Reason 9,876 Track and Field will never be popular again

[donley2]

http://www.thesportsexaminer.com/
I agree with the big majority of this article.

[DJG]

The IOC and IAAF-WA are more responsible for the sports health than this writer suggests.
The World Championships should be held every year - a two year break is not conducive
to holding anyone's interest.
The IOC brass bankrupt the host cities while wining and dining themselves -and making millions for themselves- and then leave the host city to deal with all the problems when they move their traveling party to the next host city. The Olympic spirit will suffer along with global trade. And every time the IOC adds another sport, track and field suffers along with the other sports.

[Tuariki]

An on track and off track and off track betting regime would, IMO, see TnF have a massive world wide following.

In the 1960s New Zealand introduced an on track betting scheme for horse racing. To win you had to pick every winner, usually 10 races, and you had to be at the horse track.

If no winner then the takings jack-potted. It was stopped when it jack-potted so massively that the crowds got too big and the local towns and tracks couldn’t cope.

IMO, it would be easy to design a betting regime that would be “cheat free”. Just don’t let the D/L Fantasy Game programmers do it.

[einnod23]

Penn Relay attendance is in decline, folks! NEVER, until recently, was there ever a thought of the NFL Draft or a Jazz Festival, or anything else, in Philly the last weekend in April!

I'm starting to ask this Penn question, now: What if they gave a track meet, and even the Jamaicans stop coming?

[DJG]

Penn Relay attendance is in decline, folks! NEVER, until recently, was there ever a thought of the NFL Draft or a Jazz Festival, or anything else, in Philly the last weekend in April!

I'm starting to ask this Penn question, now: What if they gave a track meet, and even the Jamaicans stop coming?

1). Attendance figures at Penn are about as reliable as those at (select your) State Fair.
2) if they hold a TRACK MEET, it will be a first.....they hold a cash-cow festival, and now the cow is running low on milk.

[Trickstat]

The World Championships should be held every year - a two year break is not conducive
to holding anyone's interest.

I'm not 100% convinced that would work as well as you might think. Assuming that you wouldn't consider having a WCs in Olympic year you would be increasing the number of Champs by 50% and this would require 50% more places to host them. For the prize money to remain at a similar level the revenue per Champs would have to remain by and large the same and I'm not sure whether that would be the case in reality or whether each WC would be slightly diminished as perhaps more athletes might opt to skip them.

[user4]

As old as I am, and im pretty old, Im still too young to realize how far track had fallen ... it wasnt until I watched those old Brit newsreel videos of packed stadium stands during some obscure track meet in 1955 that the truth came into focus.

I agree with DJG, certainly a WC-like meet every year is essential.

[cladthin]

The IOC and IAAF-WA are more responsible for the sports health than this writer suggests.
The World Championships should be held every year - a two year break is not conducive
to holding anyone's interest.
The IOC brass bankrupt the host cities while wining and dining themselves -and making millions for themselves- and then leave the host city to deal with all the problems when they move their traveling party to the next host city. The Olympic spirit will suffer along with global trade. And every time the IOC adds another sport, track and field suffers along with the other sports.

Agreed-increasing public awareness and interest in the sport is NOT aided by becoming less relevant/reducing exposure for an entire year. If not an Olympic year there should be a WC held.

[DJG]

As old as I am, and im pretty old, Im still too young to realize how far track had fallen ... it wasnt until I watched those old Brit newsreel videos of packed stadium stands during some obscure track meet in 1955 that the truth came into focus.

I agree with DJG, certainly a WC-like meet every year is essential.

Agreed-increasing public awareness and interest in the sport is NOT aided by becoming less relevant/reducing exposure for an entire year. If not an Olympic year there should be a WC held.

I am wondering what attendance/ticket sales will be in DoHa? Can't imagine the average Track fan is thrilled with the location.

[CookyMonzta]

The World Championships should be held every year - a two year break is not conducive to holding anyone's interest.

How will you stagger all of those off-year regional championships? In the off-year, we have the Commonwealth Games, Euro Champs and Asian Games. I would think that the Pan-American Games should be moved to the off-year.