One Runner’s View: Spring Cleaning May 16
by Matt Taylor
Spring is in the air. The high school dual meet season comes to a close. The collegiate conference meets wrap up. And the professionals run tune-up races to prepare for the US Championships. But spring is about more than conference championships and fast times. Perhaps more importantly, it’s about cleaning. It’s a time when throwing out junk takes precedence over collecting it. Unfortunately, for many of us, including the sport of running, it’s not enough - the rate at which we collect junk outpaces our ability to clear it out. As a fan, I want to see the sport mature and expand. Sure, performances are improving, but interest and popularity among the general public are still lagging behind. Running may never reach the status of the NBA or NFL, but it doesn’t have to. What running can and should do is create a solid niche with good media coverage, exciting events, and rabid fans.
So, if I were tasked with the annual spring cleaning, my helpers and I would roll up our sleeves and start throwing out the junk, beginning with appearance money, contract confidentiality, and ineffective race commentators. Let’s get to work.
High appearance fees are holding back the sport. It’s hard to imagine that paying elite runners hundreds of thousands of dollars can be bad for the sport, but it is. Let me explain through an example. Simon is a casual sports fan. He likes watching track & field during the Olympics, but that’s the only time he really sees it on the tube or reads about it in the paper. It’s a Sunday afternoon and he’s sitting on the couch channel surfing. He comes across a fishing tournament on ESPN2 just as the winner reels in his final fish – a 12-pound bass. The announcers are going nuts, “That should do it, Jimmy. That fish just earned him $750,000.” Simon does a double take. Really? That guy just won $750,000 for fishing?
He continues to flip through the channels, this time stopping at BBC Sport. The London Marathon is on and Martin Lel is sprinting for the finish line. The announcer says, “Lel is gonna do it. He’ll take home the $55,000 first place prize.” Wow, that poor sap, Simon thinks. All that hard work and he only wins $55,000. Simon flips back to ESPN2 and Butch Jones is up on stage in front of screaming fans and loud music. He’s pulling bass after bass out of a cooler. After the last fish, he pulls out a cold Budweiser and the crowd erupts. Simon can’t help but smile.
In that instant, the sport of running lost credibility in the eyes of a casual fan. Compared to bass fishing, Simon must think running is small time. But the truth is that Martin Lel and the other elite athletes took home a lot more than the published place earnings. In fact, it’s rumored that London organizers gave out $2 million in appearance money, plus quite a bit in time bonuses. But to the casual fan, runners are killing themselves for mere peanuts compared to other professional athletes.
High appearance fees and small prize purses hurt the sport of running. People would take the sport more seriously if they knew that Paula Radcliffe earned over $1 million when she won the 2003 London Marathon. Instead, they think she only took home $50,000 (the first place prize that year). In the eye of public perception, that’s a big difference. More people would tune in to the sport if they knew that $500,000, not $50,000, was on the line. Do you think people would tune in to Survivor if the last person standing only won $40,000? Probably not. For better or worse, big money attracts attention. (more…)