Ken Goe: Track and field isn't popular even in TrackTown USA - Well at least not as popular as college baseball

As a fan of both college baseball and college track, I think you're on to something. My high school track coach was the head track coach at Oregon several years ago until they sent him packing to take over the Sooner program. One thing I remember he always preached is track meets need to roll on smoothly without delays. So that's something that could be improved. In my opinion there should not be any field events during the distance events which to me is very distracting. No offense to the great steeple chasers but I don't really like any hurdle event and I'm a track fanatic. It makes no sense to me to watch guys who can run in the 7:30's for 3000 run low 8's for the same distance jumping into water pits. I don't have all the answers but getting inspired for what college baseball has done for its sport could provide some ideas for college track and track in general. As an example, next year on June 13th, 2019 the Royals will play an actual real game against the Tigers in Omaha, then on the 14th the CWS starts. I applaud College baseball for trying new ideas to grow the sport, likewise track and field perhaps should try some new ideas to grow their sport - heck got nothing to loose - might as well try something - doing the same old thing doesn't seem to be working very well (at least outside of Eugene)

Hayduke wrote:

tacomafan wrote:

Well, in Eugene right now you have a very unpopular head coach, and an administration and big money donor tone deaf to the wishes of the long time fans and tradition of Oregon track.

In Corvallis you have fan base not accustomed to winning, having terrific success with a particular sport, a sport with a nationally televised tournament.

pandering to the blue hairs is why the sport is dying.... because the fans will be dead soon too! Every camera shot to the stands in hayward show white haired men barely able to stand up and cheer at a college meet. I don't see a student section of fans. lets stop listening to the "knowledgable" hayward field fans and start getting some non purists interested.

Ow, that one hurt, but +1.

You mean to tell me that baseball is more popular than track in the USA.

This is shocking news.

We fight the same battle in AZ. Now the best athletes ride the bench in college instead of developing elsewhere. $

https://wiseolmanager.com

[quote}

To be honest, the comparison isn't totally fair as Oregon wins a national title fairly often whereas Oregon state winning it is very rare.[/quote]

This is Oregon State's 3rd national baseball championship in 12 years. They've won the most baseball championships this millennium.

Outside of track/XC, Oregon only has only won one other NCAA title in nearly 80 years (men's golf, 2016). There other was the very first NCAA men's basketball tournament in 1939, which only had 8 teams and was less prestigious than the NIT. Oregon's XC/Track program has RECENTLY been on a winning hot streak, but to say UO wins "fairly often" vs. Oregon State is a bit of a misnomer.

This team is nothing to be proud of. They have a pitcher on their roster that even the MLB won't touch. Now he's changing his story, further victimizing his victim. The local sports guy had the courage to write on it. Thank you Canzano.

Funny how much press they got wrote:

This team is nothing to be proud of. They have a pitcher on their roster that even the MLB won't touch. Now he's changing his story, further victimizing his victim. The local sports guy had the courage to write on it. Thank you Canzano.

The UO track team had David Mack, 800 meter runner for the 1987 USA team at Worlds and disgraced LAPD member. He's most famous for being a part of the Rampart Scandal and prime suspect in the murder of Notorious B.I.G.

Newsflash: Baseball is America's past time. Thanks Ken Goe for reaffirming what I already knew about you: You have no knowledge of American sports and American sports fans. Sorry if I'm not going to trust you have any clue about what track and field needs. And I'm sorry... track is "in decline"? Since when was it on an "incline" in terms of American fans?

rojo wrote:

Ken Goe contrasts the reaction that Oregon state got for winning an NCAA baseball title to what Oreogn got for winning the triple crown last year in xc and track and field.

https://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2018/06/what_the_college_world_series.html

We've been making analogies like this for years, comparing the average home basketball attendance in Eugene to track attendance figures.

To be honest, the comparison isn't totally fair as Oregon wins a national title fairly often whereas Oregon state winning it is very rare. Plus baseball is more of a team sport.

mar828 wrote:

I almost feel like the powers that be need to forget completely about the past and treat track and field like a nascent sport. If I wanted to get people interested in sepak takraw I would be offering loss leader-type plans with free access on media and even in person to spread interest in the sport. Take a short term loss for a long term gain.

This is why track won't be popular now in the age of streaming. Its like as soon as the sport made it to the internet, companies wanted to start charging 150$ a year for it. Unfortunately, flotrack and runnerspace being one trick ponies prob can't afford to offer track as a loss leader, but nbc certainly could. NBC could recoup profits by charging out of the ass or the olympics. An even better suggestion though is PAY PER VIEW. Say someone wants to watch a few marathons and could care less about sprints and most track meets (or vice versa). Let people watch the events they want for 5-10$ a pop along with the subscription service.

the east/west regional (or ncaa first round) as it stands is incredibly dumb. 4 regions was better, but time qualifying only is even better than either of those.

The NCAA basically booted Ryan Trahan out of college track with their arcane "rules". His track youtube vids had a few thousand scribes. He has went pop culture and has skyrocketed to 318,000 subscribers. He had almost a half million views on a vid he did a couple weeks ago. Forget baseball, NOBODY cares about running, jumping and throwing things around a track.

