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Texas, on 14 May 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:
Track and field is not dying overseas, only in the United States. It's the only sport in America without a homegrown superstar. The closet one is Allyson Felix as she has the attractiveness, and talent to be marketed as the face of the sport in the United States. The problems though are that she has no individual gold medals and uncertainty about whether or not she will be in Rio in four years (she'll be 31 when Rio starts).
Felix is a three time world champion over 200m. Whilst not an Olympic champion yet, this may well change in London this year.I think U.S track and field is making more effort to market her now.
Athletics is one of the world's great sports -- the mother sport if you like. But in an American context, it doesn't generate the big bucks like other traditional American sports. With baseball for example, people grow up rooting for their fave players, going to matches, buying memorabilia etc. The sport becomes part of everyday culture. But with athletics, that simply cannot happen. And in American society, the most savvy consumer driven society in the world, athletics doesn't quite gel with the people in the way other sports do.
I think the U.S is actually fielding better athletics teams now than it did in the past -- by that I mean it has more depth in events outwith the sprints.
