soon.

Rojo is the owner of running's most popular website and when you visit the website it feels like you've taken a time machine back to 1998. The Johnson Brothers should do their part to help make the sport more popular. Renovate your website and maybe, you know, stop frivolously cutting down athletes like Matthew Centrowitz. I have nothing relevant to add other than you are a stereotypical millenial, rojo. You whine about everything while simultaneously getting everything handed to you your entire life. And you write like a child.

distance running is super popular but nobody cares about anybody else's running because it's a personal leisure activity. I like to sit around and play videogames or horse riding or hiking but I don't care about competitive gaming, horse racing, or ultrarunning. so why should hobbyjoggers care about elite athletes?

The sport has a lot of problems. Take the women's 800. There are some talented, amazing looking women (Kate Grace, Melissa Bishop, Agee Wilson) and they are forced to compete against men.

Too many other events look like African time trials. Pretty soon, the ratings will be so low that flo track will have the rights to every event except the Olympics.

Alleged Marathon Cheat wrote:

Rojo is the owner of running's most popular website and when you visit the website it feels like you've taken a time machine back to 1998. The Johnson Brothers should do their part to help make the sport more popular. Renovate your website and maybe, you know, stop frivolously cutting down athletes like Matthew Centrowitz. I have nothing relevant to add other than you are a stereotypical millenial, rojo. You whine about everything while simultaneously getting everything handed to you your entire life. And you write like a child.

Screw that. I love the simplicity of this forum. I'm disappointed that they now allow us to link photos and other websites in the posts.

bladerunner wrote:

The sport has a lot of problems. Take the women's 800. There are some talented, amazing looking women (Kate Grace, Melissa Bishop, Agee Wilson) and they are forced to compete against men.

Too many other events look like African time trials. Pretty soon, the ratings will be so low that flo track will have the rights to every event except the Olympics.

Which, would please the federation. Athlete revenue remains negligible. Paying audience figures remain in the thousands for 3.95 years.

The federation is left to operate a corrupt sport because nobody watches for 3.95 years. That 0.05 is quite a money maker!!! For the federation.

Centro is not GOAT Brady wrote:

Comparing Centro to Tom Brady is absurd. Centro's Olympic win was awesome but still a fluke win. He was in the right place at the right time. 19/20 times they re-run that race and he'd finish in the middle of the pack. Murphy is probably already better than Centro in the 1500.

Murphy ran amazing fast I didn't see the race only caught bowerman mile. I bet you centro wins gold again 2020. If he's healthy then he'll realize financially he's got a good shot. Very exciting in contrast to other posters today crying about the controversy in women's 800' 1500 and 5k leaderboards. The mile is the most exciting. Great job by Laura Muir. Mobot is the bolt of track distance and it's become boring. Amazing how long this all too familiar domination has been playing out. This is Jordan level domination, he has no rival right now.

The usatf champs should be exciting. Kate grace has a great physique that looks performance ready but she seems to lack a gear at the backstretch. With more years and training she might get another gear and be tops.

rojo wrote:

Think about it. Do you think Tom Brady skips a regular season game because he's not feeling well 100%? Of course not.

You really are one dumb mofo.

You can't figure out the difference between an athlete competing in a team sport and an athlete who has one purpose and that is to himself. That purpose is to run as fast as he can, jump as far/high as he can, etc. If that athlete isn't essentially 100%, he's not going to fare well.

I hope you paid your parents back if they funded your education because you received nothing out of it.

I agree with a lot of what you said.

Pre is the biggest international meet in the US.

Centro got the first American 1500m Gold in over 100 years.

The Bowerman Mile is the main event.

No Centro in this race is a disaster.

A much better comparison would be to an MMA event, rather than football. As we all know, if Tom Brady is at 80%, he's still way better than any backup (and many team's starters), and his team can gameplan around that since there are 10 other people on offense (plus defense and special teams) to share the load. If Centro races that mile at 80%, he gets DFL and embarrassed, just like if a fighter goes out there at 80% he gets knocked or tapped out. As a result, we see tons more changes to MMA cards due to injuries/illness compared to team sports, where injuries are as common (or more common in the case of football), but playing through injuries is par for the course.