As painful as I want to admit, sadly you are correct. I don't follow Trahan since he went pop cult, but can't really fault him for doing so. The gigantic elephant is moving in one direction (no pun intended ha ha) and all Ryan's doing is jumping on the elephant and enjoying the ride.

"Baseball is America's pastime" - I'm going to question that one, certainly MLB is popular but think the NBA and NFL have it beat by a mile (although the NFL should see a major decline in the future due to the brain injury issue) but college baseball has not really caught on that much relatively speaking. But mark my words, college baseball WILL get more popular in the future when people realize you can go see some pretty darn good baseball for a fraction of the price of a MLB game. Back in March I went to see the Jayhawks play the Baylor Bears at Baylor. I pull in the parking lot and first thing positive - free parking - wow - cool - so 2 of us walk to the gate and had the wallet ready to buy a ticket and the very nice lady attendant said "no need for a ticket, today's game is free" wow, so far zero money spent. Then went to the food booth and for like 14 bucks both us us had plenty to eat and drink for the entire game. The quality of play is very high level - the pitching was high 80's low to mid 90's - 2 seam - 4 seam - curve - change were thrown - these guys are good ball players so the quality to cost ratio is extremely high to say the least. But there is tremendous room for growth. The same with track. For track, the best way to grow the sport is perhaps at the college level then it can spill over to the "pro" ranks. There are many creative people out there that I'm sure can come up with some ideas to grow the sport, only if they're allowed to. Maybe at each University the baseball program can market the track program and vice versa. Maybe before a college meet perhaps there can be a 2 hour span of open races which will at least get people to show up. Will it be the ultimate answer? Probably not but it's better than not trying at all.

irrelevant whether baseball is more or less popular than football or basketball. it has always been much more popular than t&f. always.

Many of you who complain about track popularity want it to go the direction of sports like baseball, basketball, football.... those are all artificially inflated. They are only popular because of gambling and a few superstars who prop them up. The superstar phenomena also is why golf interest rose in recent years—tiger woods. Plus, with hose sports it is easy to comprehend success. You have a winner.

T/f is built differently because of the nature of the sport. Its not really a team sport so you cant bet on team results. No one cares about team results. Plus, kids spend free time playing those sports with their buddies. Kids dont play track with their buddies in their free time.

Over priced tickets to those pro sports, subsidized stadiums, overpaid criminals/punks as players, pace of play, too many games where players dont try are things i hate about these sports. Why should track be like that.

Drugs are another huge problem in the sport that has dramatic effects on results. No one know who the true winner is and what is legit.

T/f is actually damn popular to nearly all kids in elementary school. They like track and field day.

T/f is about exploring the limits of humans as to how fast and strong they are. This point is not emphasized enough.

I just dont give a crap about copying the garbage those other sports showcase. I would say lets capitalize on the initial interest of school age kids, promote what separates track from the others, figure out how to contextualize what athletes do in training and racing etc. keep meets moving without down time and understand that track is just different.

Trackisdead1 wrote:

Track is a dead sport.. and marathoning is on the decline to some extent.

Mark my words - all the growth in events will come from trail races and obstacle course races (i.e. Spartan).

Nobody enjoys running around a track in circles or watching others do it.. there are so many more appealing alternatives out there. T

If you're not trolling... : does running have an equivalent site to swimswam.com? What is it if so? Clearly it's not letsrun. The swimming site covers internal, college and age group swimming, covers kids signing with colleges. It allows comments, but the comments are no where as... "intense" as let's run.

Both sports have similarities : individual VS team, not great for TV unless you're an athlete, broad kid participant base. I don't think either is dying? Is running? I watched nxn streaming Nationals, and that didn't seem like signs of a dead sport to me?

Thought these facts would shed some light on the opinions here.

Track can be considered a top HS sport, if this survey is accurate. It's from 2015, but can't have moved much... If anything, football is probably down due to brain injury being fact.

Track and football are in a tie at 1M kids. Basketball, soccer are in that ballpark with 0.8M ish.

So.

By "popular" track passes the *participation* test. What y'all have is the sports inability to bring in even the runners to watch, let alone the non runners. That might be inherent in running being boring.?

As a newbie to the sport, with a kid in xc and mid distance, it's solely my opinion that xc passes the interesting to watch bar, in person and streaming. The race is run, 100s pounding across the field, and 16 mins later, it's finished, with lots of places to witness the running 3 feet away.

*Track* fails the in person bar at even the higher end invitationals. There are 10-15 minute gaps between races that to a newbie, are inexplicable. Everyone seems like (civilian) government workers, walking sooo slowly...

Justthefactsmaam wrote:

Track and football are in a tie at 1M kids. Basketball, soccer are in that ballpark with 0.8M ish.

Running/XC/Track/Field has 5 million active competitors in the USA alone. Plus another 500k in Canada and Mexico. Other sports only wish they could be like our sport.