By Daniel Wallis - Very few track meets are economically viable. Year after year the IAAF loses money, while a handful of major track meets manage to fill stadiums and find their way onto television. To survive, track and field must embrace its strengths and cater to a particular audience. Most events will never match the likes of the Monaco Diamond League, and they need not try. Even major meets like Monaco will struggle to survive when they shell out the majority of their budget to bring in a few star athletes. Contrary to popular belief, Usain Bolt is not the future of the sport. Rather, his charlatan manager is sucking these meets dry – reducing competition and potential for others to flourish. The masses love to see the Jamaican run, but will they still travel with as much zeal to a meet in which he is not participating? The overwhelming consensus is no. Their superficial love affair is with Bolt, not the sport itself. In fact, Bolt’s passion and ability to put on a show is everything most at the top of the food chain in track and field lack.
Meet promoters must clearly outline why they are having a track meet. Often television is used as a reason for a meet in order to ‘reach new audiences’, which inevitably means trying to pocket a few dollars from advertising. Some meets are designed specifically to help athletes record qualifying marks – such as the 1500m organised by Marc Corstjens in Oordegem, Belgium last year, while others are about bringing together communities for various reasons – such as the track meet for Christchurch in Wellington after disaster struck. Rarely do the goals combine all three. Either way, as each city is unique, each track meet must be unique and specific to a particular audience if the sport is to survive.
It can be argued that track peaked in the 60’s and 70’s. In fact, my grandmother has witnessed more men break the four-minute mile barrier than I have for the simple fact that she was in New Zealand in the 1960’s. That’s what you did back then on Friday night, it was entertainment. It may seem cliché, but there really was less to occupy your weekends before sport was ever thought of as a ‘profession’. These days if we want the mob atmosphere of a stadium we will watch the Super 14 rugby, Aussie rules or the NFL. Although track was one of the first sports to dabble in professionalism, it is no longer on equal terms with most sports as they have evolved into a new world of sports-entertainment.
Track has the potential to take advantage of and become a niche, even ‘bohemian’ market. Small, intimate meets have significant allure and can cater to an audience more likely to be sympathetic to the history and unique attraction of track and field. Eugene, Oregon really is home to true lovers of track and field, and they are a far cry from the incoherently chanting, tobacco-chewing hill people that occupy Denver Broncos games. This is the mob that fills 75,000 people stadiums on a regular basis – it is also not what track and field should be trying so desperately to attract.
Rather, track meets must be small, sophisticated, and intimate. Imagine fixed-gear bikes in the parking lot, beer gardens, taking bets in a Moleskine - all while sitting on a grassed bank around the track. What happened to the city of Christchurch was a catastrophe, but the new format of the International Track Meet as a result of its consequences is something that deserves both admiration and examination, and proves that necessity is the mother of all innovation.
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