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Why does Track and Field have less spectators?
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ZeKe
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2002 9:23 pm    Post subject: WoW Reply with quote

If I ever need help with a research paper I'm coming to you guys!
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2002 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We're always looking for more people to join in the discussions, so feel free to come to us even if you don't have a research paper. Smile

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Adam
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2002 12:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the discussion so far has overlooked the fact that track used to be much more popular than it is now. Since the days of Steve Prefontaine the coverage of U.S. track in non-Olympic years has gone way downhill, while the popularity of the NFL and NBA has risen dramatically in the past 25 years.

If you believe USATF, track has more school-age participants than any other sport. So a lot of kids are graduating high school interested in and familiar with track and field, but they're not following the sport after that. Why? We don't know and clearly neither does USATF.

The professional track team concept is also an intriguing idea, but we already have a team track and field system with the NCAA. Compared to NCAA football and basketball, the fan base for college track is nothing.

But I do think that track can come back into prominence. I was at Hayward field when Alan Webb ran a 3:53 mile to destroy the high school record. When Alan Webb made a move on the back stretch to close the distance between himself and Hicham El Gerrouj the crowd let out an animal roar that, as Tom Jordan said, hadn't been heard in a long time. The stands were packed at that meet and the press coverage was tremendous.

I think the U.S. is ready to bring track back into the fold if a single great talent with a great story (like maybe Alan Webb) can develop a huge following. I think singular talents with an underdog human interest story, like Michael Jordan and Joe Montana, had a lot to do with the rise of the NBA and NFL.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2002 4:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like your point about the deiscrepency between high school participation and commercial popularity. The reason I think this exisists is two fold. First off track is a lot more interesting when you're actually competing and there is that team drama aspect. We need to win the 4x400 relay to win the meet type drama. Otherwise your just watching a bunch of guys run, jump, and throw. And there isn't the same amount of drama envolved. I think of it kind of like Karry Strugg (sp?) in the 1996 Olympic gymnastics compotition. Her completing her second vault on an injuried ankle was one if the greatest moments in Olympic history. But without the team component, it would have been her injuring her ankle and then not attempting her second vault. If there was a way to add in a team component to increase the drama that might increase the sports popularity.
The other reason that professional track and field isn't very popular is the lack of exposure to the upper levels of the sport for most young track athletes. When I was in high school the only link I had to the pro ranks was Runner's World's (I ran for one of those coaches that thinks that what ever Joggers Digest prints is the best possible way to coach a high school distance runner, but that's another post) mothly racing report. So I knew Carl Lewis was the best sprinter in the world and other than that the rest of the track events were won Kenyans. I never even heard of Pre until my senior year and even then he was just a name. And that's about as much exposer to the upper levels of the sport as most kids get. So really even though there are a ton of people that participated in track at the high school level very few of them actually know anything about track and field beyond that level.
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Dan
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2002 5:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I think of it kind of like Karry Strugg (sp?) in the 1996 Olympic gymnastics compotition. Her completing her second vault on an injuried ankle was one if the greatest moments in Olympic history. But without the team component, it would have been her injuring her ankle and then not attempting her second vault. If there was a way to add in a team component to increase the drama that might increase the sports popularity.

Bah! The gold medal had already been won before she even took that vault. It was just a fancy bit of dramatic post-production editing by NBC before airing it later on tape-delay. Sad If anything, her teammates were cheated out of the recognition they truly deserved by the overwhelming attention Strug got. If that's the treatment that comes with being a more popular sport, I'd rather remain on the fringe...

An interesting thing from Michael Johnson's book is that he didn't know until after his first or second year of college that people could make a good living running track professionally. This was a mere year before he became the top 200/400 man in the world; a rather shocking revelation about how poorly known the sport is to even its highest level of participants.

Think back to your high school team. How many of your teammates knew they would not participate in t&f in college? 80%? 90%? More? Other sports tend to get a high percentage wanting to continue on in college if they can make the team, yet track seems to have people trying to get out of it, even when the team aspect (HS) is all they know up till then. Other than the inherent difficulty nature of t&f, I'm not sure why that is.

Dan
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Conway
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2002 7:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How is it that I missed this thread !!! I've read through the thread ... And have thought about some of the other "conversations" weve had here ... and I am going to stick my neck out and say that the lack of popularity of track and field is tied directly to --- lack of connection to the athletes !!!

First off I thought about the "Team Sports" thing ... And you know what ??? For the most part no one really cares about professional sports teams - except the folks in Green Bay !!! Folks are drawn to the athletes ... Specific athletes ... With free agency being the way it is now teams change dramatically from season to sesason ... But the star quality of an athlete remains ...

