The Media's Attention to Track and Field
Flotrack is among the leaders in track and field/cross-country coverage. (From left to right: Site Head Alex Lohr, Site Editor Mitch Kastoff, Site Head Ryan Fenton)
Every four years track and field comes into the media’s spotlight at the Summer Olympic Games and draws millions of viewers on television and another thousands to the sporting arenas to witness history in the making. When the closing ceremony comes to an end, it appears as though the media also turns its back on the runners. The way the sport is managed and the way networks promote it play a role in the future of track and field media coverage.
History of the Sport’s Coverage
Track and Field News has been covering runners from the high school to the professional level since 1948. The self proclaimed “Bible of the Sport” and local newspapers were the only ways that runners were able to track what was going on around them.
It would be 50 years until an internet database was put together where high school runners could track times, results, and rankings nationwide. In 1998, John Dye founded DyeStat as a local database for Maryland high school runners, but it caught the attention of Nike and Rivals and sponsorship money started to come in.
One of the biggest contributions of the site was that it made runners realize the level of competition that was out on the national and regional level. A state champion in Maine or Ohio could now see how they stacked up against other elite runners across the country.
This brought local stars down to reality when they saw how they now stacked up against runners in neighboring states and beyond. Recently there has been a resurgence in distance running and that level of head to head competition. DyeStat helped fuel the beginning of the movement.
Track and Field analyst and blogger Jesse Squire used to drive out to other towns to collect local newspapers and scout runners that he would face in a regional or state meet. When DyeStat came along, things changed.
“When DyeStat first came online, it was huge,” Squire said. “You could look up anything, anywhere. If you’re in Massachusetts, you could see how the Utah state champion was doing.”
Ten years later, ESPN acquired the website in a deal with Student Sports Inc., but the partnership would only last four years as the ESPN high school division closed in 2012. DyeStat set the example for a website Milesplit.com to come along and move that data to a new platform.
Olympic Coverage of the Sport
NBC has broadcasted the Summer Olympic Games since the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. A lot of the media focus on track and field comes from the way the network has broadcasted it.
Squire believes that NBC has not contributed to advancing Olympic sports by creating a following in the time leading up to the Summer Games.
“They are just absolutely horrible,” Squire said. “They see it as a single entity rather than what it really is, which is a lot of different things coming together.”
He notes that Sports Illustrated has done a great job with their coverage, since they are not tied with television. Even after the Olympic games, there have been more articles written on Sports Illustrated’s website than ESPN and CBS Sports.
Another point where coverage has decreased is within the local newspapers that have started to shut down or move to an online audience. Stories of athletes with a shot of making the Olympic get lost, because nobody is covering them.
Getting Track and Field on ESPN
On November 28th, the Drake Relays announced that they will be broadcasting their 2013 races on ESPN2 on primetime. The races will not be live and the press release did not disclose if the Drake Relays bought airtime on ESPN or it was the other way around.
ESPN has broadcasted races in the past with with the Visa Championship series by USA Track and Field. Squire saw very little promotion on ESPN’s part to promote the meet coverage.
There is interest on ESPN’s part to purchase the Olympics from NBC, who currently holds the rights through the 2020 Games. Squires believes that if ESPN were to find a way to get the Olympics, it could give birth to a new channel where more of a focus would be given to sports like track and field.
The way that ESPN started to cover soccer would be a good starting point for track and field. Games started to be televised with some of the best commentators and analysts, which then led to highlights being shown on SportsCenter. Track and Field could follow that model and then eventually make its way into the top plays of the night with fast times.
But the network and the sport are a long way from getting there.
ESPN is taking slight baby steps with the running community as they bought the rights to the New York City Marathon and the other races taking place that weekend. After a two year hiatus, the race was going to be live until Hurricane Sandy derailed those plans. 2012 was going to be the first of five years on the network agreement.
Newspaper Coverage
Philip Hersh has covered six summer Olympics and nine winter Olympics as the olympic sports writer for the Chicago Tribune since 1987 and Tribune Company since 2004. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize four times in his career. He spent this past summer in London and was able to see the likes of Usain Bolt and others run on the track.
He believes the media’s attention reflects the public’s attention to track and field. The sport went from being among the most popular to a niche sport.
