Track is Back!

Washington Post Article Reports Track & Field Popularity is on the Upswing

submitted to pausatf.org by Thomas Vincent

"Yet a record crowd of 54,000 jammed a track meet in Philadelphia on April 24 to watch a competition dubbed "USA vs. The World" that showcased megastar Usain Bolt <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042402456.html> , a Jamaican sprint genius who routinely wins short races by extraordinary margins. And, perhaps even more notably, another 63,000 showed up for collegiate,  high school and senior track and field competition in the two days before Bolt arrived."

"At the recent world indoor championships in Doha, Qatar, 17 athletes on the U.S. team sent out live tweets from their Twitter accounts (and many  also updated their Facebook pages). World 400-meter champion Sanya Richards-Ross, who recently married New York Giants cornerback Aaron Ross, is a runner first and multimedia company second; she goes so far as to post footage of mundane life events among her 38 YouTube videoblogs. Even USATF Chief Executive Officer Doug Logan blogs, often using surprisingly frank language as he ruminates on http://www.usatf.org.
"I think everyone is" using social media, said Allyson Felix, the reigning 200-meter world champion who has more than 5,000 followers on Twitter. "I think you really have to get creative. We're an Olympic sport; we have to really get out and reach people . . . Social media is a  great way of really pulling everyone in."

Track and field also attracts arguably the most sophisticated Web and blog coverage of any non-major U.S. sport through powerhouse sites such as http://www.letsrun.com  and http://www.flotrack.com.  Robert and Weldon Johnson, brothers who began letsrun.com in 2000, say Web traffic has increased every year -- especially recently. Last year, unique visitors to increased 24 percent over 2008, and the first four months of this year have shown an even bigger boost: 52 percent over 2008.

Meantime, USATF membership has grown by 30 percent to nearly 100,000 since 2001, with a 12 percent leap and a 10,000-member increase between 2008 and 2009. Television ratings -- though small by the standards of professional or collegiate football, pro and college basketball and baseball -- routinely beat the WNBA, NHL and Major League Soccer. Said Logan, who was MLS's first commissioner, "in soccer, we would have killed for the ratings we're getting right now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/09/AR2010050902147_pf.html