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

CutTheDeadWeight? wrote:

THE MOST BORING EVENTS IN TRACK AND FIELD ARE 5K AND 10K!!!!!

Not at Highgate.

Lack of gambling culture.

TRACK IS BORING

13reasonswhy wrote:

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3) There are no teams to root for, only individuals, and no one roots for individuals.

...

What is this obsession that Americans have with trying to make every sport a team sport?

Athletics is an individual's sport and aside from the relays which are a fun diversion, the team concept means little and brings little to athletics.

Of course people root for individuals. As a Brit, when I root for Sofia Ennaoui I'm not rooting for Poland or for her club team (I couldn't even tell you which club she represents). I root for a lot of American distance athletes too. When I root for Emily Infeld or Karissa Schweizer I'm not rooting for BTC or Missouri or for the USA, I'm cheering the individual athlete on because I like/admire them. The individuals and their accomplishments are what make athletics not some manufactured team concept.

I honestly think that T&F has the potential to be a popular sport. Some of you say that track is inherently boring, but track definitely has its moments. It seems like every meet that I watch there's an unexpected finisher, a toe-to-toe sprint finish, or a really fast time put down. When I watch football though, it seems a lot less action packed as there are so many breaks and advertisements for maybe like 30 minutes of playing, though a lot of it is because a lot of the time I don't understand what's going on. But in track, there were moments like Yuki Kawauchi's Boston win, Donavan Brazier's 1:43, David Rudisha's 800m Record, Wayde Van Niekerk's 400m Record, and most recently Jakob Ingebrigtsen's 3:52 that took my breath away.

Hell, the LetsRun articles have all sorts of interesting stuff with NCAA coverage, doping scandals, etc. I think the real problem with Track and Field is the fact that the athletes themselves don't get enough exposure/recognition and the sport doesn't get the same exposure as sports like football (Yeah, I don't think FloTrack's paywall helps this very much). I feel like a big part of large sports like Football and Basketball is the players getting exposure and recognition like they do in the NBA. Every time there's a new NBA star, the NBA markets them like crazy and creates hype around them, making people go to their games. This happens with a lot of players nearly every season; Derrick Rose, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Giannis Antetokounmpo. There isn't hype created around the athletes themselves, so most people are indifferent to the race's outcome. There were so many news articles about the stories of Boston marathon athletes after they won, and I feel like a lot of that is why the Boston Marathon got the coverage it did; it had people's stories in there, something to look at and admire. Although making a sport big overnight is pretty much impossible, getting rid of paywalls and showing the athletes' personalities would hugely increase track's marketability.

PoisonIvy wrote:

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....

Moo Goo wrote:

No need for a deep analysis. First, it's absolutely and mind boggling boring to see a bunch of skinny Africans run around in circles. The fatties don't care. The hobby joggers don't care. Their interest in running stops at their selfie and the finisher's medal.

I kind of agree with this point, and in a sense I agree with the OP's commentary about hobbyjoggers.

Ultimately, elite athletes in all sports are entertaining because they make things which we understand are difficult look easy. The best example of this is the three point shot. It literally has more value assigned to it, and therefore most people understand that it is a far more difficult shot to make. More serious fans will analyze Stephen Curry's shooting mechanics, but that isn't necessary to see that he can shoot the sh!t out of it.

For some reason, people don't get that in terms of running, jumping, and throwing. They either do not understand, or appreciate the difference between their co-workers 2:27/23rd in age group half marathon finish and a 1:03 win for an elite athlete. Sure, they might think it is cool on the day they saw the race go through their city or when they read about it in the sports section, but after that they'll move on and have a mimosa brunch to celebrate their accomplishment.

Kvothe wrote:

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.

I am assuming you are referencing the comment I made about delays. So I have to ask, did you watch the Pre Classic webcast? Because the Friday night livestream was pitiful. Viewers were frequently left looking at a security-camera type view of the stadium and could hear the commentators and A/V guys arguing over the sound of athlete intros nobody else got to hear.

I won't fault you if you didn't see the broadcast, because as we know it was behind yet another paywall.

Two things wrong with T&F in America:

-Flotrack

-Eugene, OR (Nike)

However, besides Nike, no other shoe companies have made ANY effort at all to make track and field cool. Nobody besides FloTrack has made any effort to broadcast college meets that people might be interested in seeing.

In the Frisco Bay, T&F, XC, Roads, marathons, Utras, tris are the most popular sports around. Races are held on weekdays and every weekend all year around. Federations, Associations, Meets don't have enough volunteers and officials and have to turn down entrants.

jmuffintop wrote:

Lack of gambling culture.

This and lack of drinking culture.

It occurs to me that the sheer number of athletes combined with how seldom and briefly competition takes place, along with how incredibly simple and repetitive (although amazing) the things they do are, all may hold back track when compared to the entertainment value of basketball and football. Americans don't watch soccer either, fwiw. Attention span? Maybe people imagine themselves playing around the world a lot more than in the us. Maybe imagining yourself out there goes in to it for a lot of sports. I don't really get excited about hurdles, maybe because I never hurdled. But pro sports are all drugs anyway and a waste of time. Like this.

runn wrote:

The Black Socks Brits were all cool.

.

Who were black socks?

Track and Field is the central part of the Olympics, and that's a big part of the problem. I love watching the olympics, but this has got to be acknowledged.

There's too much focus on the Olympics every four year, that hurts the possibility to build a economically viable franchise around T&F. Diamond League is a nice try, but it's definitely not a "league" - and it's not really working as literally no-one participates in all the meets.

NHL Ice Hockey made the right move pulling out of the Winter Olympics this year. They got a nice franchise going 8 months outta 12 and a play-off season every year that actually lasts longer than the Olympics.

If the Olympics truly were an all-out final of sorts where only the best of the best could go things might be different on that part - instead it's the one meet were nations you've hardly heard of get to send "athletes" that more often than not would have a hard time beating your age group third placing weekend warrior mum in the preliminary rounds.

All runners seem to eventually end up here. Most are so put off by Letsrun that they are hard-pressed to embrace the sport. This site ruins running's image more than you'll ever know.

”Sit and Kick”. Killed the sport.

To add to that, go to a Highland Games festival, the throwing is the center of it all, draws very large crowds. These have been going on for centuries. If an obscure sport like that can pull in that many people, why can't the throws in track and field?

Again, I say cut the 10k, at the very least. You've already got XC, Steeplechase, and 5k. It's boring to watch people run in a circle for 30 minutes. What's worse, is that every time you watch track on TV, they cover just about every lap of it. That's when they can give coverage to the field events, giving them more than just the winning throw/jump. The only time the 10k was fun to watch, was in the Prefontaine movie, and that was a stretch.

That only proves that the throwing events are better off going at it alone.

The "track" sport called Ninja Warrior would actually make much more sense as the third leg of track and field. Imagine having a Ninja Warrior course in the middle of every stadium - and how that could be used to let top athletes in that event, one by one, run the course inbetween running events. Never a dull moment. Never a dead moment. 30 second television ads will fit in perfectly whenever someone falls into the water early och fail to complete their run.

Bedford wore red socks.

Sit and kick did help kill track.

T&F is the last sport on earth to adopt the "go for it" mentality of the sports which are captivating today.

Where are the replays from the Diamond League meet? Do I need to wait 30 years to see it on YouTube?

http://redbull.tv

will show you how it's done.