Forcing club affiliation for hobby joggers

George Ilie wrote:

If the participation to any athletic event would require the runners to be affiliated to a club, maybe the athletics would be more competitive.

It could sound that hobby running may be a bit restricted, but in certain conditions will actually encourage it.

A runner could register for any club, pay a $5 annual fee to this club and anytime he wants to participate in a competition he would have to provide his runner ID.

Then he/she would be able to see how he/she stands in the club's chart, or regional, national, etc...

The clubs will also be ranked and it would become interesting.

What do you think?

How could affiliation be forced? Would races force people to be club members? Where I live, sponsors of big races don't care if the races are competitive or not, they want the masses.

George Ilie wrote:

If the participation to any athletic event would require the runners to be affiliated to a club, maybe the athletics would be more competitive.

It could sound that hobby running may be a bit restricted, but in certain conditions will actually encourage it.

A runner could register for any club, pay a $5 annual fee to this club and anytime he wants to participate in a competition he would have to provide his runner ID.

Then he/she would be able to see how he/she stands in the club's chart, or regional, national, etc...

The clubs will also be ranked and it would become interesting.

What do you think?

Why do you care if running is more competitive? Who cares. Let people live their lives.

George Ilie wrote:

If the participation to any athletic event would require the runners to be affiliated to a club, maybe the athletics would be more competitive.

It could sound that hobby running may be a bit restricted, but in certain conditions will actually encourage it.

A runner could register for any club, pay a $5 annual fee to this club and anytime he wants to participate in a competition he would have to provide his runner ID.

Then he/she would be able to see how he/she stands in the club's chart, or regional, national, etc...

The clubs will also be ranked and it would become interesting.

What do you think?

And you would be president of this association? It sounds like you're a big enough dbag to do so

Your surname implies that you have East-European/communist ancestors. So I'm not surprised by your suggestion.

This is colossally stupid and you should be ashamed of yourself. Put the crackpipe down.

You must be a fan of authoritarian regimes.

This isn't how things are done in the US, and I don't see how you could force races to require club membership to run in their races. Even if you made USATF certification dependent on limiting races to club members, most races would just forego USATF certification (which plenty do anyway) rather than lose potential participants.

Having said that, I think a stronger club running scene like in the UK would be good for the US and help expose hobby joggers/fitness runners to the competitive side of running and to track and cross country, as opposed to all of the road races that they tend to run.

How you strengthen club-based running is a good question and I don't have the answer. However, I'm pretty sure that trying to require club membership for road races isn't the answer.

George Ilie wrote:

If the participation to any athletic event would require the runners to be affiliated to a club, maybe the athletics would be more competitive.

It could sound that hobby running may be a bit restricted, but in certain conditions will actually encourage it.

A runner could register for any club, pay a $5 annual fee to this club and anytime he wants to participate in a competition he would have to provide his runner ID.

Then he/she would be able to see how he/she stands in the club's chart, or regional, national, etc...

The clubs will also be ranked and it would become interesting.

What do you think?

Dumb idea....

Races want as many people as possible, and their money.

You add in an extra inconvenience for the "hobby joggers" to enter, and they run somewhere else.

Pretty soon, road racing disappears because of lack of participation/funding.

dbags wrote:

Why do you care if running is more competitive? Who cares. Let people live their lives.

OP is clearly just so fast that he literally cannot find competition at his level anywhere, so he needs the rest of the world to up their game so that he has some people to compete against.

[quote]going at it the wrong way wrote:

This isn't how things are done in the US, and I don't see how you could force races to require club membership to run in their races. [quote]

Except, USA Cycling did exactly this. I have no idea if they still do it.

It's like saying communism has no place in America. Except, that's exactly what REI is, a communist cooperative. Agriculture relies heavily on co-ops. Many accepted American religious orders practice communism as well.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

[quote]going at it the wrong way wrote:

This isn't how things are done in the US, and I don't see how you could force races to require club membership to run in their races. [quote]

Except, USA Cycling did exactly this. I have no idea if they still do it.

It's like saying communism has no place in America. Except, that's exactly what REI is, a communist cooperative. Agriculture relies heavily on co-ops. Many accepted American religious orders practice communism as well.

If you mean "communism" in the normal Marxist political science sense, a co-op is no more "communism" than having a business collectively owned for the benefit of thousands of shareholders is "communism." It's just another form of collective control and ownership of a private organization, not control of the means of production by the proletariat, etc.

Are you posting from North Korea, bro?

So, basically, one would have to be 'licensed' to race in the USA? F THAT NOISE.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

[quote]going at it the wrong way wrote:

This isn't how things are done in the US, and I don't see how you could force races to require club membership to run in their races. [quote]

Except, USA Cycling did exactly this. I have no idea if they still do it.

It's like saying communism has no place in America. Except, that's exactly what REI is, a communist cooperative. Agriculture relies heavily on co-ops. Many accepted American religious orders practice communism as well.

USA Cycling has never required you be a member of a club. However you had to pay a higher entrance fee if you were an unattached rider.

Or ride in non USA cycling sanctioned events.

The USGA does actually require this in order to have a handicap which is then required for virtually an tournament.

This idea is just a hypothesis.

Let's say that you are a simple jogger who wants to sign up for a local run.

When you sign up, you are asked for a runner ID. If you are not affiliated, you simply select any club from a list and you can join the race. That's all.

As for the communist part, aren't you all assigned to a certain state? When you want to stay as far as possible from communism , you get very close to anarchism.

Anne Hedonia wrote:

USA Cycling has never required you be a member of a club. However you had to pay a higher entrance fee if you were an unattached rider.

They didn't require it, but made it economically infeasible to NOT be in a club. Seems like forced club affiliation.

Oh, wait... Since LRC is all high six-figures, trophy wives, and sub-3 marathons, 2x club fees for a couple of races is chump change. I see your point. It's definitely not forced club affiliation, for LRC.

And team sports - is it possible to even organize an event for people who are not affiliated to a club?

But I'm intrigued by the fact that there are people around here complaining that track & field is not popular anymore, but on the other hand they don't like the idea of encouraging organized sport.

Being member of a club it is fun. It doesn't mean you can't do whatever you did alone in the past.

George Ilie wrote:

And team sports - is it possible to even organize an event for people who are not affiliated to a club?

But I'm intrigued by the fact that there are people around here complaining that track & field is not popular anymore, but on the other hand they don't like the idea of encouraging organized sport.

Being member of a club it is fun. It doesn't mean you can't do whatever you did alone in the past.

Yes, being a member of a club IS fun. And you WILL have fun (as I have defined fun) ... I decree it.