Tweak the Golden League

[trackstar]

Watching the current Golden League, I have to at least partly agree with HSI's slamming of one of the League's meets: (http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/genera ... _oslo.html)

After Oslo, the jackpot contenders suddenly dwindled to two. And it won't surprise me a bit if there are none before the last meet. As the HSI release states, Allen Johnson might dominate the rest of the League meetings in the 110H and yet not be in contention for the jackpot because he missed Oslo.

My proposal: give a jackpot share to whomever can rack up the most wins. That way, you don't run the risk of the drama being killed before the last meet, while also keeping the incentive to participate in as many meets as possible.

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

You know, it may be pure luck that we've always had a jackpot winner so far. We still may, but the IAAF sure didn't look into the possibility that we wouldn't. It's possible, though, that they DID think of it and wanted to keep the cash for themselves if it happened -- I don't think anyone would have put it past Nebiolo to come up with such a scheme.

[gh]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

While I agree the system needs tweaking, I don't buy Lee's thought that "most wins" should do it. To give the system any real meaning, there has to be a proper point of climax. i.e., they have to win the last meet.

Imagine a series where Athlete X has 6 wins going into the last meet and nobody else has more than 4. So he's guaranteed winner, but has little incentive to compete/compete well at the last one. That's not much of a product to pump to the public.

So I'd say they can allowed to win n-1 (n being whatever the total number of GL meets is) to get the jackpot, with last-meet win being mandatory.

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

Instead, they should award points per place in each event with the GP Final counting double. That would put a lot more athletes in the mix and prevent anyone interested in the pot from ducking a meet, especially the final.

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

Instead, they should award points per place in each event with the GP Final counting double. That would put a lot more athletes in the mix and prevent anyone interested in the pot from ducking a meet, especially the final.

[trackstar]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

>Instead, they should award points per place in
>each event

But wouldn't that just make it identical to the Grand Prix format?

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

Yep. The GP works though, the GL only kinda does.

Maybe you should have a method for subtracting points. That would make it interesting. Injury or not, dock them 10 pts for not showing up, being DQ'd, DNFing, & NHing.

If the field is 9 per event, the bottom 3 places each meet are replaced with an alternate 3 in the next meet.

Maybe your points are based on a combination of place and performance. Thus a 2nd and a 9.90 scores more points than a 1st with 10.20 in another meet.

Maybe have two smaller pots. One for the undefeated champs and another that is for the best average performance across all the GL meets based on the Hungarian tables scores. That way we could in a way compare apples and oranges.

There's tons of scenarios the IAAF could play with to make it more interesting.

[trackstar]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

I think going back to just four meets would be enough. Or maybe the five-of-six concept.

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

Isn't the point of the jackpot to reward an athlete or athletes for their extraordinary performances (winning their event in ALL of the GL meets)? I would suspect that from the IAAF's point of view, the main purpose of the jackpot is to entice the best athletes to compete in all of the meets. Modifying the rules in a way that allows athletes to miss a meet defeats this purpose.

If an athlete is injured or ill and misses a meet, they miss out on the jackpot. If an athlete misses a meet because they aren't being paid enough to appear, then they miss out on the jackpot.

A problem with going to a points system is that it inherently flawed. Under the right circumstances, an athlete who finsishes 2nd and 3rd in each of the meets could conceivably win the jackpot. Does an athlete deserve a share of the jackpot simply because he or she was consistently the 2nd best?

[gh]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

IMHO, the original concept of the Golden 4 (Oslo, Zürich, Brussels, Berlin) was perfect becuase of its simplicity. Finish 1st in four majors and win a pot-o-gold. Period.

Not that 4 is necessarily a magic number, but it's no coincidence that golf (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, PGA) and tennis (Oz Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) have four "majors." Or that horse-racing thrives (or throve) around a Triple Crown.

April track in the U.S. was rarely better than when a significant portion of the country was involved in going for the Midwest Triple Crown of Texas-Kansas-Drake.

Another classic example of keep-it-simple-stupid. No need for bizarre scoring schemes or hit-and-miss opportunuties. Identify the big stuff for the man in the street who otherwise doesn't really follow the sport and ride with it.

[dl]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

Almost everyone I've talked to on the Euro circuit (managers, shoe company types) agree that the Golden 4 was better. Personally, I was able to follow it better. The Golden League seems to drag on and creates a series of cookie-cutter meets that all look the same. It also causes meets like Bislett, which is traditionally a distance-heavy meet, to have a bunch of sprint races. The meet has definitely suffered as a result.

Go back to the Golden 4!

[blacklily]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

>Watching the current Golden League, I have to at
>least partly agree with HSI's slamming of one of
>the League's meets:
>(http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/general/features
>2003/hsi_oslo.html)

After Oslo, the jackpot
>contenders suddenly dwindled to two. And it won't
>surprise me a bit if there are none before the
>last meet. As the HSI release states, Allen
>Johnson might dominate the rest of the League
>meetings in the 110H and yet not be in contention
>for the jackpot because he missed Oslo.

I thought it was in Paris (Gaz de France meet), not Oslo, that the jackpot contenders dramatically decreased to only two people? However, I agree that the Golden League setup should be more simplistic.

[trackstar]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

>I thought it was in Paris (Gaz de
>France meet), not Oslo, that the jackpot
>contenders dramatically decreased to only two
>people?

Yes, that's right -- I just meant that I agree with some of HSI's complaints about the GL format.

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

i agree that there should be only 4 golden league, six or seven is too much. zurich and brussels along with oslo and berlin if the latter two fix their stadiums properly. easy concept like gh said for anyone to follow...

[Guest]

Re: Tweak the Golden League

I'll add my vote to those who are in favor of a simpler setup: winning 4 meets (the biggest) should be the goal for the pot of $$. The problems with any more than 4 are several, including forcing athletes to run when they may not want to, AND creating a boringly similar list of events at nearly every meet. Previously, each meet had a different character and highlighted different events. It's ridiculous, say, for Oslo not to have a 10,000 and a mile every year. The distinctive CHARACTER of each meet really does matter...