Damn The Required Perks..........

[gh]

Not ironic at all: who ever said participation = fandom? Kids playing soccer outnumber kids playing football by what, 10 to 1? Yet the fandom rate is that reversed.

Runners, in particular, seem to tend to be interested in their own running and not that of anybody else.

[tafnut]

The bitterest irony is that T&F is the third most popular HS sport to participate in. So we SHOULD have a built-in audience, that all we have to do is keep interested. But we don't. Is that impossible, or is there a way to keep that spark kindled?

[gh]

why aren't we sellin' this sport well enough. I know peeps at USATF and the NCAA track committee are doing what they can, but figure this: The NCAA Lacrosse Champs drew 45 thousand people to the Linc in Philly. That is is a sport that was once relegated to one region (east coast) and didn't even have stands. Now, West coast schools are considering LAX programs. What is it that sports like Lacrosse and college baseball are doing that track and field isn't.

The simple answer--and one that people hate to hear--is that team sports are inherently (much) more exciting to the average sports fan. They're easy to understand, happen in a nice tight timeframe, and require a rooting interest for one single entity. Track is a tough sell to most people.

[einnod23]

Gary, I tossed out the possiblity of NY as a venue for these events. As you would say, very little interest.

But lack of interest has to beg the question.......why aren't we sellin' this sport well enough. I know peeps at USATF and the NCAA track committee are doing what they can, but figure this: The NCAA Lacrosse Champs drew 45 thousand people to the Linc in Philly. That is is a sport that was once relegated to one region (east coast) and didn't even have stands. Now, West coast schools are considering LAX programs. What is it that sports like Lacrosse and college baseball are doing that track and field isn't.

New York meet or not, I've only made suggestions as to how increase exposure for this sport. I know I'm a pest on here. Peace.

[gh]

You keep ignoring the big (make that HUGE) factor that big track meets can only go where people bid to have them come. In the NCAA's case a school must make a formal application, and in the USATF's, some local organizing committee has to. Very few cities ever apply, particularly for the latter.

In the NCAA's case, the NCAA has decided that baseball (collegiate) has become a huge success because it stays in one place. So it decided on a 3-year experiment of leaving the meet at one site, to see if any kind of following could be built. Two schools, Texas and Sacramento (which, perhaps not coincidentally, had hosted the two previous editions of the meet) said they were interested. Only two.

I know you want a meet in NYC, but nobody there is willing to bid for either nationals at this point, plain and simple. It's not the fault of USATF or the NCAA.

[einnod23]

OK,

Let me go back to my original argument.....that it is a problem if a Nationals, NCAA's or OT's are held in one or two venues every year.

Forget about perks. How about travel? Is it fair that every year, folks in the host region can bus to the venue, while folks in another have to fly??????? Has anyone ever thought of that issue??????

[The Kitchen Cynic]

Would someone please tell me more about this IAAF certification requirement of a practice track and how it relates to Icahn. It's my understanding that there is no track there at all, other than the one in the stadium. If that's the case, how did they get the certification?

[MJR]

The problem with your complaint is that you're bringing up this issue in regards to the one meet (OT) where it is financially secure and does get the attendance numbers, sponsorship $ and the other stuff that can allow for these things to happen without them being perks. Now, if this stuff was made a requirement to host the USATF East Regional Club Champs, then it would be way out of line and you would be correct. In this case, these are not perks, but are necessary items to assure that our athletes are properly prepared to step onto the Olympic stage and perform at their best. If we are not doing these things for them, we are being negligent in our duties, plain & simple.

[einnod23]

ps--a "warmup track" is not a perk. These are professional athletes we're talkign about here, and you don't just find a piece of rutty cow pasture for them to warm up on. The sport has moved on. Note that the OT bids had Eugene and Sacto dueling not only over warmup tracks, but also over PRACTICE tracks (since the warmup track is meant to be open only to competitors who are competing that day).

Gary, I understand this, and I am as pro athlete as it gets. But when a sport is at a stage of either going under or finding it difficult to stage a meet, athletes must be able to give concessions.

