What is T&F’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness for positive long term growth?

Question

Michael Johnson · Answer

What is track and field's biggest strength and biggest weakness for positive long-term growth? I think with this sport-- and I love the sport, and I certainly have been very vocal and want to see it improve as a sport for the spectators, but also for the great athletes in the sport who-- for many they struggle to even carve out a professional life financially in the sport. I think its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, and that is that there are so many various different events in the sport, so there are a lot of athletes, a lot of different types of athletes. You have your distance runners. You have your sprinters. You have your pole vaulters. You have your shot putters and your javelin throwers. It's almost like every competition is a mini Olympics, and it's very difficult to market a sport like that and appeal to a fan base, a new fan base. I mean, there are people like me and people that in the sport-- I mean, we have to be very careful and understand that the people who are diehard fans of the sport are very few. If you're trying to compete against the tennis and golfs of the world and team sports of the world, you have to follow that sort of formatting and understand that people don't typically have that sort of a wide span of interest where they're equally interested in watching someone run a 10,000 meters over 26 minutes, and also want to watch you know sprinters run 100 meters in 9 seconds, and then try to watch somebody and understand the pole vault, and also have an equal interest in the shot put. That typically doesn't happen. So that's a big problem for the sport. I think this sport has struggled to carve out a true professional identity. I think it's sometimes seen as an Olympic sport, purely an Olympic sport, because people really do pay attention to the sport every four years. In some ways, it's still an amateur sport. In some ways it's a professional sport. So I think that's a big problem in the sport-- needs to really carve out a an identity for itself and probably separate the professional side of the sport from the Olympic identity of the sport. That's easier said than done, but I would love to see it happen.

Swimming

Strength

Triathlon

Photography

Track & Field

Nutrition

Physical Therapy

Running

Pets

Cycling

Podcasting

HealthCare

Musculoskeletal

Hockey

First Responders

Integrative Medicine

Chiropractic

Cross Country Skiing

Adaptive Sports

Mental Health

Climbing

Surfing

Tennis

Military

Mind Body

Scholars

Criminal Justice

Liquor

Golf

CrossFit

Soccer

Pickleball

Hunting

Public Speaking

Venture Capital

"What is T&F’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness for positive long term growth?"