Welcome to the Internet Age
In last week’s Runnerville Weekly podcast, Matt Taylor discussed his conversation with Chris Lukezic about the lack of interest sponsors seem to have about getting their athletes out in the public eye. Chris told Matt that if asked to do a public promotion he would gladly do it. The conversation carried on to conclude that if Chris went out and met 100-200 new people, that the interaction with those people would create 100-200 new fans of Chris, as they would have a personal connection with him since they interacted with him.
While this sounds great, there is one piece missing from this puzzle. Once Chris has 100-200 new fans, where does he send them to follow his racing? Luckily for Chris he has a blog that he can send people to, where he provides commentary on his training and racing. However, for the majority of professional athletes, blogging is not an interest they have or their sponsors have. So where do fans get their news?
For the majority of die-hard fans out there, including me, we know where to look to find our running news. We check LetsRun, FloTrack, EliteRunning, etc. on an obsessive basis to see if there just might be a piece of news we missed after rolling out of bed and turning on the computer in the morning. However, do new fans know where to go to find professional running news?
My answer to that would be “of course not!” Nearly every sport in our country is led by a governing body. Nearly every sport in our country has an interactive website where fans, both new and old, can follow every athlete’s results. They can read in-depth pieces on their favorite athletes, look for up-to-date scores and results, and often times learn numerous new pieces of information by visiting for only a few minutes. On top of that, various sports are starting to do long segment pieces on athletes through video, which simply takes learning about an athlete to a new level.
Two year’s ago, in one of the first email correspondences I had with Matt Taylor, we discussed the need for an elaborate website to cover the professional side of our sport. Matt explained that any successful sports website has audio, video and written portions to it, and that covering all three bases generally means success if the website is presented in a clean and organized manner and the journalistic aspect of the site is done professionally.
I think back to those emails from time to time and compare it to what we are offered today. It’s pretty apparent that even though we have sites like LetsRun, FloTrack and a few others, that none of these sites combine written stories, interviews, videos, race coverage, etc. to the extent that our sport needs. While all of these sites serve the purpose of the die-hard fan, do they necessarily serve the purpose of a new fan, and can we provide even more content to our strong fan base?
Of course the answer is yes. However, it is going to take an outside industry person or company to make this happen. I talked with Craig Masback about a year ago on the subject and he told me there was no way USATF could finance a professional running website to the extent that it would need to be truly successful. I learned later in the year that the Wasserman Media Group (WMG) signed a marketing/management deal with USATF to manage the companies media interests and that they were in the planning stages of putting together a comprehensive website that would cover professional running events.
However, since this announcement, WMG has been slow to put the pieces together to make this website a reality. While I know one contributor to this website and at least two followers of Runnerville have been in contact with WMG, nothing has come about to where the site is actually a reality. In an Olympic year you would think WMG would be pushing to make this site happen, yet nothing seems to be moving forward on the subject.
Every day I think about a professional running website and what impact it could have on the sport. A well financed site could help market this sport more so than anything USATF has done in its entire existence. Our nation is driven by online news and with such little coverage of our sport coming from major media outlets like ESPN, USA Today, etc., the leaders of our industry need to take coverage of our sport into their own hands.
Ten years ago the internet was still in its infancy. Sports Business Journal recently did an enormous profile piece on the impact the internet has had on sports over the past decade and where it is going. Every time I read something like this I get depressed because people at USATF, and now WMG, seemingly don’t care about utilizing all the tools necessary to help advance our sport. It makes one really question the health of our sport when we have better coverage of the high school (MileSplit, Dyestat) and college (TrackShark) levels, and the professional side is left sulking in the corner waiting for someone to throw it a bone.
We have interesting characters in our sport. There are athletes that have interesting stories to share and could attract strong fan bases, but when can their stories be heard? Where can Chris Lukezic’s new fans go to track his progress and results if they are looking for more than the occasional blog post?
So I leave you with one last thought: It is rare in today’s world that sports transforms media, rather the power of the media transforms sports. With the Beijing Olympics right around the corner, it is imperative that our sport focuses forward on what we can do to create a healthier, better organized, growing sport over the next four years. It seems to me that one of the easiest routes would be to market our top athletes and events to the sports existing fan base and potential fan base, but can the leaders of our sport ever see the benefits a new media outlet could provide? It is yet to be seen.
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Tomorrow I will lay out my plan on what this website would need to be successful.
