The unceremonious dismissal of USATF CEO Doug Logan really got me thinking. Track and Field is a sport struggling to draw spectators, and establish interest beyond it's one moment in the sun during the Olympiad every four years. Even with charismatic stars like Usain Bolt, track really struggles to draw a television audience and any mainstream interest in non-Olympic years. To try and fix that, I pondered what I would change if I were in charge of professional track and field. What are some of the ways to liven up the sport, make meets more fun, and keep all of the competition interesting? Though, I can't presume to be Pete Rozelle, here are some of the key changes I'd make in no particular order:1. Tighten up the Meet Schedule: This is an area that is really easy to fix, and features almost no repercussions as live track (mostly available online and rarely shown on television) is primarily shown without commercial breaks. The enemy of all that is fun and interesting at a sporting event for the fan is dead-time when there is no action on the field/arena. Even the crown jewel of spectator sports, the NFL, has had to deal with this and make rules about TV timeouts and stoppages. For track, an easy fix is having events run with minimal delay between them. Meet organizers should put the next group of athletes on the line at most 3-4 minutes after the prior event is completed. Run the introductions saying the relevant PB's and credentials of the competitors, and then go! There are few things less interesting than an empty track. Meets should be fast-paced and free of unnecessary pauses.
2. Eliminate Redundancies in Meets and Create Matchups: Right now, there are ample opportunites for athletes to dodge matchups and compete in watered-down fields. Not only is it typically boring to watch one athlete dominate a field, it is doubly frustrating when a potential competitor to that athlete dominates in another event at the meet. Again, this is another easy fix. Choose the 100 or 200 for your meet. Don't do both. Choose the 3,000, 5,000, or 10,000 and don't do more than one of those three. And never, ever do the indefensible and contest both a 1000 and an 800 or a 5000 and a 2 mile. Desparate for big names, meet directors have shamelessly done this to acquiesque athletes who don't want to race each other. Competition is the life-blood of any sport (and track, especially), so seeing the best go at it in the same race should not be reserved solely for the World Championships and Olympics.
3. Serve Beer at Meets: This is already done at some track meets in Europe, and at nearly every sporting event in the States. The fusion of spectator sports and alcohol just works. It nearly always succeeds in creating a livelier atmosphere and let's face an indisputable truth: people love using sports as an excuse to drink outside. In a sport that needs to improve its draw, advertising 2 dollar beers and giving some craft beers a stand is a no-brainer for gaining some new fans and filling the stadium.
4. Give the TV Coverage a Major Overhaul and Spruce it Up: First, the one change you knew was coming- two words: British announcers. It worked for soccer, and it will work for track and field, I guarantee you. The current TV crew is god-awful besides Ato Boldon when he is discussing events 400m and down. Fresh faces who have a better knowledge of the sport and aren't so dependent on the storylines they concoct before the races, would be a welcome change for viewers. Don't dumb it down, and don't belabor the performance of irrelevant figures that you just did a feature on, either. For that matter, keep those features short and sweet if you do them at all. Never interview athletes six seconds after they finish a race. The broadcasters should let knowledgable Brits like Tim Hutchings, Steve Ovett and their counterparts who so ably do the world feed for Diamond League Meet and the World Championships have a chance with American viewers. Outside of the announcer fixes, the camera-work can be improved a lot to aid the presentation. Track-level cameras and Nascar-style cameras(stationary on turns to show how fast athletes are going) should be employed to supplement the cameras that go directly to the side of athletes. For record attempts, a technologically-produced line could be superimposed much like in swimming. Time trials and record attempts provide a nice segue into my next related point.
5. Let's Reel in this Rabbiting Problem: Is it really necessary to have a rabbit for every single race contested over 800 meters? I think not. In fact, the most entertaining of these races to watch almost exclusively do not include rabbits. Sure, a time trial and a fast time makes for a good viewing every now and then. Still, it's great to see athletes race, use tactics, and throw moves and counter-moves at each other. Rabbits should be employed in the 800 sparingly- maybe once every three major meets. It's the shortest race in lanes, and the amount of traffic combined with the high speed of the races makes it an intriguing one to watch when it's not a glorified time trial. David Rudisha showed this year that setting up time trials is easy, low-maintenance and can be done at any meet. There is no need to have an assigned male or female to come through at 49 of 57 at every single meet and bring the field in boring single-file formation to set up a monotonous race. In the 1500, the rabbits should be in there at most at every other meet. It's fun to see the unpredictable(wars of kicks & surges), instead of watching each top athlete sit on a rabbit and then kick for 400 meters. For the longer events(3000-10,000), a rabbit should stay in there for about 50-60% of the race. Fast races in these events can be fun, while dawdling ones where everyone jogs are not so much. Let's make a compromise, and have the protagonists duke it out the last 3-6 laps after a good pace is set. Unless, there is a legitimate world record chase, too frequently rabbits make interesting races dull and predictable.
6. Incentivize Premier Matchups: The sport really needs scintillating matchups like Bolt vs. Gay to attract more casual fan interest. One of my key moves would be to try to give athletes every incentive to take on each other on the Diamond League stage. Money is ultimately the way to get this done, but the more high-profile rivalries and matchups the sport has, the better off it will be. The Diamond League jackpot is a start. Creating more stringent rules to ensure that athletes compete in a lot of major meets, as well as rewarding athletes for matching up with other record-holders and stars should be a big priority.
Those are the best ones I can think of for today. Got any on your own suggestions in mind? Let me know!
Some of the other ideas I tossed around in my head were making track and field more gambling-friendly (risky), creating a ladder system for world ranking (logistically difficult), and creating track "teams" by city (also logistically cumbersome)
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