Now certainly if whoever is headlining an MMA card drops out, it hurts the card, and can quite a bit in the case of the biggest stars. But within that sport's world, the top brands have been successful in marketing their entire roster, rather than just 1 or 2 stars, and the talent is generally there that things are still competitive if a #1 contender drops out and they fill in with a #5 ranked person last minute. Of course it doesn't hurt that if someone gets completely manhandled it still makes a compelling highlight reel shot, where there is no such luster in T&F.

Now I didn't watch the race, as I don't have any intentions of paying money for what is so consistently an unwatchable production, but I'd be willing to bet they didn't have more than one or two lines to share about Murphy or Blankenship, and made almost no attempt to 'introduce' us to any of the gaggle of Kenyans outside of Kiprop and maybe Kwemoi, I'm also betting the whole broadcast was on eggshells about the current NOP/USADA situation, which does nothing besides allow the issues to fester (regardless of whether you think NOP is guilty of doping or not). NBC should have had Centro in the stands at the finish line, or try to get him in the booth for NOP PR and to explain the illness and make commentary on the race.

That's how you build up more following for the sport among the fans who are there for 1 month every 4 years, by building up and marketing a critical mass of competitive athletes, not putting all your eggs into a handful of athletes who compete 4-6 meaningful times per year, with a 25% chance of no-showing any one of those.

All that of course has to come after they fix their basic incompetence on the broadcast, which has been beaten to death dozens of times here.

Think about it. Do you think Tom Brady skips a regular season game because he's not feeling well 100%? Of course not.

Unless of course he just plays a few downs as the Patriots already have a playoff spot clinched. See also the NBA regular season, with travel schedules.

Centro is not GOAT Brady wrote:

Comparing Centro to Tom Brady is absurd. Centro's Olympic win was awesome but still a fluke win. He was in the right place at the right time. 19/20 times they re-run that race and he'd finish in the middle of the pack. Murphy is probably already better than Centro in the 1500.

Murphy is probably a year away from being better than Centro at the 1500. But he's close now, as within a second or so at top end no matter what Matt does this year. With his speed, Murphy's a threat to eventually hit 3:28 or better. Those guys that finished ahead of him today at Pre just have a lot more mileage under their belts, they're not more talented. In two years he'll mop the floor with them. Especially if drug testing improves to overcome the advantages gained by those who are able to avoid out of competition testing year after year.

Why does it matter wrote:

Why do we even care if our sport is popular? I like the sport and that is enough for me. I don't care if other people don't like it, why should that matter to me? It's dumb how obsessed runners are with getting people to like their sport. Our sport is not popular and it probably never will be, move on, enjoy running for what it is.

I agree with this.

I agree with you and I thought about that when he pulled out of the race.

When track was popular (70's) runners raced each other. No one cared about the time, it was a race. If you lost you came back another day.

They are too selective about their races now and I just just think they have to be in the public eye more.

Can I make an improvment suggestion on this thread?

Utilize modern technology to create the "flying start 10 meters" in front of the grand stand at every track meet. Intermittent individual starts to stretch it out between other events over the evening. Invite local talents to run the "flying start 10 meters" aginst the pros. Semi-amateurs go first. Local college runners go second wave. The pros go on last, so as to possibly have a local talent or a local semi-amateour in the lead right up until the final rounds.

Imagine the bragging rights for a college runner in "I was in the lead for half the evening until [insert meet star/winner here] came on and ran only nine hundreds of a second faster!"

Think about it - a renewed popularity almost surely most start with the young crowd; bragging rights comes from skin in the game, being able to go up against the stars under circumstances where you technically have a chance, over simple 10 meters even a good running back (i.e from that other sport) might have his day with a Bolt or a Gatlin.

our sport isn't popular because it's the punishment for other sports

and that most people can't do it well themselves unless they put in several hours a week doing it

also track where people win by one second or fraction of a second is ridiculously not understandable to even active people in other sports, heck even I can't get into distances under 3000m on track because they're just a testosterone genetics showdown

dsfsadfs wrote:

zxvasdfasd wrote:

But if it were popular then we'd have to pay a bunch of money to watch or compete in track meets.

Dude, how much money do you have to spend to see a top level track meet? How much does it cost you to fly to Eugene or Paris or whatever? Unless you live in Oregon it's got to be more than NFL tickets.

Huh???? Maybe rethink this example and try again.