With the end of the relay carnival portion of the season, excitement turns to what I call the “pre-European” invitationals. That series of meets leading up to National Championships that includes meets like New York, Carson, Eugene, Doha, Osaka, Kingston and others. The meets are always hot, with good to great competition and serve to really get fans hyped leading into the various National Championships.

So, being the avid fan that I am, I went in search of information to find out what type of matchups we can expect. Now I understand that lineups may not be completely ironed out for some meets as they are still weeks away. But I expected to at least get a snippet of information – enough to get me excited about “who else” might line up on the track.

First search was for the Jamaica Invitational , or the Kingston meet as many call it. And I find – nothing. No web site, no start lists, and no articles highlighting the upcoming meet – and it is only FIVE DAYS AWAY! I’ve emailed some coaches to see if they have athletes that are going, and while I’ve found out about a couple of athletes that will be attending, no one I have talked to has any additional information.

I did similar searches for the Doha and Osaka meets, and got the same results – nothing. Again no web sites, no start lists, and no articles highlighting the meets, which means that no press releases have been sent out. And these are all major international competitions, approximately 10 days away, with results that will be on par with any of the Visa Series, Golden League, or European Circuit meets. Yet the best source of information will be second hand through the results section of the IAAF web site.

While these meets are all well attended at home, they are international in nature and thus serve a larger audience. Fans all over the world will want up to the minute information in what has become the Information Age. A web site that contains current news, history, photos, videos, athlete profiles, and other media/multi media data is a must. And no site is complete without “LIVE” RESULTS, because we die hard fans will be sitting in front of our computers thousands of miles away “watching” each event through the immediate results that are provided. Then there are those meets sophisticated enough to provide us with live video streaming of the event!

This is what makes up the elite meet experience for the fan at home when attending in person, or watching on television is just not a viable alternative. Personally, I don’t think any meet should be granted “Permit” status by the IAAF without having at least a rudimentary web site in place. “Grand Prix” and “Super Grand Prix” status should require everything up to LIVE video streaming. And all National and Global Championships should be working on providing LIVE streaming of their events.

This is how we can build our audience in the New Millennium – by harnessing and utilizing the capabilities of the Internet. Today track and field can reach far beyond the boundaries of any individual stadium. If we want to attract today’s sporting consumer, utilizing the Internet is how to do it. Not by cutting back on the product in the stadium, but by bringing it to the consumer in the manner to which he/she is becoming accustomed to receiving it.

And at the very least, keep us die hard fans – the sports’ base – happy and engaged by giving us the information that we need to stay connected. It’s hard to follow the game without a program. And some of these meets aren’t giving us a program. So those of you out there that are in charge of meets get on the ball and get your sites/programs together!

The BIG noise was made at Penn in the USA vs the World races as they sat center stage and had the attention of the world. But there were other top level marks turned in at Penn in some of the collegiate races as well. Texas AM won both men's and women's 4x1 AND 4x2 events to serve notice that their relay teams On the men's side their 38 Read More...

While most of our top sprinters were running relays at Penn, Tyson Gay got his 2009 campaign going at the low key Sun Devil Invitational in Tempe Arizona. Last month the Adidas Running camp revealed that Tyson Gay's fall and winter training were delayed due to a knee injury. Judging from yesterday's result Tyson has gotten back on track as he won the 400 meters in 46 Read More...

It's April. Teams for this year's World Championships won't be chosen until June. The World championships themselves won't be held until the end of August in Berlin Germany. But this year's Penn Relays was billed as a series of rematches between the US and Jamaica! There has been much hype about Jamaica taking over as the world's sprint power since they won the Men's 100, 200 and 4x1 and the Women's 100 and 200 in Beijing Read More...

Relay running takes center stage at Drake and Penn, but distance runners made some noise on Friday at a couple of meets here on the West Coast. In Oregon, Colorado steeplechaser Jenny Barringer opened up her season in the 1500 meters and won in a world leading time of 4:08.38. The 1500 seemed to be a good race to run in Oregon as half miler Andrew Weating moved up in distance and won in 3:40 Read More...

As I've scanned the news on the sport this week a couple of "economy" related discussions have caught my eye. The first was USATF CEO Doug Logan's most recent entry to his blog, he stated that he believes that the current economic downturn will benefit the sport of track and field. How? Well apparently he feels that sports have gotten to be too excessive and catering to the "Fat Cats", and that the fall of these "Fat Cats" opens the door for sports fans to start moving towards track and field - because we are better suited to the "hard hat", "lunch bucket" crowd Read More...

This weekend saw some pretty good performances, but the best of the bunch had to be at Mt SAC as Carmelita Jeter took the world lead and set a new PR of 10.96 (+0.9) in the women's 100 meters. Jeter came out of nowhere in '07 to win the bronze medal in the event in Osaka with a then PR of 11.02. Last year she ran 10 Read More...

As the season begins to hit it's stride we now see larger gatherings of elite level athletes than we have in previous meets this spring. Where earlier meets had one or two elites in attendance, Mt SAC will give us that first real "Invitational" feel! Mt SAC will host a plethora of talent, especially in the relays, sprints and hurdles Read More...

The Polls have closed. I would like to thank those of you that participated. Given the level of participation I will continue to run polls on the sport. The results of the first polls were:Should USATF pursue the development of a track and field "league" in the US?Yes - 40 - 76%No - 10 - 19%Undecided - 2 - 3%Which collegiate men's squad will win this year's NCAA 4x1 title?Florida - 14 - 40%LSU - 10 - 28%TxAM - 5 - 14%FlSt - 3 - 8%Clemson - 2 -5%Other - 1 - 2%

As the sport continues to try and find ways to market itself and improve its popularity, I continue to wonder why it simply doesn't look at what has worked in the past! After all, track and field is not some new sport trying to find its way. We're as old as the Olympics themselves and have a rich and storied history Read More...