“We do not get letters or criticism for covering more track and field,” Hersh said. “I probably cover as much track and field as any other mainstream United States newspaper does.”
In the 1970’s, track and field had an upper hand as sports like baseball and basketball were struggling. The only problem is that they did not do much to further their popularity and eventually other sports caught up. America has even been more interested in college football and basketball of late.
“Right now the sport is Usain Bolt,” Hersh said. “When he retires or he gets hurt, you wonder what is going to be next.”
One problem that Hersh points out is that the elite athletes do not compete against each other nowadays enough to bring more attention to a meet. The amount of money that it costs to bring Usain Bolt to compete at a meet does not allow much room to accommodate a serious challenger like Yohan Blake.
In the upcoming years before the 2016 Olympics, Hersh sees track and field coverage dropping off a bit more in newspapers. The run junkies and die hards will continue to get their fix from forums and other online resources.
The Online Media
Flotrack is one of the leading sites for track and field coverage by providing viewers with videos produced by its staff as well as allowing people to contribute with their own content. The site receives approximately 60,000 hits a day and one million per month, which comes to show that there is an audience looking for running news.
While working a few meets with Flotrack this fall, I have seen the hands-on work that guys like Ryan Fenton, Alex Lohr, and Mitch Kastoff put into an event’s coverage.
They provided camera angles from gold carts as the race went on. I was live-tweeting the race as well as running around collecting interviews afterwards. And then a recap video was put together. Knowing how a meet is run has provided positive reviews of Flotrack’s coverage and led to sponsors and meets asking for them to come out and work with their respective event.
Ryan Fenton, Flotrack’s site head, believes that practice also pays a role in how well they do things.
“We follow this every day,” Fenton said. “We follow the athletes through cross-country, through indoor track, outdoor track. We’ll be at a random meet in Washington in January and not just the Olympic Trials or the USA Championships. We’re fortunate where we follow their journey and have more of a base to talk about.”
Mitch Kastoff just came on board with the staff in Austin, TX and is among the generation of running fans that grew up with the site. Now working as Flotrack’s site editor, he looks for more ways to make the team interesting. In 2012 he introduced the FloRatings aimed at predicting who would beat who in a race.
The model took an algorithm that looked at race results and course difficulty to come up with a number that would indicate a runner’s predicted strength level for the race. In several cases, Kastoff was able to predict meet winners on the individual and team level.
“When it’s right, it can be really cool,” Kastoff said. “Before it was only really seen on the high school level and to take it to the college level is something really new. I just want to know who’s going to win.”
The only other statistics seen in running are result times. This is the start to adding a new statistic to the sport that would have runners interested in doing better each week. The only other time that runners go to head to head are at the NCAA Championships.
European Coverage of Track and Field
In the years between Olympics, athletes travel across the world to compete at meets. Europe is a popular destination for competition as some countries have their own track and field arenas. Meets are sometimes even promoted on billboards and in television commercials, which is unheard of in the United States with a more of a focus on sports like football, basketball and baseball.
David Torrence is a professional runner for Nike. He gets frustrated when he is on an airplane talking to someone and they have no idea that professional track and field exists. While there’s more promotion, he believes the media attention to the sport is still lacking.
“In my opinion (European track and field coverage) is pretty sub-par,” Torrence said. “It really isn't that much better than US coverage. There are still amazing meets that people never hear about and that can be frustrating.”
Torrence's Recommendations for the Future
Torrence believes that in order for the sport to one day be on ESPN and gain more of a following, the sport has to start from the bottom and rework the way meets are run. Here are a few steps explained by Torrence.
2. “Once we have that energy in the stadium, then we have to focus on television presentation,” Torrence said.
There is some television coverage, but the presentation is poor. Signing knowledgeable announcers would be a step forward. As was the case with the NBC broadcast of the 1,500-meter final at the Olympics, the crew just focused on who was winning and who was losing. Meanwhile, Leo Manzano was about to become the first American to medal in that race in 44 years.
3. From there it would all about getting sponsors. On November 29th, USA Track and Field’s Rules Committee voted unanimously to change the rule on logo restrictions. Now that the rules change, athletes have to promote themselves and shoe companies have to change their restrictions on what can go on an athlete’s singlet.
