Runnerville

Runnerville has laid low since the summer. I know many of our readers have been disappointed and I receive emails from friends and fans of the site at least once a week about when the site is coming back. Well, I am not sure when the site will kick back up to the same level it was running at earlier this year, but I figured it is time to start posting up ideas and creating dialogue once again.

My first post back will be in response to Toni Reavis’ speech he gave at the Road Race Management Race Directors Meeting last month. Toni’s speech was simply fantastic, as I’ve read it at least a dozen times since he posted it up on Runnerville. The thoughts and ideas running throughout the piece continue to motivate and inspire deeper thinking towards improving the sport, and I applaud Toni for laying out his thoughts in such a dynamic way.

For a couple years now I’ve batted around the idea of a professional race circuit. The idea has jumped from specialty to specialty, from cross country to track and field to road racing, but after Toni’s speech it became clear to me that road racing is where our sport should focus much of its creative attention over the next few years. Nearly 10 million people ran a road race in 2008, many millions more than those that took part in a track and field competition or cross country race.  That statistic alone leaves me believing that professional road racing needs to become the focus of USATF, RRCA, and every major road race director in the country over the next few years.  Creative thinking, strong recruiting and dynamic leadership could create quite the road race circuit in the United States, promoting our sport, our identity and most of all our athletes to the nation and the world.

Over the next two days I will take a look at organizing a professional road race circuit.  How I believe it should be structured, financed, marketed and implemented.  You may agree or disagree with my ideas, but what I hope to do is create a constructive dialogue about a professional road race circuit, then emailing the ideas and discussions to major road race directors and other major players in our sport, as well as a few outside the sport.  Enjoy the plan, debate all its parts and let’s try and create something truly inspiring.

An Idea: A Road Race Circuit (Part I)

As stated prior, I will break this piece down into two parts.  First, I’d like to introduce the professional road race circuit idea, lay out the plan (amount of races, athletes involved, dates and locations) and explain a few reasons why certain things are certain ways.  Part II will discuss the financial structure, marketing plan and long-term vision of the circuit.  I don’t want to draw out this plan over one incredibly long article, thus the split into two parts. 

A Need for Something Bigger

For as long as I can remember people have talked about how track and field needs to market itself better.  USATF needs to market the athletes better, or the agents do.  This has taken place for years, but perhaps it’s not the marketing of the athletes we should be worrying about.  Perhaps we need to organize better competitions.  Perhaps race directors need to do a better job at promoting their event, creating something entertaining, rather than the standard five hour track event.  Perhaps road races need to make their event more entertaining, get the entire community involved, promote the best aspects of the event, make it fun!

People love road races.  They love them!  Why do they love them though?  I do think people enjoy testing their physical limits, while I also believe they love exercising early in the morning.  However, I believe the main reason people love doing local 5k’s and 10k’s (the majority of road races) is because of the social outlet it creates.  Why do people go to baseball games?  Why do people go to NASCAR events or horse races?  They are fun to watch, but it’s more of a social activity then anything else.

Well that is where I think road racing is unique.  Not only can you create a festival-like atmosphere to draw a community into an event, but you can create a participatory event, where people can be social and active.  It really is the perfect business model, especially for communities that embrace healthy lifestyles (which are becoming more and more of the norm).

The Plan: Step by Step

A professional road racing circuit, I believe, should be started from scratch.  In Toni Reavis’ speech, he stated that races already organized should be used to create a circuit.  I strongly disagree.  First, individual race directors will not come together under one entity.  It’s too hard with the boards they report too and the sponsors that are involved.  Creating a new set of races takes work, but it is much easier to create a company with a single vision of putting on great events, with a strong emphasis on the professional circuit.

You might be wondering ‘why start six races, shouldn’t you just be starting six small races just for the professional athletes?’  No.  I’ve seen and read about races being built up over the course of 2-5 years, reaching upwards of 15,000-20,000 people.  If you host a race before the professional race, can maximize it to 20,000 taking part in a race before hand, those are 20,000 more people that may stay after their race and view the professional race.  You need to draw people to the event, so give them a reason.

