IAAF is screwing the field events again.

[Fortius19]

Watching a live, large, one-day European Track & Field meet is pretty high on my bucket list.

A Swiss meet, or Olso or Stockholm. Even Paris would be nice.

Hope they're still around by the time I can afford it!

[polevaultpower]

Lavillenie not happy about the changes, can't blame him.

[norunner]

There is no dilemma. The IAAF is supposed to represent athletes, our sport is called track AND field. It's not the IAAFs job to butcher our sport for tv money, they are not representing the tv broadcasters, even though lately it feels like that. Broadcasts have degenerated into track only with the occasional interruption by a couple of field attempts. This may be what tv wants, but it should be the IAAFs job to protect our sport from such abuse.
If DL meets aren't making money it's because of the rigid structure of the format and the antiquated way athletics is being broadcast. Look at what the ISTAF is doing, they focus on German athletes, even a few weeks before the meet they change the timetable and add events. This year they added the triple jump after Max Heß won in Amsterdam. Is there any single day meet in the world with a bigger audience than the ISTAF, which has an attendance of 50-60000 every year?

[Atticus]

So the IAAF (and by extension, we, the super-fans) is on the horns of dilemma.

a. Try and keep the whole sport viable by having more events competed more often in the most visible venues.
or
b. Try and keep the their most valuable regular season vehicle (DLs) viable, by allowing them to focus on the more 'marquee' (salable) events.

The IAAF dictated gender parity, which presumably wasn't strictly in the best interests of the bottom line, and that worked out. I'm homing the iAAF can find a way to help the individual DL Meet Directors keep as many events in the spotlight as possible. To paraphrase a Holocaust dictum (and thereby invoking Godwin's Law), 'first they came for the women's Hammer . . . '

[26mi235]

The vertical jumps are a bit different from the other field events because the focus can often be on the last few heights which is where the winning mark is made. In the throws/horizontal jumps, it can be done in the first throw/jump of the competition.

[cubehead]

I think in the near future the field and track events will be treated equally in European DL meets....because there won't be any meets at all.

Anyone who thinks European athletics is not on shaky ground isn't paying attention.

[Powell]

Ok, now that I've looked at the prize money structure, it actually looks like the overall fund will be down for the field events. It used to be 30k for each of the 7 meets plus 40k for the winner, i.e. 250k in total. Now it's 30k times four plus 100k for the final for a total of 220k. So not an improvement for the athletes either way.

[OneWay]

So after 6 years we are basically back where we were and we are supposed to hail the IAAF/DL as some inventor of the panacea to what ails our sport.

In the meantime, some field events and the 400H are getting shafted.

[norunner]

@Powell, probably, but the field events are footing the bill. Last year Sandra Perkovic won all six DL meets & the final, that's 6x10.000 USD + 40.000 for the final, 100.000 USD in total. In 2017 should she win it all again, she would only make 90.000.

[gh]

...

@GH: It's not the "Diamond League", it's the "IAAF Diamond League", if it has your name on it, you share responsibility.

The IAAF is showing the ultimate in "responsibility" by allowing its constituents—constituents who are on the hook for very large sums of money—to tweak the product the way they think it will best affect their bottom line. And make no mistake about it; these new content changes were driven by the meet promoters, not the IAAF.

[Powell]

On the positive side, the top 8 in the final will all get prize money, with $50k going to the winner, so I think even with the reduced number of competitions, the overall prize fund is slightly larger.

[norunner]

@tandfman: It's still eight discus competitions in total though, Shanghai and Stockholm have discus for men and women. javelin also has 8.

@GH: It's not the "Diamond League", it's the "IAAF Diamond League", if it has your name on it, you share responsibility.

[tandfman]

They do seem to be cutting back in some areas. Only 6 of the 14 meets will have a discus throw (men's or women's). And only 9 will have a steeplechase (men's or women's). 9 meets will have a javelin throw (men's or women's).

[gh]

At this point I think it might be instructive to point out that whilel the IAAF definitely has fingers in the pie that the Diamond League is an "independent" organization in which the meet directors have a huge voice in what's going on. They're not running charities, and it's in their best interest to put a product on the field that assures they stay afloat (and more than one is said to be in a high state of fiscal stress at this point). That doesn't always translate to a product that the hardcore might think is essential.

[norunner]

What difference does it make though, they aren't showing the field events live anyway. This year there were several DL meets where not a single jump or throw was shown live. So for TV is shouldn't matter how many events they are going to ignore.