May 1st, 2008

The Toni & Matt Show #9

by Matt Taylor in The Toni and Matt show
Subscribe with iTunes | RSS feed | What is a podcast?

 
 The Toni & Matt Show #9 [58:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The greatest time ever to be a distance running fan? London, Boston, Drake, Penn, Olympic Marathon Trials, and Stanford on the horizon. All in an Olympic year. Get the rundown on the Toni & Matt Show Episode #9:

    So many great races (see above) and story lines (Olympic year), but can the average fan keep up? With no organization orchestrating the whole show, everything gets lost. And as a result, during the sports segment on the show Morning Joe, they covered Alicia Follmar, the athlete from Stanford who fell and got spiked in the head. She finished her leg of the relay with blood rolling down the side of her face. Courageous? No doubt. But it’s only happenings like this (also see Cheruiyot’s fall at the line in Chicago) that get us on national television.

    The Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston - a complete success. So why won’t the BAA bid for the event again? Will NYC host every marathon Trials from here on out? Can USATF put their foot down and demand the USOC sponsors pitch in to cover the cost? (Don’t count on it.) One thing is clear - putting the trials in a major city the same weekend as their major marathon works. (And Boston fans are the greatest running fans in the country.)

    Drake takes it to the fans with an indoor pole vault. Hats off to them, but will anyone follow their lead? Imagine the London and Boston Marathon fields racing over the US Women’s Olympic Marathon criterium style course in Boston? Or imagine the Olympic Marathon Trials where anyone can enter . . . for a $200 entry fee. Instead of 180 participants, you’d have 30,000.

    Have we reached the greatest period in American distance running? Toni says no. Matt is non-committal. But one thing is clear: man, have we come a long way the last 5 years. Remember 2000? Yikes.

    This weekend’s Stanford meet will be totally off the charts. Look at these heet sheets! You’re going to see (err, read about) some incredible performances and some that leave you shaking your head. Why is this not on television? Note to NBC: Wake Up! This is where you’ll get all the backstories you need for the Pre Classic, the Olympic Trials, and the actual Olympics.

    We touch briefly on athlete contracts and how they actually hurt the sport from a fan perspective. They’re structured around two things - fast times and making National teams. There’s no incentive to run off distances (e.g., two-miles) or to race strong competitors when not 100% fit. As a result, we rarely get the match-ups we (fans) want to see. The one exception: Stanford this weekend.

What do you think? Call us at 206-888-0346 and leave your comment. We’ll play it on the show. Thanks for listening.

Last 5 posts by Matt Taylor
No tag for this post.

One Response to “The Toni & Matt Show #9”

  1. Tom Borish says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 7:59 am |

    So how do we, exactly, appeal to the masses in our sport? Do we give up the super-relay meets where athletes literally can’t use blocks because there is such a tight time schedule? Do people really want to watch over 100 videos of races from one meet?

    I’d rather watch a classic dual meet that brings out more competition and intrigue into the team aspect. It’s usually done in under 3 hours and I don’t have as much of a headache afterwards.

    Think about it. If you are a true fan of the sport and you attended the Penn Relays, you still missed out on so much other action across the country. The last weekend in April can be defined as information overload. Perhaps it’s the fault of our own sport. Too many different events with too many athletes.

    Would the average fan rather be at the Drake Relays or in LA to catch UCLA do battle with USC?

    One of the problems is when we combine the high school/college/pro/masters all in one. It’s almost impossible to cover and read about everything.

    So, how can we fix the problem of appealing to the masses? Perhaps if we had less super invitational and relay meets, it would be a start. You just have to ask yourself if you would rather watch a smaller meet with much less athletes or a larger meet with a large amount of athletes.

Leave a Reply