WHY TRACK & FIELD IS CURRENTLY NOT POPULAR IN THE U.S.

3. Outside of the olympics and worlds, this is a problem and even then there was no team score unless you tabulated results yourself or something. That's why the world xc championships was an important meet. With the deemphasis of world xc, there are no professional teams. There is club competition in the uk and some places in europe. In the US the only club competition is around ny, boston, and the west coast leaving most runners out in the could after college.

4. Kind of hard to interview right after an event. Post race interviews are going to be the last thing on your mind. IDK why they don't do interviews a couple hours later other than the athletes aren't going to stick around.

5. Not an issue at the pro level. At college meets, when there are 11 sections of the 100 and 7 of the 200, its tough to say when the event that follows them will be.

6. There used to be a show on some B sports network that gave highlights of major road races. They'd show like 5-10 mins of a handful of races from europe and elsewhere. If anyone remebers this show please comment the name and network. Unfortunately, it was on at like 11 am on weekdays or something. I only caught it a few times, but when I did it was really freaking good. I think I saw wejo on one segment.

7. Its not just flotrack. To watch all the meets I'd want to watch, I'd have to pay for usatf.tv, flotrack, and runnerspace! And that's just for the us. I'd still have to watch a couple races on eurosport or something too. 3 subscription services for one sport is too much especially when there is a lot of overlap. USATF doesn't cover college meets and many sub elite races but runnerspace and flotrack are missing a lot of the pro level competition.

8. Disagree with you. I'd like fewer unrabbited races. At a lot of races the pros aren't even keeping up with the rabbits.

9. This happens in other sports too. An average male golfer, someone who maybe plays on the weekend would get crushed by a female pro. Its just a lot easier to measure in running when you can see the times and know exactly how you stack up.

I believe T&F is not popular with the average viewer because it is not intuitive , you have to understand the sport to appreciate what is going on. I know nothing about lacrosse, Australian rules football or snowboard half pipe but if I were to spend an hour watching one of them I would soon work out what is going on and develop some appreciation for the sport and its participants. Watching track is more like watching chess, what is going on in the competitors' minds is as important as where they are on the track. Lap 3 of a mile is boring to the average person but key to the runner. A knowledgeable viewer will see clues from running form and style and know who will still be in contention a lap later, the average viewer will miss all these things.

The Boston marathon was a classic in this. When Yuki went to the front at the start I said to my wife, "This is going to be interesting, he doesn't want this to be a gentle jog / 10 K race that Rupp and the Africans are hoping for." I was appalled that the commentators did not see this and instead ridiculed the guy. If paid commentators can't appreciate what is going on in the runners' heads and the tactics they may employ, then there is little hope the average viewer will understand.

What sports fan doesn’t want to see 10 East Africans with the same build, skin color and haircut AND wearing the same color kit run 12.5 or 25 laps around a track?

Kvothe wrote:

6. There used to be a show on some B sports network that gave highlights of major road races. They'd show like 5-10 mins of a handful of races from europe and elsewhere. If anyone remebers this show please comment the name and network. Unfortunately, it was on at like 11 am on weekdays or something. I only caught it a few times, but when I did it was really freaking good. I think I saw wejo on one segment.

YES network has a 30 minute show (or they did at least a year or two ago) that went over local and regional races in the area. George Steinbrenner being a huge running and track and field supporter certainly helped. A while back he paid to keep the Adidas Outdoor Championship afloat in North Carolina (I met him as an 8 year old when I was there with my dad and his athletes) and he also paid to have the trails in Van Cortland Park resurfaced around the same time

So many of you ar obsessed with this as if it were a code to crack and the sport has been off track. Sure as a business anything can be managed differently, but maybe it's simply not what people are interested in right now. Are volleyball and skeet shooting hammering out these debates too? Remember when poker was popular for some reason ten years ago? It comes and goes. The big sports would suffer this too but have so much money on the line at this point that they convince people to mindless care about boring sports like football and basketball.

I'll tell you another reason:

There is another thread- RIP Dick Quax.

He was cool.

Dixon and Walker were cool.

Liquari was cool.

Pre

Nick Rose ...

The Black Socks Brits were all cool.

They were cool and the sport was popular.

Bayi comes along and is a front runner without rabbits (which were not "legal" at the time- they had to finish the race and look like they were racing).

There were more personalities. NOT a field full of anonymous East Africans in the same uniform.

There DO seem to be a lot of personalities that can be marketed, from sprinters to distance.

It's up to meet promoters and the IAAF/USATF to do it right.

Track and field is still more popular in the US than in most countries in the rest of the world. It's always been a niche sport.

Apart from the Jamaica and a few other Caribbean nations, and Kenya and Ethiopia, where else is track more popular than in the US? Not that many countries. Most schools in many Asian countries don't even have high school track teams, and often not even at the college level.

Plus, track would be more popular with hobby jogging than without it. Some hobby joggers are big-time fans of track athletes.

What's the difference between the Pre Classic and the Jingle Bell 5K?

Raddison wrote:

If paid commentators can't appreciate what is going on in the runners' heads and the tactics they may employ, then there is little hope the average viewer will understand.

