My experience is that the general population assumes that the only people who would watch a track meet or road race are people who know someone in the race. If that is the assumption, then it an obstacle to creating a larger fan base. How does the sport get non-runners to cheer on runners? As stated by others, promoting athletes is one way, a start.
A circuit would be a great idea, what still troubles me, especially for distance athletes, is that he had stated before that he wants to shorten the usatf outdoor champs to 5 days. There is a reason that the olympics and world championships are over a week long, there needs to be down time and recovery time for the athletes. 800 and 1500 runners doubling and 5/10k runners doubling will be pressed even more with a shortened schedule. Running on a pro level is alot more intense than running in the ncaa outdoors which are 4 days long, I forget how long exactly. There is a difference between meets and events taking too long because of inefficiency and taking a long time because of the need for athletes to recover.
I completely agree with John Borman. It's just like any other sport, when people get to feeling like they know the athletes, they really get into it.
one thing i might agree with from a spectators standpoint is having a sponsored series with athletes competin in X number of meets in that series. It would make the sport easier to follow for newcomers especially. the problem is still getting the media coverage though.
about cleaning up the sport and no one wants to watch athletes who are or maybe on drugs, is bull millions of people watch football and baseball every year.
I think we need to analyze what made running so big in the 60's and 70's. Back then a great percentage of the US population ran whether for fitness or competitively. Today if I see someone running I'm surprised, like if it was a person from a different country.
To get to the point people who don't understand what running is about will not invest in running
@Borman: stars mustn't not solely be promoted, they have to perform... how many races ran Bolt and Gay and even head2head this year? How many games does a MLB or NBA athlete play... Compare that... Athletes will be on ESPN if they race in packed stadiums... how many toplevel track facilities are there in the USA?
Explaining friends on track and field... they should read that in SI or even NY Times... and when to these papers write about our sport... when the athletes perform on a regular basis...
Just some thoughts.
In my opinion, give Logan a go on reforming t&f;into a sport that is visable.. on tv, in papers, 4 sponsors...
What pro running... those few simple soles who get a decent living out of it? Not everybody gets paid like Ryan Hall...
Ryan Thalman and Rnn1ngf00l also got some nice points...
it kind of sounds like he is trying to bring back the AAU, which was the worst thing for the sport and thank god prefontaine, bowerman, and US Congress stopped them
The more I hear Mr. Logan, the more I think he will take track and field in the wrong direction if he mattered. But I don't think he does. The shoe company's have control right now and until money can be brought in by something else, it will keep control. Personally, I think if the stars are promoted more, people will start watching. More stories on ESPN during Sports Center and other sport shows. Have the top runners go on the morning news talk shows. The more that the non-runners see the great stories out there and the great runners out there, the more interest on how they do. I talked to my friends that don't run about Brian Sell and his story. One of them decided we should have a little party at my place to watch the Olympic Marathon. I was the only runner there and explained the stories of the three and the other runners in the field. They loved it. People want to know about the athletes they are watching. Places like Flotrack do that. But more needs to be done on getting the runners known. Flotrack should send a lot of the videos to ESPN or some other channel and see if they think a series is in the making.
It is great to actually hear from USA Track and Field. We should hear from them more often in this format. That is how Obama won the election. If you want the Track and Field community to rally around the issues in Track and Field, lets continue more of these types of discussions.
As far as the American public and drug use. If the sport is really popular enough, they don't care and they still watch it. The only other sports in recent history to really have a severe dip in popularity were baseball and hockey, and both of those were because of player union strikes. People still get excited about LT, even though he failed a drug test. They still pay millions of dollars to AROD, McGuire, Sosa, etc even though they all took drugs. (on a side note, until an organization puts a clause in contracts saying that they can cancel the contract if the player is dirty, none of that will change).
I like the idea of the track series that gets athletes to compete regularly in a head to head fashion. Not only will it improve the publicity, I think that the opportunity cost of the regular competition is, as he said will be met by the rewards of the popularity (and monetarily in the prizes for competing, not just the punishments for not opting into the series).
