Discussion of Week: No Bowerman TC athletes will be at Diamond League finals; what can sport do to make athletes compete more?

Imagine if the London marathon or any other major marathon put country representation ahead of performance when selecting the fields? It would drastically compromise the quality of the race. This is an example why the Diamond League is more important than the WC's.

You can’t have a clean sport and ask people to travel and race as frequently as they do without a little chemical assistance.

Royo, it’s sounds like you want both the cake and the fork

Simple solution: Have professional teams

More complex: Qualifier system for the Olympics/Word Champs that doesn't only involve running ONE fast time

Can you imagine if golf only required one low round to qualify for the US Open? or if tennis only one set? Or football one hail Mary? Whoever came up with a time standard for qualification ruined track.

Frankly, I won't miss Bowerman TC athletes at the DL Final. That group doesn't make or break the sport for me. If anyone has a problem with this, it's Nike, who pays that group to be a marketing machine at major meets. Even then, Nike probably primarily utilizes them for the US market so Doha is not a significant factor in that regard.

Schnellerlaufen wrote:

Surely sponsors have the responsibility and opportunity to make their athletes race? Nike or Adidas could easily put a point in athletes contracts stating that they must race at x events per year or specific diamond leagues.

This not only increases the number of events an athlete competes in, but also gains more exposure for the company because the athlete is wearing their shoes and singlet. Seems like a win win.

Sure they could, but why would they? They race less because that increases their chance of winning when they do race (or at least they think it does)

An athlete that races twice a year and wins is way more valuable to them than an athlete who races 30 times a year and only scratches the top 5.

How much more valuable is kipchoge than yuki?

You need to make racing a lot a requirement to be the big winner if you want to change this.

Most pro tennis players don't seem to think they're on top of the world --

https://www.wsj.com/articles/telling-the-truth-about-tennis-11566849660

(Behind paywall)

I don't know, all of these ideas are better than what we have. I was thinking about them all, and wanted to summarize and add a few.

1 - Money - A couple things here. We need athletes to be able to have MORE sponsors... A Nike kit, with a swoosh... great. But if it was a Nike swoosh, with a few patches from other companies, feel like more sponsors means more pressure to get their names out there. Contracts with requirements for racing. Something. I also like the idea of paid contracts... but I just don' t know if that catches traction.

2 - Meet experience- Need alcohol at meets, not b/c we want alcoholics, it just promotes a social feeling. Think horseracing and some of the parties on the infield. Some of the most fun meets are ones that let people on the track to cheer folks on. Could be dangerous, but enhancing of the TV. Think about cycling and them going up the hills, just surrounded by a wall of sound. Make a meet an experience. Get people to think it's more fun... it really is, but how boring to sit in stands with nothing to drink and dealing with time between races. Gotta give the people SOMETHING to do. You could incorporate gambling... I'm not a big gambler, but seems like a bunch of people are around the world. Could be a good way to waste some time in between races (again like horse racing which can be incredibly dull).

3 - Points - I love the idea of a FedEx Cup for Track. BUT, it's hard. You have all the specialists... it's hard to compare a 100m runner and his/her points and a 10,000m runner and his/her points. What's their competition like? Is it really apples to apples? How do you adjust for that? You can't give $15mm to each even winner. You'd have to come up with a pretty advanced system. Maybe it's calculated by time won. Something like, place and time you beat your competitors by divided by the distance... so you're .0005 faster/m than your nearest competitors... the faster you are, the more points you get. Oh, I love this idea. Let's play it out further...

From Paris DL:

Noah Lyles beat Guliyev by .36 seconds over 200m - that's .0018/m faster

McBride beat Vazquez by .05 seconds over 800m - .0000625/m faster

Warholm beat Vaillant by 1.04 in the 400h - .0026/m faster

So, multiply by like... I don't know, 10000, and you get 26 points for Warholm, 18 points for Lyles, .625 points for McBride. They are all winners, just some more dominant than others. Could be a way to compare them. In addition, this could alter the tactics of races (especially the "boring" distance races some people complain about) to try and dominate them to get more points. I think it's a great idea.

As for the field events... who cares. Just kidding (kind of). You could have a field winner and a track winner I suppose. Maybe something with distance/height... I'm not diving into that one.

4 - Make it local - Isn't everything becoming local? We need more boots on the ground to get meets on the local level, make it more attractive to still compete after college. All comers meets used to be a thing. I did them when I was a kid (note, I'm 36YO). My dad ran with a group of dudes and they did 24 hour relays... sounds like a darn blast. They ran 262 miles over 24 hours... 12 man team that average That's average what... like a 5:30/mile. Pretty cool. I don't even think things like that exist anymore.

Anyway, there you go, my ideas. FWIW

tl;dr - More sponsors putting pressure on showing up, better more fun meet experience, an advance points system that rewards athletic domination in your specialty, local engagement

I think the best way to compare points is to allow the athletes to pick what event they want to run at each meet.

It would add a bit more strategy, sure runner x is better at the 1500, but the competition is stiff and if they don’t race perfectly they will be out of the points, but the same runner could instead race the 3000 with a less competitive field where he knows he won’t win, but will likely be able to get a top 5 without straining himself too much.

Also - to those saying it's because the Olympics and the WC are more important... think.. why are they more important. I can tell you why...

Bc athletes get more sponsorships and money from them. Why? Because they are televised on NBC and major networks and that's how you get sponsors.

With a better product, better marketing, and better exposure, the Olympics will become way less important to the athletes and the sponsors.