Announcers for track in the US are awful. They talk about the favorite the whole race. They ignore the battle for 2nd and 3rd. The cameras often don't even show these competitors finishing, instead focusing on the winner jogging or standing around. They don't know enough about the runners and their style to provide meaningful commentary during the race.

Example: A runner gets boxed in. Announcers never mention it, but it's a great opportunity to add drama to an otherwise boring middle section of a race.

Example: A runner gets elbowed. Announcers never mention it, but it 's an opportunity to add some color to the commentary. Did it throw the runner off his game? Did he lose position? Was he forced to run wide or surge to catch up?

Aktion T4 wrote:

runn wrote:

I'll tell you another reason:

There is another thread- RIP Dick Quax.

He was cool.

Dixon and Walker were cool.

Liquari was cool.

Pre

Nick Rose ...

The Black Socks Brits were all cool.

They were cool and the sport was popular.

Bayi comes along and is a front runner without rabbits (which were not "legal" at the time- they had to finish the race and look like they were racing).

There were more personalities. NOT a field full of anonymous East Africans in the same uniform.

There DO seem to be a lot of personalities that can be marketed, from sprinters to distance.

It's up to meet promoters and the IAAF/USATF to do it right.

You might be on to something. We need a final solution to the East African problem.

LOL, As soon as we get a cool, interesting, literate T & F athlete around here (Phoebe, Merber, Symonds,...) we immediately disparage them. Pathetic!

T&F is only popular for two weeks every four years during the Olympics. The rest of the time no one cares about it.

It's surprising that the D1 colleges and universities don't eliminate all sports except Men's Basketball and Football as they are the only ones that make money. Even then, not all D1 schools turn a profit, only the big school in major conferences.

All your points are valid by themselves but could be used to argue your point either way so these points don't support your hypothesis.

....The biggest reason T&F is not more popular in the US is that the best athletes in the US don't choose it.

They choose LAX, football, hoops, soccer, skateboarding, hockey, or about 100 other sports before running. Kenya, Ethiopia, even the UK funnel their finest athletes to running.

If the best in the US actually chose t&f or road running, then the US would own all records and dominate Olys and world champs.

The "top" US runners barely scratch the actual potential in running sports. We are weak because we are trying to train the mediocre athletes that can't play other more popular and profitable sports in 'Merica.

NotEliteUSSport wrote:

All your points are valid by themselves but could be used to argue your point either way so these points don't support your hypothesis.

....The biggest reason T&F is not more popular in the US is that the best athletes in the US don't choose it.

They choose LAX, football, hoops, soccer, skateboarding, hockey, or about 100 other sports before running. Kenya, Ethiopia, even the UK funnel their finest athletes to running.

If the best in the US actually chose t&f or road running, then the US would own all records and dominate Olys and world champs.

The "top" US runners barely scratch the actual potential in running sports. We are weak because we are trying to train the mediocre athletes that can't play other more popular and profitable sports in 'Merica.

There is no nation that can compete with the US in track and field. Sprints, middle distance, long distance, hurdles and field events, Americans are among the best in the world in all of them. What other nation can say that?

If track paid better than the big leagues, the USA would be marginally better at track than it is now. But the US still wouldn't have a dozen men under 2:05 in the marathon.

Track is not the most popular sport in Kenya and Ethiopia. Ask some Kenyans and Ethiopians what they were watching on Saturday afternoon. A solid majority were watching the Champions League final and not the Prefontaine Classic.

Too many meets have become glorified time trials where time/distance/height is the higlight and actually winning is secondary (let alone wining a team title)...and too many coaches, athletes, websites, and SHOE COMPANIES are 100% ok with this back-assward way of thinking.

...stepping off of soapbox....

China, Japan, Algeria, Morocco, Finland, Norway, Ireland, England, Italy, France, Czech (pretty much all of Europe), Bahamas (pretty much all of the carribean).

United States has 1 diamond league and it’s in Eugene. 0 world challenges in the US. Just look at where all the world challenges and diamond leagues are and that will tell you where track is huge. It’s 10x more popular in Japan, the carribean, Western Europe, Northern Africa, eastern African than it is in the US. Having raced overseas I can tell you this for a fact.

I will take issue with the "people do not root for individuals": ever hear of fantasy football or baseball?

America is the most heterogeneous country on the planet numb-nuts so of course you're gonna have a wider deeper pool of talent.

Athletes who became US citizens but were East African (i.e. Meb) or Jamaican, or wherever else by birth are artificially inflating numbers for the US at the expense of their native lands. Funny how Trumpsters have no problem basking in the dominance that athletic heterogeneity brings but otherwise hate the concept of multiculturalism.

Gravy wrote:

What's the difference between the Pre Classic and the Jingle Bell 5K?

I can sign up for the Jingle Bell 5K?

The former is in May, the latter in December?

One has a 5k and the other does not?

Vulcan wrote:

America is the most heterogeneous country on the planet numb-nuts so of course you're gonna have a wider deeper pool of talent.

Athletes who became US citizens but were East African (i.e. Meb) or Jamaican, or wherever else by birth are artificially inflating numbers for the US at the expense of their native lands. Funny how Trumpsters have no problem basking in the dominance that athletic heterogeneity brings but otherwise hate the concept of multiculturalism.

How many Trumpsters are track fans?