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

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?

Get a qualification voucher if you finish top 3 that you can redeem another year (in the case injury/sickness/slow start/etc)?

Skip first set of rounds if you win DL final?

Pay more? Lol

In the long run, our sport would be better served if we could have the DL finals, or some other meet, break from the pack in prestige as a second big outdoor meet of the year.

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. And hold bake sales for uniforms and plane tickets, for example.

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.

Some how penalize athletes who don't compete at least x amount of times per year.

said it a million times already, but since you ask: all qualifying for champs should be on the basis of seasonal form lists by a certain deadline, say 2 weeks prior. Top 8 for sprints and 800, top 12 for 1500, top 15 for steeple and 5000.

Only the very best will be able to put down a safe qualifier, such as a 3:29 1500, and then just hide the rest of the time. For everyone else, it will be like a throwing event. Who is confident enough to take three throws instead of six? Everyone will have incentive to compete often enough to get their best possible performance out there. Then there will be a meaningful season.

Bad Wigins wrote:

said it a million times already, but since you ask: all qualifying for champs should be on the basis of seasonal form lists by a certain deadline, say 2 weeks prior. Top 8 for sprints and 800, top 12 for 1500, top 15 for steeple and 5000.

Only the very best will be able to put down a safe qualifier, such as a 3:29 1500, and then just hide the rest of the time. For everyone else, it will be like a throwing event. Who is confident enough to take three throws instead of six? Everyone will have incentive to compete often enough to get their best possible performance out there. Then there will be a meaningful season.

Wouldn't everyone just save their peak for the last meet before worlds then?

have beer at meets that seems to the what people here think will solve all the problems of track in the USA. Sell beer

Not sure what dan be done and also understand that worlds are super late this year but they kind of did this last year and it back fired. Shelby races a fair amount in the early/middle part of the season then took a huge break leading into the DL final and wasn’t as sharp.

This is not a BTC issue, just a symptom of a MUCH larger issue. The athletes never race anymore. It use to be a meet or two a week with one being a bigger DL level event and maybe another smaller meet where the athlete would race "off" distance.

I hardly ever see Americans compete. It's like they hide out and train and post photos of their latest workout or post workout beverage. Apparently, posting on IG is more valuable than racing these days. If they aren't posting their latest meal creation they're taking some photo of themselves next to their car or in a swimsuit.

If they do race it's usually a trumped up time trial where they fly in/out from their altitude camp. Sorry if I can't get excited for some mile only meet or road mile. Please get out and race in a real meet!

If this is the new age of track then no wonder I find bike racing more interesting to watch these days. The summer of cycling is full of Grand Tours or other Classics or small multi-day stage events. I get to see the various cyclist and learn about them watching day by day.

Imagine if the best NFL players or other sport stars only played every 3-4 weeks (if that). People would stop watching and lament the same things I am. There's really no mystery while track viewing is on the decline. It parallels the same lack of participation by our top athletes.

I definitely think they should be racing more if not injured of course. We train to race right? I agree with Salazar in doing two peaks a year whether thats indoors or cross and then outdoors. 1-2 races a month shouldn’t be an issue you would think. I understand not wanting to travel a lot. But if they all medal at worlds he is a genius right?

Easy, become a real pro sport with pro tour contracts that doesn't depend wholly or primarily on endorsement sponsorships.

There are only really two things people care about in T&F right now, money and championships.

In T&F the biggest events are the world championships and the olympics. They should allow more of the top ranked athletes automatic entries into the world championships and olympics, and those athletes should get precedence over the national selection processes.

Monetary incentives would help too but there's just less money in T&F. The winner at a Diamond League meet gets $10,000. Winning the final is worth $50,000. The LOSERS of the first round at the US Open (tennis) gets $58,000 (and there are 64 of them), the winners get at least $100,000 (and there are 64 of them). There's just no comparison.

I think tennis is doing a really great job right now. Top athletes get automatic entries into grand slams, they get money for playing, money for winning... You've got the occasional Kyrgios but that's the exception to the rule.

Maybe the first thing is to make it watchable. The Americans need better announcers.

Also, the interesting events need to be sold better. The 800 and 1500m should be the most entertaining races for viewers.

Late for a run, good luck.

David S wrote:

The LOSERS of the first round at the US Open (tennis) gets $58,000 (and there are 64 of them), the winners get at least $100,000 (and there are 64 of them). There's just no comparison.