Last 5 posts by Scott Bush- Money and Distance Running - September 9th, 2009
- An Idea: A Road Race Circuit (Part II) - December 10th, 2008
- An Idea: A Road Race Circuit (Part I) - December 3rd, 2008
- Who Should Be the Face of Our Sport? - June 4th, 2008
- Robinson v. Symmonds, Now We Need More - February 26th, 2008
April 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am |
Scott,
I completely agree with you on this topic, but the way the sport is managed professionally makes it hard to follow, especially for a new fan. Jeremy and Matt hit the nail on the head in runnerville weekly #12. The question is does the site have to be done by USATF or could an outside group model runnerville (using contributors) and take the best of what of is out there to make a super site. For example, Combining letsrun’s and eliterunning’s news coverage with flotrack’s race videos and interviews and finalsprint’s podcasts so everything is housed in one place. The new fan is still overloaded with content, but it’s in one place. So many ideas and models come to mind when I think of this, but it is definitely a possibilty, just would take a few people with the right connections. Someone like King Midas, aka Matt Taylor.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am |
One question I have is how do we classify who is a professional.
Is it all athletes who receive any sort of money from any sponsor or do we just focus on athletes sponsored by shoe companies, so we sort of establish teams and an allegiance to a larger group?
Maybe it should be athletes who have achieved the Olympic/World Championship standards. Once the criteria is established for a who is and who isn’t a professional people will begin to see the difference and it will give us a defined subset of athletes to follow.
Just a few thoughts…
April 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm |
Scott — Very insightful comments in your latest piece. As the voice for high school track & field, you seem to hit things right on the nail when it comes to how to market our sport at the professional level.
Jayson — I’ve noted basically what you’ve suggested, which is it would be the best of both world if we could all just have one super-site with the great number of contributors as you’ve mentioned. Of course, when reality steps in, this will never happen simply because everyone wants their own piece of the pie. You really can’t blame them either, because everyone thinks their idea is what’s best for what they offer. I know this is a running-focused site, but I still think it’s very important to also consider the sprints and field event coverage. All of the sites you mentioned (Letsrun, Eliterunning, Flotrack, TheFinalSprint, etc.) are heavily focused on the distance events. It would serve no purpose to the track & FIELD viewing public to ignore these events. Again, if that purpose is to cover the sport as a while, then we need expertise in those areas as well.
I’ll conclude by saying that something will be launching very soon. It may take a while for this project to get off the ground, but I think you’ll be pleased with the support and individuals who will be leading the way.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:51 pm |
Tom,
I agree with what you’re saying. We do need to include track and field as a whole and not just one event grouping. But a larger problem is that it’s not clearly defined who is and is not a professional. Since for so long we have been using the term “Elites” and not referring to them as professional athletes. Once we define this criteria more can be done.
And people should be able to do things on an individual level. I was not saying they should not. I look at runnerville how many different people who have their own site still contribute to runnerville without losing their artistic flair.
I think a super site is possible, just need to get the right people in the room to make it happen.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:42 pm |
Jayson — No doubt, it takes the right people in the room to make this happen. It’s certainly a challenge and one that I think can work.
I couldn’t agree with you more on how we, the media and fans, define who is professional. In our sport, it’s very difficult to draw that line. You’re not going to please everyone either.
When you have such a diverse group of athletes, from the 100 meters to racewalking, it’s can be a blender filled with too much information that could confuse the average fan which you’ll lose right away as well.
Not only that, but how many events outside of the sport of track & field should be covered? Should there be more of a focus on road racing? What about cross country? Why do we only cover cross country during the season and not after? Is that only because some of the same athletes compete on the track? Conversely, why do we only cover track & field during their season? Why can’t we get more insight into how the sprinters at Florida State are training in November?
If you turn on ESPN right now, I’m sure you’ll see at least a news ticker devoted to the NFL Draft in a few weeks. The Super Bowl ended over 2 months ago.
My point is that our sport, as a whole, deserves coverage at all levels at all points of the year. We can’t just turn the page in track & field after the last athlete crossed the line at the IAAF World Athletics Final in September.
We need to get the fans — and especially the new breed of fans — excited in the sport at all times of the year.
Perhaps Runnerville can set up a roundtable podcast discussion about this idea. Now that would be great!
April 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am |
Tom, it’s easy to tell you are a fellow golden flash. I’m definitely excited about you saying that something is in the works as trackshark is definitely the most comprehensive and professionally done track website out there.