Outlook towards 2016
Traditional forms of media have been abandoning their coverage of track and field. There is a resurgence of popularity for the sport through the online mediums like Flotrack and previously DyeStat. The road to the Olympic Games is a long one for athletes and it will be just as long of a journey for track and field to truly consider itself nationally recognized as a sport outside of the Olympic Games.
History of the Sport’s Coverage
Track and Field News has been covering runners from the high school to the professional level since 1948. The self proclaimed “Bible of the Sport” and local newspapers were the only ways that runners were able to track what was going on around them.
It would be 50 years until an internet database was put together where high school runners could track times, results, and rankings nationwide. In 1998, John Dye founded DyeStat as a local database for Maryland high school runners, but it caught the attention of Nike and Rivals and sponsorship money started to come in.
One of the biggest contributions of the site was that it made runners realize the level of competition that was out on the national and regional level. A state champion in Maine or Ohio could now see how they stacked up against other elite runners across the country.
This brought local stars down to reality when they saw how they now stacked up against runners in neighboring states and beyond. Recently there has been a resurgence in distance running and that level of head to head competition. DyeStat helped fuel the beginning of the movement.
Track and Field analyst and blogger Jesse Squire used to drive out to other towns to collect local newspapers and scout runners that he would face in a regional or state meet. When DyeStat came along, things changed.
“When DyeStat first came online, it was huge,” Squire said. “You could look up anything, anywhere. If you’re in Massachusetts, you could see how the Utah state champion was doing.”
Ten years later, ESPN acquired the website in a deal with Student Sports Inc., but the partnership would only last four years as the ESPN high school division closed in 2012. DyeStat set the example for a website Milesplit.com to come along and move that data to a new platform.
Olympic Coverage of the Sport
NBC has broadcasted the Summer Olympic Games since the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. A lot of the media focus on track and field comes from the way the network has broadcasted it.
Squire believes that NBC has not contributed to advancing Olympic sports by creating a following in the time leading up to the Summer Games.
“They are just absolutely horrible,” Squire said. “They see it as a single entity rather than what it really is, which is a lot of different things coming together.”
He notes that Sports Illustrated has done a great job with their coverage, since they are not tied with television. Even after the Olympic games, there have been more articles written on Sports Illustrated’s website than ESPN and CBS Sports.
Another point where coverage has decreased is within the local newspapers that have started to shut down or move to an online audience. Stories of athletes with a shot of making the Olympic get lost, because nobody is covering them.
Getting Track and Field on ESPN
On November 28th, the Drake Relays announced that they will be broadcasting their 2013 races on ESPN2 on primetime. The races will not be live and the press release did not disclose if the Drake Relays bought airtime on ESPN or it was the other way around.
ESPN has broadcasted races in the past with with the Visa Championship series by USA Track and Field. Squire saw very little promotion on ESPN’s part to promote the meet coverage.
There is interest on ESPN’s part to purchase the Olympics from NBC, who currently holds the rights through the 2020 Games. Squires believes that if ESPN were to find a way to get the Olympics, it could give birth to a new channel where more of a focus would be given to sports like track and field.
The way that ESPN started to cover soccer would be a good starting point for track and field. Games started to be televised with some of the best commentators and analysts, which then led to highlights being shown on SportsCenter. Track and Field could follow that model and then eventually make its way into the top plays of the night with fast times.
But the network and the sport are a long way from getting there.
ESPN is taking slight baby steps with the running community as they bought the rights to the New York City Marathon and the other races taking place that weekend. After a two year hiatus, the race was going to be live until Hurricane Sandy derailed those plans. 2012 was going to be the first of five years on the network agreement.
Newspaper Coverage
Philip Hersh has covered six summer Olympics and nine winter Olympics as the olympic sports writer for the Chicago Tribune since 1987 and Tribune Company since 2004. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize four times in his career. He spent this past summer in London and was able to see the likes of Usain Bolt and others run on the track.
He believes the media’s attention reflects the public’s attention to track and field. The sport went from being among the most popular to a niche sport.
“We do not get letters or criticism for covering more track and field,” Hersh said. “I probably cover as much track and field as any other mainstream United States newspaper does.”
In the 1970’s, track and field had an upper hand as sports like baseball and basketball were struggling. The only problem is that they did not do much to further their popularity and eventually other sports caught up. America has even been more interested in college football and basketball of late.