Now, what would happen if they said that if you didn't appear in the series that you couldn't run in the National Champs/Oly Trials? Could they do that? I don't see people being happy with that.
Having a track and field series is the best idea he's had since getting this job. I think the PGA system is a great model and gives athletes freedom to pursue things like USA XC Championships, European meets, smaller domestic meets, etc but at the end of the day gives the athlete a system to belong to. I think the next step would be to set up more variety on the track, too. Nobody wants to look at the same uniforms strung across the line. Lets get the sponsors to give kits based on achievements or training groups. There is no reason Lagat and Webb should wear the same thing, they have nothing to do with each other other than being under the same shoe company. It would be like if Nike sponsored two basketball teams and gave them the same uniforms with different names across the front, it just doesn't make sense to outfit everyone the same.
no one wants to watch drug cheats?!?!? this guy is ed, i know his old ass was alive when mark and sammy were doing the homerun derby in the early 2000's. Thats the only time i watched baseball!
Ok Mr. Logan said that Track and field has been passed up compared to other pro sports, and that if one was too look back in the past like the 60's 70', and 80's Track was just so big as a sport. But Mr. Logan doesn't realize that well if track was so big back then, why weren't athletes contracts and careeer earning brought up then? Um IDK maybee because knowone over our sport cared enough to put it out there!!!! He says that right now his business is cleaning up the sport from it's tainted drug use because knowone wants to see a sport that there thinking people our cheating in. You wanna know what I think, LOL about it. Look a MLB um people having been thinking athletes in that sport have been cheating for years!!!! and yet I can still turn the TV to ESPN everyday and there showing manny ramirez turning down yet another 15 million dollar contract and what player is being traded or who hit another homerun. Come on Mr. Logan you have to have a bigger excuse than that. People don't care about the drugs, deal with that in the inner circle of the business. But still you have too show the glitz and glammer of our sport or there won't be one!!!!!!!!! If you need help I can be reached at Thanks!!!!
With regards to having a series, I just wanted to mention an example of what might work out. I compete in orienteering during the winter. Orienteering is the sport of cross country navigation. The club that I participate in has a winter series of 7 season meets followed by a championship meet. Each participant competes in as many meets as they want but only their top 4 finishes count towards season points. The points are awarded as follows: 1st=100pts, 2nd=95pts, 3rd=92, 4th=90, 5th=89, 6th=88, etc. There is a season champion declared at the end as well as a championship meet champion.
USATF CEO, Doug Logan, continues his conversation with Mark from Flotrack about business and the sport of track and field. Logan talks about the public awareness of professional athletes in our spor. February 10, 2009
Track Athletes = Pros
one thing i might agree with from a spectators standpoint is having a sponsored series with athletes competin in X number of meets in that series. It would make the sport easier to follow for newcomers especially. the problem is still getting the media coverage though.
To get to the point people who don't understand what running is about will not invest in running
Explaining friends on track and field... they should read that in SI or even NY Times... and when to these papers write about our sport... when the athletes perform on a regular basis...
Just some thoughts.
In my opinion, give Logan a go on reforming t&f;into a sport that is visable.. on tv, in papers, 4 sponsors...
What pro running... those few simple soles who get a decent living out of it? Not everybody gets paid like Ryan Hall...
Ryan Thalman and Rnn1ngf00l also got some nice points...
I like the idea of the track series that gets athletes to compete regularly in a head to head fashion. Not only will it improve the publicity, I think that the opportunity cost of the regular competition is, as he said will be met by the rewards of the popularity (and monetarily in the prizes for competing, not just the punishments for not opting into the series).
Now, what would happen if they said that if you didn't appear in the series that you couldn't run in the National Champs/Oly Trials? Could they do that? I don't see people being happy with that.
visit this link to learn more about orienteering: http://www.us.orienteering.org/