Along with what your saying about HOW MUCH should be covered by one theoretical comprehensive website, I think it is definitely possible. Surely everyone wants “their piece of the pie” which is why you get so many individual start up websites out there, but don’t you think it is possible to bring together a solid writer/editor from each walk of track and field (sprinters, walkers, throwers, distance runners, etc.)? Combine those writers/editors with a great web design guy and maybe a video editor as well and you have something started.
It is certainly difficult to get true professionals when you can pay them little/nothing, but there are a lot of talented young guys with training in video/web design/writing that are willing to work hard in their spare time as you have done with track shark.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:31 am |
The key to any successful news-based website is to have full-time staff. It’s great that so many of our sport’s websites have young men and women devoting a chunk of free-time to helping out a website or two, but if our sport ever wants to grow certain things, including a professional website, it needs to have full-time staff to be truly successful.
I think another topic that needs to be discussed at some point is the professionalization (is that even a word?) of our sport. Much of our sport is professional, but much of it isn’t. USATF is still a non-for-profit company. While that might make sense tax-wise, it certainly doesn’t do much for the sport professionally. But again, this is a whole other topic to be discussed later.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:53 pm |
As Toni has said before, we need a professional arm of USATF. Similar to golf where there is the USGA and the PGA. There is no clear-cut criteria what makes someone a professional. Having a full-time staff would be great, but that might be hard to do right now and that shouldn’t keep us from moving forward on this issue. We need to start somewhere and work towards the goal of having a full-time staff. But I still think you will need to have freelance people/roving reporters.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:39 pm |
I agree with all of you. I recently got an internship with USATF for the summer to work on their website. I have a lot of ideas to make it better.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:29 pm |
I do believe that USATF website should be better with everything about the PRO side of the sport on it. A full time staff on such website should be a must. Many people on the other websites are just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts ( I wish the commenters would realize that). A staff that is paid and their job is to maintain the website would I believe work better.
I do like the idea of a super website also, combine all the media that we have currently in awesome amazing place.
Then again, Could you not just alert the new running fan public of where to find the info with a large PR or Advertising campaign for a current website like Flotrack or Letsrun? Or perhaps have a PR/Advertising campaign with all websites listed…
Ohh, and just to add I had to turn in my idea on what my Senior Honors project will be (think like 60 page paper I work on for two years before I can graduate undergrad), and I actually wrote down, “How to fix U.S. Track and Field..” So needless to say if anyone wants to help me..
April 11th, 2008 at 1:58 pm |
Cara…feel free to email me if you want to discuss your Honors project. I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say and how you are going to organize it. Shoot me an email if you want: SBush1002@Gmail.com
April 11th, 2008 at 2:19 pm |
I do realize most of the people are doing it out of the goodness of their heart. I hope you didn’t think I was saying otherwise. And honestly, I think that is why they all do such an amazing job, because they love the sport.
Nike had an ad several years back and the closing line was, “Only the love can make you a player.” Which is so true. Don’t get me wrong, paid full-time staff would be great. But the people who are doing it now are simply amazing. You can feel and sense their passion for the sport every time you visit their site.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:49 pm |
Jayson, Cara, etc…I think all of us can agree that the people covering the sport (i.e. FloTrack, LetsRun, TrackShark, etc.) are doing an amazing job and we are lucky to have such great websites available. However, what I think our sport needs is to take the professionalism one step further, and in regards to the media that means creating a large, inclusive, professional-based website. It’s taking what we have one step further. Not only would a major website like this have marketing power behind it (which could really change the sport on many levels), but it would cover all aspects of the sport (T&F, road racing, cross country). Our sport has great coverage of distance running events, but what about the rest? Have you ever watched a pole vaulter clear 19 feet…it’s just a beautiful as watching Bekele’s closing kick at the Olympics in ‘04. That needs to be shown on a broad scale.
I was hoping to have a follow-up to this piece earlier in the week, but I got bogged down with work. I’ll try to get something up by weekends end.
Thanks for the comments everyone. It’s this type of discussion that will shape our sport in the future.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
When I put commenters, I did not mean on this website…I meant on flotrack itself..I should of made that a bit clearer…
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm |
[…] for Success Great article on Runnerville.com8 April 2008, Jayson @ 2:03 pmScott Bush does a great job analyzing the current state of the marketing professional track and field athletes. He […]