Do you really think golfers care THAT much about the Olympics? Heck they just made it there. Can anyone remember who came in 1, 2, 3? I remember first place... but after that, no clue. And do you think it really made a dent in what he earns as a golfer?

We have to think about how to flip the pay away from Olympic performance, and on to more year round, continual performance. If you get major money behind something like that, it could really change things.

IMO.

Let's see if there is any correlation or causation from Diamond League Finals participants and success at the World Championships before we draw any conclusions.

markboen wrote:

Nothing

Money talks, BS walks.

Of course, if you elect Bernie Sanders and change our capitalist economy to a socialist economy, the government would run everyone's lives. That would eliminate corporate sponsorship since the government would now own all the corporations. The government, like China and Russia, could then dole out financial support to athletes and demand they compete more in return for continued financial support.

Seriously educate yourself outside of what your grandaddy told you while you all sat around the TV eating TV-dinners.

What you describe is communism. It is different than socialism, socialism is worker controlled, not state controlled.

Bernie Sanders isn't even advocating for that. He's simply advocating for Universal Healthcare..... so scary.

Think of socialism as introducing democracy to the workplace.

REAL. wrote:

Let's see if there is any correlation or causation from Diamond League Finals participants and success at the World Championships before we draw any conclusions.

Actual results don’t matter, what matter is what the athletes and the coaches think the effect on the results will be.

Even if some skips dl and bombs the worlds, the athletes could simply rationale their choice saying “good thing I skipped dl, or I would have bombed even worse!”

Free_the_thigh wrote:

I think the best way to compare points is to allow the athletes to pick what event they want to run at each meet.

It would add a bit more strategy, sure runner x is better at the 1500, but the competition is stiff and if they don’t race perfectly they will be out of the points, but the same runner could instead race the 3000 with a less competitive field where he knows he won’t win, but will likely be able to get a top 5 without straining himself too much.

I get what you're saying here, but I think some people still get an unfair advantage. I think you say, pick an event, you stick with that event they entire series. You can make them micro series (say 4 meets or something). I get sick of middle distance and distance races where they only race to win, not to push themselves to their absolute limit. This is why Kipchoge is so popular and interesting to people. He is constantly trying to run the FASTEST marathon he can. Does he care about winning? Sure. But when he has a 2 minute lead on someone, he doesn't ease of the pace... he goes for it. We need more people like that. This is why sprinters tend to be a better sell than distance. They PUSH the entire way. I know a 5,000m runner isn't going to sprint the entire thing, but dang, if you're faster than everyone, show you're faster the entire time. Not just the last 200 meters. It's basically coming down to... "Who's fit? Oh, everyone in this race? Ok, then who can sprint the fastest on tired legs for the last 200? Oh, its the same guy as last time." How did Centro win gold? Trained to sprint the last 200-400m. Not to be the fastest 1500 guy... but to be the fastest when it counted in the event.

Ok, I'm tired of ranting... you get the idea.

The biggest “female” athlete in Track is actually a man. Name one other female right now that has a break out personality. McLaughlin? Ok. But where is the rivalry? We know Muhammad has the WR, but there needs to be something else there to generate excitement.

Name one great track athlete besides Noah Lyles on the men’s side that has a great personality. Everybody is just too nice. Nothing these guys are doing is generating excitement. Talk sheet.. Do something crazy. Just do something.

In general, you all ignore that track and field suffers from East African dominance (doping). Nobody in the Western World (white people) cares about 15 look-alike Kenyans running a marathon. It has destroyed interest in the sport. What would be the press interest difference in Europe If you put Ingebritsen vs. Viren vs. Ovett vs. Bedford in a 2 mile or a 2 mile of Kip vs Kip vs Kip vs Kip? Not even close.

The answer is simple:

Finishers medals, tech shirts and beer after the finish.

It's been proven that if you offer these 3 things, your participation numbers go up.

1) An anomaly that the IAAF has a Diamond league that starts in May and a World Champs in October. Long season.

2) Athletes MIGHT want to do what is best to be ready for the Worlds, but some might have a mile world record on their minds (Kejelcha, Hassan), some might believe they earn more Diamond League money than World Champs money (Guliyev, Cherry, Barr), especially if they don't qualify for the World champs team (Cherry).

3) They are PROFESSIONAL athletes, to see them more is up to who pays them. If I guaranteed the top 8 athletes in each event a million for showing up and 8, 7, 6 million etc for their place in a final the week of the World champs, my thinking is that they would be at my meet.

Harambe wrote:

Why can't they just tie some sort of WC/OLY benefit to doing well in DL races?

Auto qualify (in addition to 3 from your country) if you finish top 3 in DL standings?

This is a good idea.

Give the top DL points finisher from each region (Americas, Europe, Africa etc) in the next WC or OG. People will gun for it.

Furthermore the sport will benefit, since world-beaters can't get politicked out of attending the games (which happens, Kenya), or miss out due to injury/illness on trials day (which happens, USA).

Most importantly, it gives the greats a reason to SHOW UP through the actual season.

FFF wrote:

US tax dollars fund the US Olympic team.

Since T&F athletes don't capture public hearts like the women's gymnastics team always does, I suggest we cut funding to T&F on the Olympic level until these people get out in public more.

Great point.

USATF could show some gonadism and say you need to compete minimum 5x/year in a legitimate meet to travel to OG/WC. (DL, nationals, major invitationals.)

Track in the USA has only sold that championship matters.

Well, as a result, American athletes will just focus on championships.

All the big meets are in Europe anyway, and Europe is the heart of the international track.

The USA is just a sideshow.

This is sad for the sport, it is sad for American track fans.

But this is a result when a sport has just sold championships and not the sport.