Growing the Sport

Can the USATF Do More?

 

by Paul Michel

 

With a World Championship year in track & field nearly upon us, one can't help but get excited about what is in store the next several months across the U.S.  As always, there are several marquee meets to be held on American soil this spring, i.e., The Texas, Penn, Drake and Mt. Sac Relays, Stanford Invite, Prefontaine Classic, USA Champs, etc.

 

Too bad you probably won't see any of them.

 

Ask any track & field fan across the country what their biggest frustration with the sport is, and you will probably hear something about the  absence of our sport on television.  In what has unfortunately bypassed the point of utter frustration for most fans to become just an accepted state of affairs, there is just no track on television in this country.  

 

Look at the USATF schedule of upcoming televised coverage, and you will find four track meets ... in the next five months.  FOUR! Penn Relays, The Nike Pre Classic,  Adidas Grand Prix, and USA Championships.  That is it.  It is so frustrating to be a track & field fan in this country, and one has to wonder if the USATF does enough to actively promote the sport and its many great athletes.

 

Keep in mind that in terms of number of participants at the high school and collegiate level, track & field and cross country rank in the top 3 in the U.S. every single year.  Furthermore, there are hundreds of thousands of runners every year competing in different forms of road racing.  It is difficult for me to accept that there is just not an audience interested in watching our sport.  

 

A further frustration is the quality of the coverage, when there does happen to be a meet on television.  Any fan in this country will rant about the sub-par coverage of any televised track & field meet.  As unfortunate as it is too admit, meets on television are usually tremendously boring.  Even the most avid track & field fans can find little entertainment value in the televised product usually presented.  It can be infuriating having nearly every distance event ever televised being cut away in its majority to either go to a commercial break (or several) or switch to a different event.  This isn't to say that I think that a 10k is realistically going to be aired in its entirety, without advertisements, but can we get more creative with our advertising?  Possibly something along the lines of having banner advertisements running along the bottom of the screen DURING the race, instead of cutting away every few laps?

 

It seems to me that too much of the time the focus is on providing back-stories and interviews with the athletes, often at the expense of watching an ongoing, simultaneous event.  While I do agree that the stars need to be marketed more aggressively, I just don't think it needs to happen at the expense of the actual events.  Why not something like a 15 to 20 minute "pre-game" show, introducing the races and athletes to look out for, providing some interviews, and the like?  Basically, material to properly introduce the event, but once the meet starts, letting the action speak for itself...because that's what people want to watch.  

 

Now I am not necessarily blaming the USATF solely for these shortcomings.  I realize that the revenue brought in by the major sports in this country (by ticket sales, memorabilia, television contracts, advertising opportunities, etc.) dwarfs that of track & field.  It's unrealistic to think that the American public is going to watch track & field like they do football, baseball and basketball.  But why can't we push to get track & field to live permanently somewhere outside of the major networks or ESPN?  Somewhere like Versus.  They cover not only cycling, but bull riding, hunting and fishing.  Fishing for goodness' sake!  If track & field isn't more interesting to the masses than fishing, than I guess I just give up.

 

Outside of (a lack of) television coverage, the overall promotion of our spectacular athletes seems to be lacking.  

 

Our athletes need to be promoted also as entertainers.  Look at what Lance Armstrong did for cycling.  He became a household name that people felt they could relate to and wanted to follow and root for.  He was the biggest factor in promoting and popularizing cycling in this country for a decade.  Not only his sporting successes, but his promotion in the media propelled him (and his sport) to new heights.

 

The major sports in this country absolutely get it.  Star athletes are what make their respective sports popular.  Think of the NBA.  Athletes like Kobe, Lebron, Dwyane Wade, etc. are promoted like crazy.  More than star players, they've become global icons and celebrities.  And these star players are used to promote competition, interest and rivalries league-wide.     

 

A major problem with track & field in this country is not only a lack of promotion of these stars individually, but the relative absence of these competitive rivalries in the sport.  Fans LOVE rivalries.  They fuel sporting intrigue perhaps more than anything else.  Search out legendary hurdler Edwin Moses' stance on rivalries, the promotion of our sport and the responsibility of the governing body if you don't agree with me.  

 

Having said that, there is probably no real way to successfully promote rivalries within our sport as it is currently constructed, because athletes don't really compete head to head any more.  There is simply nothing in place to make the athletes race each other head to head.  There is no set number of races or specific meets that the USATF deems necessary to attend.  Therefore, athletes will pick the meets they want to attend, most often ones that don't include their biggest rivals, whether by choice or by coincidence.  Whatever the case, the fan rarely gets to see these athletes battle head to head.  For example, one of the main attractions middle-distance running in the 80's had was these immense rivalries (think Steve Scott vs. Steve Cram), often pitting not only runners against each other, but engaging countries into rooting for their respective athletes. 

 

However, as previously stated, there is just no current precedent to make these athletes compete in certain meets against each other.  Can you imagine this scenario in the NBA?  Consider paying for a ticket to go watch the Lakers, but you arrive at the game to learn that Kobe, Gasol and Lamar Odom won't be playing.  They just didn't feel like playing in this particular game.  But don't worry, the backups will be out there playing their hearts out.  Nobody would watch.  This is basically what happened at USA Indoor Champs.  With absolutely no disrespect to the athletes who did compete, the biggest names in the sport (outside of Lagat, Rupp, Simpson (Barringer) and a few others) stayed home.  This happens at so many big meets.

 

Conversely, how neat would it be to have some sort of track & field league, where athletes compete head to head and accrue points for their efforts?  There could be standings, stats, teams (and rivalries), and maybe even a playoff system!  OK, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but the possibilities could be exciting.  As it is currently, we don't know where or when most athletes are racing, and a certain element of dramatic competition has gone by the wayside.

 

More than anything else, it seems that the USATF does an adequate job of looking after the track & field athlete, but could do more to look out for the track & field fan.  When there is no official place to watch the sport we love, outside of independent sources like this site, the fan loses.  The reason sites like Flotrack are so wildly popular is because the track & field fan is thirsting for more coverage.  We are dedicated and passionate fans that just want to see our sport, and receive the best track & field product possible.  The notion that these athletes are also entertainers needs to be more of a priority, and they need to be put in better position to entertain.  

 

For after all, the growth of the sport is not just about upping membership numbers.  It is, as importantly, about selling and promoting the terrific product we have.  One of the biggest challenges the USATF faces is trying to take track & field from solely an "Olympic sport" to a sport that is attractive to Americans all of the time.  It is simply not enough that our sport is relevant every four years.  We have one of the greatest, most storied sports in the world.  We just need to do a better job of showing off.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts about how the sport can be improved in any fashion, or your thoughts in general about the state of the sport/USATF.