The NBA was in the doldrums until Magic Johnson and Larry Bird arrived on the scene ... Then their ratings climbed ... These guys built their reputations in college and folks just followed them all the way to the pros and beyond ... The NBA followed up by marketing guys like Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas, Charles Barkley - well you get the idea ... Today when you think of the NBA you think of its stars first and then a few teams second ...

Same goes for the NFL ... Few pwople can name the roster of any individual team, but everyone knows who the stars are ...

Domestically we have not yet figured out how to market our stars ... An even bigger problem than that however, is that we have a hard time geting our stars to compete here in the states !!! On those rare occasions when the stars do show up the place is packed !!!! No stars, no fans .. Its really that simple ... Olympic Trials .... No problem .. Actually the problem may be getting a ticket ... NCAA tickets are easy because few know who these kids are ... California, Texas state high school championships - standing room only becasue the kids are local heroes ...

Americans are star oriented ... Be it sports, the movies, music ... You name it ... You gotta have stars AND they have to be accessible ... We have some of the worlds best athletes ... Americans need to know that and they need ot be able to go out and see them ... When track was popular in the US it was for the simple reason that you could go out and see the stars compete regularlly ... I've talked before about the number of meets there used to be and the athletes that ran in them ... Some of these meets were like annual parties ... Once the athletes started going elsewhere, so did the fans ... No one wants to watch B competition if they know that is what they are getting ...

Anyway, another long winded diatribe from yours truly ...

Conway
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PELLMELL
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2003 12:59 pm    Post subject: Topic Reply with quote

One reason the public may be turn off, is the metric system. Americans like yards and feet they dont want to convert things, keep it simple.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 17, 2003 3:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I suppose that could be part of it. But that is only a very minor part compaired to the compotition from other sports and the poor job of marketing the sport and it's athletes.

I'm just wondering when the US is going to catch on and convert to the metirc system like the rest of the world. It has to happen eventually right?
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Dan
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 17, 2003 3:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not likely. The US will wait for the rest of the world to come full circle, even if there's no chance (or reason) of it ever happening...

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Conway
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 6:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There WAS a push in the 70's for the US to go metric ... Started changing stuff in schools and everything ... But that was short lived ... Look at what would have to be changed - literally everything ... Gas pumps were metric for awhile in the 70's, for example ... No one had a clue ... People were confused and things went back to gallons ... The imperial system is just too ingrained here ... It was tough enough that everything in track went "metric" here around 1980 ... And in my opinon the only reason THAT happened was implicity of attaining qualifying marks for the Olympics !!!

And really the whole metric thing truly only affects the field events ... A time is a time ... No conversion necessary ... You just have to know what a good time is for the event you are watching ... Once you know that everything else is a piece of cake ... But in the field events just how good is a 7m long jump ?? Or a 2.30 high jump ?? Or 21.00 shot put ??? 22'11 3/4", 7'6 1/2", and 68'10 3/4" ... Now THAT is where the problem comes in !!!

But, sad to say, the field events have an even bigger problem than track and field itself when it comes to recognition ... So in the grand scheme of things the metric ssytem is NOT the problem in the US ... I think we have to go back to how the sport is promoted ... And since this is an update on teh topic, we can look at the new USATF mascot as typical of the problem with promotion with this sport !!!
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Last edited by Conway on Sat Jan 18, 2003 5:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Dan
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 10:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that's a very valid observation. The field events are unlikely to be highly popular in this country regardless of measurement units, and other than some commentators' insistence on calling the 1500m "the metric mile," there's really no reason for running events to be confused by the metric system.

Quote:
Looat would haked at whve to be changed ...

Um, care to translate? Smile

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 3:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd have to agree with both of you. I'm good with the metric system for really short (converting a few cm's into a few inches) and very long distance (duh, I'm a distance guy km's and miles are no problem for me). but for me to try and watch field events that are measured in meters I need the conversion chart from the Big Green Book. And really how many Joe Track fans are going to go to that trouble.
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Dan
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's easy to roughly convert a distance event and be good enough, but that just doesn't cut it with the shorter metric distances common to many, if not all, of the field events.

Reminds me of my first Physics professor in college (worst teacher of any sort imaginable) who was famous for making things extra complicated and impossible to remember after the fact by trying to over-simplify; one of his favorite lines was, "Pi = 3 = e". Close enough for government work, right? Confused

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Indeurr
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There have to be well announced meets with a lot of fun. Just a good lively announcer, pro-boxing style, could change it.
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 7:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, here's my two cents....I rarely heard about track and field, running, or anything related other than the Philly or Boston Marathon, until I started running. What does that tell ya? It had alway's seemed to me to be a school or olympic activity. Most other sports are contact..or two teams directly against each other. Is that the problem?? OK, now I will step back into the shadows and let you experts debate Laughing
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