Halleljuah: Budapest has already sold 300,000+ tickets for Worlds. Eugene attendance was 146,033.

Could the fact that its IN FREAKING EUROPE have something to do with it? Also why am I not surprised that this site is masturbating to a fascist country like HUngary.

Seems appropriate to put this in.

I think she was a middle-distance runner...
(The translation wasn't clear).
Could be a budding stately hero.
International competition in a year.
She was a good enough reason for a party...
(Well, you couldn't keep up on a hard track mile)
While she ran a perfect circle.
And she wore a perfect smile
In Budapest... hot night in Budapest.

Budapest's population is 1.7 million. Eugene's is 176,000. If you toss Springfield into the mix you've got about 240,000 people living near enough to Hayward Field that they can go to the meet without needing a hotel room. Attendance of 146,000 is more than half the population of the area. Budapest will need to sell about 800,000 tickets to have proportionally good attendance. I thought from the day Eugene was awarded Worlds it was a mistake because Eugene is just too small and too remote to get the kind of attendance a meet like Worlds deserves.

Easy enough to commute from Portland metro. Bump those population numbers up. Eugene was a failure.

Eastern Europe, and especially Eastern Bloc (former Soviet satellite countries), have a HUGE track/field fan following. Back in the USSR era they had very few state-approved media they could watch on TV which involved interaction with Western countries. Track was one of the approved sports they could watch (because the Eastern Bloc usually dominated --- i.e.. GDR) and everyone was watching it. There's still residue from that era and people are craving for it but we typically never think about Hungary, Latvia, Romania, and other former Soviet states when it comes to track viewership.

Yes, I'd say Eugene was predestined to fail because of location and population size. If you add Portland to the head count you're up to about 800,000, about half of Budapest's number.

I disagree.

A silver lining at least from that disaster is that we're spared the "track town" nonsense they were pushing.

I got the last 5 evenings ticket for 200 euors total and hostel cost of 100 euors. 300 euros isn't too bad for seeing world championshop

Is any country that protects their own people a fascist country to the deranged?

That’s the price for the Ritz Carlton .

Eugene used to get 20,000 for Olympic Trials

my missed my mistake you meant total price.

Under $200 a night is way cheaper than Eugene and much less than what you’ll pay in Paris.

but if you want under $100 a night Airbnb

LRC: “I don’t understand why track isn’t more popular? It makes me sad that people do not appreciate how amazing track athletes are. I really wish that track had big events in the USA and more television exposure.”

Also LRC: “Hayward sucks! Eugene is a cow town with crappy hotels! Icahn Stadium in NYC totally craps the bed! Sound Running uses frikkin high schools! American TV coverage sucks! USATF sucks! Max sucks! Americans don’t race enough! Flotrack sucks! I sure as hell am not paying more than $5 to watch a live meet or to stream it! They’re all doped up anyway! I heard that there was a homeless camp and graffiti within ten miles of the stadium so track is not safe for my white family!”

Eugene might have gotten crowds of about that size for U of Oregon dual meets when there were such things. When the "Track Town" label was becoming a thing and more and more "big" national events were staged there, there was always a question as to whether people in the Eugene area were general track fans or specifically U of O track fans. Yes, Olympic Trials and various national meets drew comparably well to specific U of O meets but Oregon athletes were always well represented at such meets. I think what we may have learned about Eugene is that lots of track fans there are more U of O track fans than overall fans of the sport.

It's going to be a great championship. Can't wait!

How does the same few thousand people attending over and over again count to 100k+ attendance? By that logic there was more than a million at the Woodstock hippie fest.

Sad to say that there's only one major T&F meet. It's every 4 years. The Olypmics.

Nothing new. Europeans have always loved and supported track and field, like Miley says, 'we won't stop' ;-)