If you were in charge of Footlocker Nationals, how would you compete with NXN?

Rich Gonzalez has destroyed Footlocker

pretty sure NY runners would agree with you about coming up with a better system, but don't think pushing the final back to 21st would ever be an option

name thrower wrote:

Rich Gonzalez has destroyed Footlocker

how so? just curious...i quite like his commentary

Footlocker gets a lot of talent, but clearly NXN has taken the lead and are stretching it out further each year. I have been to both multiple times and they are very different experiences to say the least. NXN is what you'd expect from Nike; an extremely well organized professional hype-train of an event that is a lot of fun. Footlocker is like a throwback to 70s era running in comparison, being a much more no-nonsense affair that is all about the race.

Why Nike has taken over:

1. It's not just an individual event. There are actual teams.

2. There are twice as many regional qualifying races.

3. Nike's qualifying race for California happens before Footlocker and this is a huge advantage for Nike.

4. Nike realizes kids don't care about things like Hotel Coronado. It's just an old outdated hotel to kids.

5. The Nike campus is tough to compete with.

So what's the solution if you're in charge of Footlocker and want to beat Nike? It doesn't even seem like they are trying given they've changed almost nothing since it's inception, other than taking 10 qualifiers per region instead of 8.

Split the regions so that people don't have to travel as far. Maybe bump the number to 8 for each region putting the total at 64.

Honestly — aside from nostalgia, what’s the value in trying to compete with NXN? Anything they could do would just further split talent between the two events and dilute the competition of both.

There’s value in having a true national championship race and Foot Locker’s avoidance of team competition left a huge opening for Nike. The best athletes are increasingly at stacked high school programs and the kids want to travel and have fun with their teams.

I remember being in high school years ago and trying to convince our coach to bring a group to Foot Locker regionals and we had no luck. A team event is more practical and financially viable, plus it’s more fun for the kids.

No one associates Foot Locker with running anymore. New Balance has NBN. Let Nike keep NXN.

Nike has taken over because they are a financial giant- no other reason. Where would you rather go in December San Diego or Portland?

Nike is ruining the sport on every level.

I despise the NXR Heartland course. They jam way too many people into a staked course where someone will get shoved onto the rebar and die someday. That will put an end to NXN. Footlocker Midwest is a true course.

I think it would be awesome to have all-state teams compete instead of all region. Organizers could invite a second 7 from cali or illinois or whomever they deem worthy

it is a new element to the existing tradition aimed at getting more kids to FL and embracing a team component. Also they should have a pre race day parade. There is a lot of history in the procession

The problem Footlocker has is this: They will never compete with NXN unless they make it a team race also. However, making it a team race means they would have to change the course because the current one can't handle 200 runners on it. If they change the course that means they lose the history aspect in terms of being able to compare times.

Still, I say Footlocker ends up dying if they don't find a way to add a team component to it. No clue how to do that.

Footlocker has the history behind it. There are no shortage of kids running it. They seem to be doing just fine.

Maybe add a few more regions? For me in the south, I was lucky enough to go but had to travel 18-20 hours roundtrip over 2 days (9ish on Friday, 10 or 11 on Saturday coming home) just to race. The distance probably discourages a lot of people in the farther parts of their region. If you have less qualifiers from more regions, you probably get more people overall showing up to run spread across more events. Make it a bit more accessible, not everyone has the means or time to go super long distances for a race.

What are you talking about??? wrote:

Footlocker has the history behind it. There are no shortage of kids running it. They seem to be doing just fine.

This happens every year- the Nike fanboys come out and bash Footlocker.

Meanwhile, look at the champions and top 5-10 of each of the races over the years and what they accomplished in AND AFTER high school. It's not even close.

Aside from the guys that have run both in the same year and were clearly the cream of the crop, I can't name a single champion, and none of them did anything exceptional after high school.

Prime example-

I can clearly recall the LRC board discussions from 2014. The NXN fanboys were saying Tanner Anderson and a couple other kids from the Left coast states (that go to NXN) were better than Grant Fisher and to a lesser extent Drew Hunter. How'd that call turn out?

Look at the list of FL champions, then the NXN list..... and then I dare you to post that NXN has hosted anything more than a solid team championship race.

All this being said, Nico Young is the best runner in the country based on what I watched on Saturday. He's not at the Ritz level in cross country , but he's going to post some incredible times this coming spring. I'd like to see him specifically go after German Fernandez's single-day solo 4:00.29 / solo 8:34 double performance, which is the greatest high school distance day in history IMO..... only possibly losing to Webb's 3:53.

Let me add a couple points-

I say GF's one-day 4:00 / 8:34 is the greatest high school TRACK distance performance in history.

For cross country- and why I say Nico is not in at Ritz's level for cross- is Ritz's absolute domination and re-writing of the record books. His 14:10 at the MI state meet course is superior to Virgin's Detweiller record (proven by the Detweiller time being challenged quite frequently over the years and finally going down this year by Methner). The MI state meet has been held at the same location since 1996. MI has had 3 FL national champions spread over 5 seasons, and has had multiple top 5/10 FL finishers, and yet the second best time ever on the course is 14:51. He just ran so damn hard all the time. To achieve the 14:10, he went 4:24-:4:34 (8:58)-4:39.

After that race, he went and destroyed his own 14:55 record from the prior year at FLMW by running 14:35, winning by 30+ seconds. And no one at FLMW has ever run within 10 seconds of that time, with legendary names like Solinsky (who ran 14:41 at Balboa two weeks later), Verzbicas, Futsum, Fisher, etc. Then at FL Nationals, he jogs through the mile and starts hammering from there, ending up 14:35, beating Alan Webb and Ryan Hall by 20-25 seconds over the last two miles.

I personally don't like the NxN format. It is fine for the preferential teams selected, but comes at the expense of many better runners who don't happen to go to a big school and/or are not a member of a qualifying team. Everything is based on preferential teams, at the expense of many better runners. This is why I prefer the Footlocker format, and I am fine with there being two different races.

With that being said, and picking up on other comments, here are some ways I feel that Footlocker Nationals can improve.

#1- Find a better course, that doesn't have so many turns and that can accommodate more runners;

#2- Invite more runners, from more regions. Perhaps increase the number of regions to 8, and divide them by states. For example California could be one region, and Washington, Oregon and Idaho another, or whatever comes out to a relatively even number of high school populations between the different state grouped regions.

With a better course and more state-divided regions, there could still be 10 runners per region invited, for a total of 80 top runners in each race. This also doubles the team component by state regions which can make the region team competitions more interesting.

Move all of the regional meets to the weekend before the first big state meet? Then run the National meet on the same day as NXN.

Issue an invitation to the best runner from each state. Do it prior to the regionals so that they don't have to compete to qualify. They would garner a huge amount of interest because every running fan would recognize a runner in the race. Championship would have use a better course that can accommodate 90 runners.

FL should invite those in the top 10 from NXN who were on teams - it might be a short list and perhaps noone would accept, but give the top kids who go with their teams the chance to run in SD for themselves.

The difference between the two lists is eye-opening. Kinney/Footlocker really was THE indicator of who'd be winning NCAA titles / be numerous-time All-American, and likely be representing the USA in international competition.