I think another important point is how the losers in tennis and other sports are still rewarded (just to a lesser degree). In most races you get something for being top 3 and that's it, if you're 4th and below it's nothing. This creates an environment where there's not much point in racing if you aren't: a) in shape to win, b) in need of a time standard, or c) obligated by a sponsor. On top of that, poor racing can be mentally and physically taxing and may even trigger reduction clauses in your contract. Ours is the only sport where practice can actually win out over the game itself. Imagine if an NBA or Premier League team said "we'll just forfeit this game because we need to practice instead." That's essentially what many of our top pros do regularly and the worst part is it makes total sense for them do it.

No entry standards for the top two Americans at every mid-d/distance event, and 10 meters/lap head start.

Harambe wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

said it a million times already, but since you ask: all qualifying for champs should be on the basis of seasonal form lists by a certain deadline, say 2 weeks prior. Top 8 for sprints and 800, top 12 for 1500, top 15 for steeple and 5000.

Only the very best will be able to put down a safe qualifier, such as a 3:29 1500, and then just hide the rest of the time. For everyone else, it will be like a throwing event. Who is confident enough to take three throws instead of six? Everyone will have incentive to compete often enough to get their best possible performance out there. Then there will be a meaningful season.

Wouldn't everyone just save their peak for the last meet before worlds then?

Risk it all on just one attempt? Nobody's that sure of their peak, except that 3:29 runner maybe. And even that runner won't gamble with jet lag, food poisoning, or a plain old bad day.

Let's continue with the tennis/golf comparison. I like watching tennis. Some of the Grand Slam finals have been among the greatest sporting events I've ever seen (especially Federer vs. Djokovic this year and Fed vs. Nadal back in 2008). But do I watch much tennis outside of the Slams? No. I'm not going to turn on network TV and see non-Slam tennis on a Sunday afternoon. And I'm probably not going to seek out a typical tennis tournament. But I know that all of the big names are going to be competing at Wimbledon or the French Open.

Golf's TV situation is a lot better than tennis--at a bare minimum the PGA Tour is on network TV just about every weekend. And sometimes there's senior or women's events. You can bet I'll be watching the Masters, and I like golf enough that if I'm home on a Sunday afternoon (and it's not NFL season), I'll probably watch. But am I going to watch every weekend? Not unless it's a major or maybe The Players or the Tour Championship.

It's unrealistic to expect all the big stars of T&F to show up to every DL meet. There's just too many, the meets are all over the world, and the athletes are from all over the world. But imagine having three huge events each year, plus the WC or Olympics. (Oh, and just hold Worlds every non-Olympic year.) If you could have every top athlete involved (with no limits to 3-4 athletes per country), the meets could be even better than Worlds. Rotate the host sites--have one event in the Americas, one in Europe, and one in Asia. If four majors (including Worlds/Olympics) is too many to peak for, then maybe just have three. You need to build something over time that will attract all the best athletes and develop name recognition with the casual sports fan. A lot of people have heard of Wimbledon or the Masters. Maybe 3% of Americans could tell you that the Diamond League is a set of track & field meets. And that's probably a high estimate.

tl;dr: just have 3-4 big meets a year and let everything else sort itself out.

i want grand slams wrote:

tl;dr: just have 3-4 big meets a year and let everything else sort itself out.

Prior to the Diamond League, we had the Golden League which was only 4 meets a year, but athletes still competed or did not compete in a bunch of stuff.

A problem for track compared to Golf and Tennis is there is only 1 "major" a year. I'm not sure how we get to the 4 a year golf and tennis have.

But both golf and tennis require their athletes to compete more often throughout the year. I think 15 events a year are required for the PGA Tour. So sure you and I only care about the majors, but if Tiger (who gets out of the 15 event a year requirement) is playing some random tournament I'd watch if I'm flipping the TV. We need our stars competing more than twice a year.

People are using the wrong comparison sports. Track is much different from tennis, golf, football, etc because of the importance and benefit from properly peaking and the detriment from racing too often.

A runner who races less will have an advantage over a runner who races less and when the compensation in running is so top heavy it means runners have incentives to race less.

What running needs in order to get people to compete more is some sort of racing league where with a huge payout to the overall winner designed so that the runners need to consistently race to o have a chance at winning. That way all of the runners are equally disadvantaged for racing frequently (which means relatively they aren’t disadvantaged at all).

Something like a 10 race series where 1st of each race gets 10 points, 2nd gets 9 points etc. Person with the most points at the end wins the big pot.

You could either have a big pot for each distance, change the distance everyone has to run every week, or host the usually smattering of races and award points equally in each race and let athlete s pick the race they want to run at each meet (and if an athlete doubles let them be eligible for double points)

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