Nick Symmonds idea

I'd like to see a couple of Diamond League races pay based on time instead of place or some combination of the two.

Like $10,000 for the first five under 13 minutes and $20,000 for everyone under 12:50.

You wouldn't see runners looking around to sit on each other.

They'd all be running hard the whole way.

I've seen bonuses for records but nothing that pays a number of runners for hitting a time.

This is not the Pga , more like

lap 1 - $1, $5, $25 et.

Karl Hungus wrote:

What about a "money lap"? Fastest time on a random lap gets $5k? It'll be like a random fartlek for cash.

You could do this like how they give out primes in Criterium races for bikes. They ring a bell and that lap gives out random cash or prizes. There's no set time to do it, the field just hears the bell and gets after it.

It might also be fun to do a race like this off of the track like a bike criterium on a small loop in the downtown of a city. The average person isn't going to go to a track race, but if its happening in their cities downtown they will probably watch.

some road races pay for hitting certain times.

For example, NYC Marathon pays $35k for sub 2:07 men and sub 2:24 women, in addition to overall place prize money.

http://www.tcsnycmarathon.org/about-the-race/prize-money-and-bonus-awards

Perhaps some events could deduct prize money awarded for overall placing if the final time is slower than average.

If that type of prize structure system was in place, we would not have seen 3:50 win a top level 1500m.

As more of a sit and kick guy, Nick S. would likely not suggest anything like that.

Nick was 5th in the fastest race of all time.

Not bad.

And he got a Silver in a race won in 1:43 low which isn't slow.

And the Olympics is a different beast.

It's not like they won't award medals if the time is too slow.

I don't think paying for a fast time in the Olympics will lead to a fast time because the medal is more valuable than the pay.

I like that marathon pay structure.

Unfortunately I kind of agree with this. With as a little money as there is in Track right now, could any entity really justify amount of prize money they'd need to attract the level of athletes we LRC'ers would actually want to see?

For example, I like the steeple. Lets get Jager and Bor and Kemboi etc. to run this race. For mere mortals yea, $1000 for leading lap sounds awesome. But is that enough to motivate the top who already are being paid to show up? It'd have to be more like $10,000 a lap, or more. Which I just don't see enough people buying tickets to justify the prizes.

This sounds awesome and I like the premise, but who's paying enough to justify $1000 per lap to watch a "fast" 9:10?

It's "prime" not "prem".You would need a huge budget to be giving out primes like that and to do it every lap doesn't make sense, because at that point you could run a 5000 like a 1500 and make some really easy money, yet not add to the race one bit.For a 5000 you would want to put the primes on lap 1, 5, 8 and 11.

Star wrote:

I'd like to see a couple of Diamond League races pay based on time instead of place or some combination of the two.

Like $10,000 for the first five under 13 minutes and $20,000 for everyone under 12:50.

You wouldn't see runners looking around to sit on each other.

They'd all be running hard the whole way.

I've seen bonuses for records but nothing that pays a number of runners for hitting a time.

It would be an interesting experiment, but that has holes in it, too. Assuming Letsrun posters want BOTH a competitive race and fast times and that meet promoters could not pay both for place and time, you would have guys chasing a time and then, when that was achieved, letting down at the end -- why kill yourself for place when it doesn't pay? Same thing that happens now for time. Also, racing for say, a sub 12:50 is only exciting for hard core track fans. The casual fan is just seeing guys running, the number doesn't register at all. But all fans can appreciate 5 guys sprinting for the tape for the win. The time might be slow, but it's still a win.

Spice up the Diamond League by making the final a time based entry. 12 athletes with the fastest times through the league season go through to a "winner takes all" final at the end of the season. You take your one best time forward. Ok, the final is going to be a tactical race, but all the races leading up to the final will be ball tearers.

So, for an 8-lap race we are at $85,250.

Not gonna happen.

The idea that gambling and beer will make athletics popular has been doing the rounds for a long time and it is basically bullsh*t. Making the sport popular will make people want to gamble and drink beer watching it - it won't work the other way around.

I am 10 years in the gambling industry now in UK and Australia and spend a chunk of that time trying to get athletics to land with punters. It never has and it never will. As i said, you have to make the sport popular before people will bet on it - betting will not drive it's popularity.

That is before you get into the many blockers in athletics to make it appeal to normal punters e.g. the amount of prohibitively short price favorites.

Where Symmonds seems so very, very wrong is in this statement:

"the problem is not with the product, but rather with the way that product is packaged"

I have a lot of time for the guy but if he things there is not an enormous flaw with the product in athletics then he can be of no help in developing the sport.

Athletics has one major issue with it's product - nobody has any trust in it. The general public trusts little of what they see and everything has an asterix. Main question i get asked about athletics is "do you think Usain Bolt is on drugs".

Until you fix that trust issue, you have not got a product that is worth selling. Unfortunately, to fix it, you need to tear the sport apart first. That won't happen.

Professional track and field is broken and very close to un-fixable.