Commentary By:
Toni Reavis @ToniReavis

We saw it in the 2014 New Balance Boston Indoor Grand Prix in the men’s 4 X 800 meter relay. Then again in Nassau in the Bahamas at the inaugural IAAF World Relays, and for added measure again last weekend in Boston at the 2015 NBIGP women’s Distance Medley Relay, teams in hot competition bringing out the best in themselves while stirring the crowd to dizzying heights of frenzy.

 

Try as it might the NFL can’t quite get people interested in its All-Star game, the Pro Bowl. Long staged in Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium (1980-2009), the annual gathering of NFL elite moved to the Super Bowl site in 2010 to attach itself to the biggest spectacle in American sports.  But because players are afraid to get hurt, the action in the pro Bowl is without evident purpose and passion.  So despite a new fantasy format pitting teams selected by Hall of Famers Cris Carter and Michael Irvin, the game still came off flat because without a meaningful bottom line the players wouldn’t hit, and the public wouldn’t watch. It was another classic example of ‘you have to make it count for something’ to matter. Accordingly, the Pro Bowl is the only major all-star game that draws lower TV ratings than its regular-season games.

 

The lesson here is to structure consequence to performance.  If one thing doesn’t lead to another, why is it being done in the first place?  Track and field has something of a similar situation on its hands.  Though its athletes are doing their running, jumping and throwing with skill and panache, the general public has lost interest at an increasingly disturbing rate.  The question is why, and can anything be done to offset the slide?

 

The genesis of the problem, as I see it, is meaning.  There are three things you will never see at a Diamond League track meet: 1) no athlete will be connected to any other athlete; 2) no event will be tied to any other event; and 3) nobody will win the track meet. Instead, a series of independent exhibitions of excellence is staged, each event standing alone, doing no more than sharing the venue.  One thing doesn’t lead to another, much less culminate in an outright winner.

 

So here comes the women’s 400 meter hurdles, and there it goes. Now forget about that, because next up is the men’s pole vault, which has nothing to do with the women’s steeplechase, which, in turn, is separate from every other event that is being staged and presented. 

 

At last year’s USATF National Championships in Sacramento, the vast majority of attendees stood up and began leaving Hornet Stadium after the 100-meter final just as the 5000-meter final was about to begin.  What that revealed was that these weren’t track and field fans, these were track and/or field event fans. 


 

Football has its Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, and the NBA has its 3-point and Dunk competitions, but the Super Bowl and NBA Finals pit two teams who have fought through a schedule of regular season games, emerged through a playoffs to contest the biggest game of the year.  This leads to that which culminates in the Big Game. 

 

Track has a series of disconnected stand-alone meets that showcase great talent, but don’t, in their aggregate, amount to anything at the end of the day.

 

Yet among the most highly attended track meets in the nation each year are the Penn Relays, Drake Relays, California and Texas High School state championships.  And what do each of these track meets have in common, a team aspect. 

 

The most exciting race of this year’s New Balance Boston Indoor Grand Prix was the women’s Distance Medley Relay, which teamed a group of New Balance sponsored athletes from the USA and Ireland against teams from local universities and one from a group of New York All-Stars.  It was the element of racing for more than herself that drove Team NB USA’s anchor Brenda Martinez to a last ditch win over the NY All-Stars’ anchor Nicole Schappert Tully, with both teams breaking the existing world best indoor time. 

 

The lesson learned is you have to make it count for something beyond itself if you want to attract and hold an audience.  USATF endlessly announces to the world that it has the #1 track team in the world.  Well, why not stage a series of competitions that backs up its claim. Just a guess, but people might actually want to watch.

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