Usain Bolt Has Destroyed Market Value of Track Athletes

[croflash]

It's almost gotten to the point where the first criteria for a great meet is not how many stars you were able to hire, but whether Bolt is among those, making him the entire cake instead of the icing. A cake with only one ingridient, as tasty as it might be, is not the one you want to eat.

[rabalac]

like Carl Lewis before him (or like Tiger in golf) he may be bad for the sport overall. At least in the sense of trying to put a meet on: he's bigger than the sport now. He IS the sport, so if you don't have him, you got bupkis.

Gay and Asafa will still make a decent living from the sport, as they are the only viable canditates that can make a "race" (against Bolt) interesting. The rest of the pack may have to take a pay-cut

At the end of the day, you still need 8 runners to fill up all the lanes.

[gh]

Bolt is the subject of the column I wrote for the magazine just before the issue, and in it I make (or attempt to!) the case that like Carl Lewis before him (or like Tiger in golf) he may be bad for the sport overall. At least in the sense of trying to put a meet on: he's bigger than the sport now. He IS the sport, so if you don't have him, you got bupkis.

[jpaule]

Has Usain hurt market value of athletes in 1100m and 200m as well as athletes in other events as well. For example, who is going to pay Asafa huge money when he is no longer a threat to break WR (especially after him dogging it in many of the meets this year. Since Bolt will have to be payed a huge amount of money just to appear at a meet, will that cause a reduction in other athletes appearance fees?