“Right now the sport is Usain Bolt,” Hersh said. “When he retires or he gets hurt, you wonder what is going to be next.”
One problem that Hersh points out is that the elite athletes do not compete against each other nowadays enough to bring more attention to a meet. The amount of money that it costs to bring Usain Bolt to compete at a meet does not allow much room to accommodate a serious challenger like Yohan Blake.
In the upcoming years before the 2016 Olympics, Hersh sees track and field coverage dropping off a bit more in newspapers. The run junkies and die hards will continue to get their fix from forums and other online resources.
The Online Media
Flotrack is one of the leading sites for track and field coverage by providing viewers with videos produced by its staff as well as allowing people to contribute with their own content. The site receives approximately 60,000 hits a day and one million per month, which comes to show that there is an audience looking for running news.
While working a few meets with Flotrack this fall, I have seen the hands-on work that guys like Ryan Fenton, Alex Lohr, and Mitch Kastoff put into an event’s coverage.
They provided camera angles from gold carts as the race went on. I was live-tweeting the race as well as running around collecting interviews afterwards. And then a recap video was put together. Knowing how a meet is run has provided positive reviews of Flotrack’s coverage and led to sponsors and meets asking for them to come out and work with their respective event.
Ryan Fenton, Flotrack’s site head, believes that practice also pays a role in how well they do things.
“We follow this every day,” Fenton said. “We follow the athletes through cross-country, through indoor track, outdoor track. We’ll be at a random meet in Washington in January and not just the Olympic Trials or the USA Championships. We’re fortunate where we follow their journey and have more of a base to talk about.”
Mitch Kastoff just came on board with the staff in Austin, TX and is among the generation of running fans that grew up with the site. Now working as Flotrack’s site editor, he looks for more ways to make the team interesting. In 2012 he introduced the FloRatings aimed at predicting who would beat who in a race.
The model took an algorithm that looked at race results and course difficulty to come up with a number that would indicate a runner’s predicted strength level for the race. In several cases, Kastoff was able to predict meet winners on the individual and team level.
“When it’s right, it can be really cool,” Kastoff said. “Before it was only really seen on the high school level and to take it to the college level is something really new. I just want to know who’s going to win.”
The only other statistics seen in running are result times. This is the start to adding a new statistic to the sport that would have runners interested in doing better each week. The only other time that runners go to head to head are at the NCAA Championships.
European Coverage of Track and Field
In the years between Olympics, athletes travel across the world to compete at meets. Europe is a popular destination for competition as some countries have their own track and field arenas. Meets are sometimes even promoted on billboards and in television commercials, which is unheard of in the United States with a more of a focus on sports like football, basketball and baseball.
David Torrence is a professional runner for Nike. He gets frustrated when he is on an airplane talking to someone and they have no idea that professional track and field exists. While there’s more promotion, he believes the media attention to the sport is still lacking.
“In my opinion (European track and field coverage) is pretty sub-par,” Torrence said. “It really isn't that much better than US coverage. There are still amazing meets that people never hear about and that can be frustrating.”
Torrence's Recommendations for the Future
Torrence believes that in order for the sport to one day be on ESPN and gain more of a following, the sport has to start from the bottom and rework the way meets are run. Here are a few steps explained by Torrence.
- “Track meets today are run the same way that they were 60 years ago,” Torrence said.
2. “Once we have that energy in the stadium, then we have to focus on television presentation,” Torrence said.
There is some television coverage, but the presentation is poor. Signing knowledgeable announcers would be a step forward. As was the case with the NBC broadcast of the 1,500-meter final at the Olympics, the crew just focused on who was winning and who was losing. Meanwhile, Leo Manzano was about to become the first American to medal in that race in 44 years.
3. From there it would all about getting sponsors. On November 29th, USA Track and Field’s Rules Committee voted unanimously to change the rule on logo restrictions. Now that the rules change, athletes have to promote themselves and shoe companies have to change their restrictions on what can go on an athlete’s singlet.
Outlook towards 2016
Traditional forms of media have been abandoning their coverage of track and field. There is a resurgence of popularity for the sport through the online mediums like Flotrack and previously DyeStat. The road to the Olympic Games is a long one for athletes and it will be just as long of a journey for track and field to truly consider itself nationally recognized as a sport outside of the Olympic Games.