Scientists: Horses Not Led To Water, Unlikely To Drink
Corollary Finding: Horses Also Disinclined to Seek Out Brackish, Boring Water With Lots of Unnecessary High School Events, On Their Own.
Fellow inhabitants of Runnerville gave New York Track Fans the ole’ thumbs down on not turning out for Millrose. Reasoning being, in short, that it is partly the fans’ responsibility to support the sport. My purpose is not to get into a chicken-v-egg debate (does a lousy product need to improve to attract support, or does support need to be given to fund improvement of said lousy product), nor to go into as much depth as I could, but I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint, in defense of the non-spectator…
A point raised in the course of that down-turned digit: lots of events at Millrose that have little appeal = 5-hour trudge-fest. What other (popular) professional sporting event lasts 5 hours? Even baseball thinks that’s an unwieldy length. Here are some salient numbers, based on the schedule posted on the Millrose website: 5-hour event. 97 minutes of scheduled professional events on the track. That ain’t right. I am a track fan. A big fan. A Wake-Up-At-Ungodly-Hours-to-Watch-Meets-Live-on-WCSN fan. But I hate Millrose. Because it is boring. And I probably will not go back a 4th time after 3 straight stinkers.
Taken another way: Are fans of the NBA expected to enjoy high school basketball, too? No. Are most baseball fans expected, nay required to sit through a couple innings of college ball before getting to see the rest of Yankees-Red Sox? No. Please get rid of every non-professional event at Millrose except the Boys’ Mile, CHSAA 4×800, Elite College 4×800, and a “New York City Collegiate Championship” 4×4 of local teams. That meet would run around 150 minutes and all of it would be interesting. Oh, and add a professional 5k or 2-mile.
Point Two. Sure, maybe more track fans could have showed up. But I KNOW more “laymen” could have attended. I suspect that back in the “Glory Days” of Millrose, a fair share of ticket-buyers were less fans of track, and more fans of Millrose, the Event: something people wanted to be part of because it was unique and exciting. Well, an event requires an element of civic awareness. People know when the Republican National Convention is in town. 
They know when High School Musical 2 on Ice is in town. New Yorkers don’t know when Millrose is in town. And how could they? I live in New York City. Work six blocks from the Garden and my work routinely takes me inside of it; my commute, past it and into Penn Station. I didn’t see one advertisement for Millrose. Not one. The outreach, I imagine, is geared entirely toward people who attend events at the NYC Armory. After all, I always saw the postcards and promotional posters for Millrose back in college when I was “competing” at that venerable facility.
But it’s only now that I realize: I was one of the only people who even had a chance to see them in the first place.
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February 7th, 2008 at 4:33 pm |
I agree.
Hey Old-timey track fans: Don’t try taking me on a guilt trip again, they’re boring and the back seat is starting to smell like potatos.
The “old-guard” of track needs to realize what a well-done professional sports event looks like before they should expect fans to come out.
(For the record, number of well-done competitions at Millrose: 2, shot put and wannamaker. number of hours I sat waiting for something to happen: 4. number of hot dogs consumed:3.5, beers: around $27 worth)
-ben
February 7th, 2008 at 11:49 pm |
The Boston Indoor Games did a good job of marketing their event this year. (Last year, not so much) Ads on the subway. Full-page spreads on the back of the free daily newspapers the preceding week. Even faux “news stories” in the same daily newspaper, which just happened to be (wink-wink-nudge-nudge) a principal sponsor of the event.
Maybe that’s the secret: Get a free daily newspaper to sponsor Millrose next year.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:28 am |
I’m guessing it was “Metro” that did that for Boston. Metro also publishes a NY edition, and DID sponsor the event — or, at least, had a sponsor panel on the wall ringing the track. Maybe that was also tied into the barter deal from the Boston Indoor Games, but regardless, getting ink in a free daily is an excellent way to promote such meets.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:54 pm |
“led” is the past-tense of “lead”
February 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm |
There was a decent amount of marketing done for the 100th Milrose, wasn’t there?
February 11th, 2008 at 2:59 pm |
What constitutes “decent” is a matter of opinion, if you ask me. However, I remember being pretty surprised that I didn’t see a huge, tangible push to promote the 100th anniversary. As I mentioned in the linked-to, much longer “rant” on LTOB, I think The Garden itself deserves some of the blame for that, as, IMO they should view the heritage of Millrose as part and parcel of The Garden’s legacy. But as someone not regularly attending meets at the Armory, I don’t recall, off-hand, seeing advertising for the 100th Anniversary out around the city.
February 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm |
What other (popular) professional sporting event lasts 5 hours?
Easy. World Cup cricket. A one-day match can take about 8 hours.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm |
Well, a baseball game could potentially last six hours, but what is the norm? In other words, people go to Milrose expecting to sit there for six+ hours, with the Wannamaker mile being run at the bitter end.
Jeremy, you mentioned earlier about Milrose’s lack of appeal to the average fan, who isn’t a track fanatic but goes because of its history and it’s purported representation of the pinnacle of World Track running. I was sitting at Milrose two years ago with my dad and four of his partners, all of whom fall under the category of the average fan. There boredom during most of the games and desire to leave even before the Wannamaker mile (which, from what I can tell, didn’t impress them all that much), serve as a prime, anecdotal example of Milrose’s lack of appeal to the non-track enthusiast.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
Thanks for writing this column. I’m an active local distance runner, and if I hadn’t remembered to check, I wouldn’t have known Millrose was going on at all. There was almost no advertisement for the event, not even on the NYRR website until the week before. Then I brought some non-trackophiles to the meet, and I was amazed at how little explanation or commentary was given during the meet. I had to keep trying to explain what was going on. If you set up an event that only attracts die-hard fans, 12,000 people starts to sound like pretty good attendance. If they want to reach beyond the standard set of track fans they need advertisement, and more ways of getting the crowd involved. I know that part of the point is to make money, but it might help fill the house if they did group ticket blocks with discounts for local running clubs, and promoted it among long distance runners.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:23 am |
For what it’s worth, I’m almost certain that Millrose is not a NYRR event - it’s put on by the Boston-based organization Global Athletics.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm |
No, Millrose is not NYRR organized, but they sponsor the women’s mile, and they are the largest running organization in the area, so if they would promote it, I think it would help.