Three examples,
1) remember the late 70s and early 80s when the NBA was going bankrupt. The players back then gave a lot of concessions, (such as agree to a salary cap).
2) Here in New York, we had a big fiscal crisis in the 1970s. One of the unions that made concessions instrumental in getting the city out of it was the Teachers.
3) Or how 'bout now with GM, where the union conceded to a cut in its health care benefits.

All three examples had one thing in common: Each entity was in danger of going under (ok, not GM). And what about athletics in the US????? Outside of Penn and Texas relays, people don't want to even go near your average track meet. So if the athletes can't go without a warmup track for the next couple of years, then so what??? Just remember, the three examples above are faaaaaaaaaar worse than going without an autorake!!!!!!!

[Cooter Brown]

Just curious, does the warmup track have to be a regulation 400m oval? Will a 10-lane 100m straightaway suffice? a 200m oval?

[bad hammy]

So it looks like Korea leads with 5 (!) Class 1 certs.

[MJR]

GH said "I have no idea if any other U.S. tracks are IAAF-certified..."

There is a list of currently IAAF certified facilities here:
http://www.iaaf.org/newsfiles/29293.pdf

The US has one Level 1 and two Level 2 facilities as of 10/1/05.

The certification procedures are here:
http://www.iaaf.org/newsfiles/19735.pdf

[gh]

Let's see if in fairly short fashion I can't clarify what is and isn't an acceptable track.

The IAAF in the last couple of years started a protocol whereby if you were to host an IAAF sponsored event (be it as big as the World Champs or as small as GP II meet on the summer circuit) that you had to have your facility IAAF-certified. This includes not only basics such as making sure that the track is actually 400m around, etc., but also that basic facilities (x runways, y circles) are in place. I gather it's not a cheap process, costing the hosts at least $10,000 to have done.

When Icahn was completed in NYC last year, they trumpted it as the only U.S.-certified track, and I have no reason to doubt it. I know that Eugene and Stanford (hosts of GP meets) were in the process, and have no reason to think they didn't finish it. And maybe Portland did too, since they had a GP meet the year before. I have no idea if any other U.S. tracks are IAAF-certified. Unless they're going to host an IAAF meet, there seems little reason to do so, since the IAAF places no requirement on a crtified track being required as the site for an OG/WC qualifying mark.

Thread originator einnod23, in saying "damn the perks" made this point about sites hosting the Nationals/OT:
<<So what if the sport doesn't have a warmup track, automatic long jump rakes or luxury boxes. Take this sport on tour, build popularity, and maybe you will get more tracks built around the US with those amenities.>>

The normal nationals and the OT need to be treated as different entities for purposes of this discussion. This is a meet which--as we have recently seen--is fiercely fought for. To get it, people will up the ante. So even if warmup tracks, automatic long jump rakes and luxury boxes aren't built into the basic bid form, if somebody CAN offer that, they will offer that. The perks that Eugene will provide to host the meet in '08 are so far over the top compared to '80 (their last hosting). So yes, in that sense, you do have to have perks.

The other three nationals are a different story. Two of those are in WC years and finding a site to host a WC Trials doesn't seem to be too tough. Finding anybody willing to host the off-year is another matter. As we have seen from the two most recent off-years, '02 and '06, it would seem that to get the '03 and '07 bids (as Stanford and Indy did) you have to agree to take on the loser of an off-year meet as well.

Still, people aren't exactly beating the door down to host the non-OT meets. Financially, it's a tough nut to crack. So USATF will settle for far less in the perks department. That help?

ps--a "warmup track" is not a perk. These are professional athletes we're talkign about here, and you don't just find a piece of rutty cow pasture for them to warm up on. The sport has moved on. Note that the OT bids had Eugene and Sacto dueling not only over warmup tracks, but also over PRACTICE tracks (since the warmup track is meant to be open only to competitors who are competing that day).

[tandfman]

didn't Indy host the Pam Am's in the 1990's?

1987

[gh]

Neither the World University Games nor the Pan-Ams are run under the aegis of the IAAF.