Races

People need a reason to go to an event.  People need extra incentives to go and watch a running event.  If a large race takes place before hand that is a great start.  Already you have an active potential fanbase to work from.  However, creativity is the key here and there are many ideas one could implement that would make each race truly special.

Think about this…

An evening race, held under the street lights and giant spotlights of a large city.  Have you ever run fast at night?  It is truly an amazing feeling.  Host each event on a Saturday evening, shutting down a 5k-10k route for the general participant race (which takes place first), but then making the course even smaller by creating a one mile criterion course for the professional runners.  Therefore, fans don’t see each athlete only once, rather they can see them 3-6 times by standing in only one spot.

On top of that, each event should have a festival-like atmosphere.  Tents everywhere, with vendors serving food and beer, bands playing, street performers performing.  Each race could be a carnival, with the professional race taking center stage.  Athletes would be announced at the starting line with their theme songs, team gear could be sold throughout the festival, pre-race and post-race team functions could invite in the casual fan and VIP tickets could be sold at the start/finish line for each race.  The possibilities are endless.

Ideally there would be 6 races, run every other week, leaving a 12 week season.  The road race circuit would take place after the competitive track and field season concludes, meaning the races would take place at some point in September through part of December.  It’s important to mix together the indoor and outdoor track seasons with the professional road race circuit.  Getting the best distance runners in the United States to take part is important, so allowing them to have full track and field seasons is important on a variety of levels.

But won’t the athletes be tired when the circuit starts?  Well, a lot of athletes from various countries run races nearly year round.  With races only being once every 14 days, and never going longer than 10k, athletes should be fine.  Obviously some of the top runners that take part in the Olympics and World Championships may want to call their season at the start of the circuit, but most distance runners don’t have that opportunity and the circuit allows them more chances to improve, impress sponsors and build brands (which I’ll talk further about in Part II).

Location of these races is very important in creating a top-tier racing circuit.  Picking six races, with potential to eventually expand to 8-10 races, means markets that are fan friendly right away are ones that should be chosen.  A few markets that would be ideal are: New York City, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, San Fransisco, Boston, Washington D.C. and San Diego.  All of these cities have proven in the past that they can support a top-tier distance running event, and have active communities of runners.  I am sure there are other cities worthy of hosting such events, but I believe these are the best on paper.

With a circuit spanning over 12 weeks, the seasons change from late-summer to early-winter, meaning the northern-most cities like Minneapolis should probably host events earlier in the competitive season, while the last races of the circuit could take place along the more temperate west coast or more southern cities (i.e. Austin).  Putting races in areas with good weather should help increase the spectators that come out, as well as the general participants in the pre-race race.

Teams/Athletes

With a few ideas in place for the actual races, what about the teams?  Well, 6-10 teams of 6-10 individuals could be created.  I’ll get more into funding in Part II, but the obvious goal should be to create 10 teams with at least 6 individuals each.  That’s nearly 60 athletes, but think of how many athletes you could get coming out of college to compete another few years if they had an organized circuit to focus on.

The road race circuit organizing committee would draw in investors from inside and outside the sport, focusing on having teams in ideal training settings (which investors need to pay for).  Once each investor and training area is established, a draft takes place.  Athletes submit their names into a draft and team owners pick their athletes.  Once an athlete is drafted and signed by a team they are bound to that team as long as their contract states.  I know you’re all thinking about the financial side of things, I promise you that will be talked about extensively in Part II.

All athletes have the option to take part in the circuit (before the draft), and while a few of the top athletes will not want to take part initially (due to their large shoe contracts), I would say a strong group of athletes would want to take part, especially with the types of investors that would be involved (not just shoe companies, but people from outside the sport).

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Part II comes tomorrow.  Part II will discuss the money involved in creating the venture and keeping it running, the prize money and race structure (point system), as well as how the circuit can make money and be marketed.

• Money and Distance Running - September 9th, 2009
• An Idea: A Road Race Circuit (Part II) - December 10th, 2008
• Who Should Be the Face of Our Sport? - June 4th, 2008
• Welcome to the Internet Age - April 7th, 2008
• Robinson v. Symmonds, Now We Need More - February 26th, 2008