Of Kobe Bryant and Tyson Gay, you probably know only one. Bryant is the nine-time All-Star, three-time NBA Champion, poster boy of American basketball. Bryant’s smooth jump shot has given him nationwide recognition and countless endorsement deals.
So who is Tyson Gay? That question is sure to stump even the smartest of Stuyvesant students. It isn’t a name you often see on a newspaper’s sports page, though Gay’s title as fastest man in the world places him at the pinnacle of athletics.
The American sprinter won both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints at this year’s International Association of Athletes Federation (IAAF) World Championships.
America’s track and field athletes made a statement at this year’s Championships by taking home 26 medals, double the amount of medals second place Kenya earned. America responded by saying, “We don’t care.” The American media has abandoned professional track and field. The public eye focuses on it once every four years during the Olympics and then goes back to ignoring this sport at times when athletics can truly be at its purest.
Professional track and field’s exposure pales in comparison not only to that of professional football and basketball, but also to high school football and basketball. You can find upwards of five prep school football games a week on television.
Even World Wrestling Entertainment is shown on television at least 25 times a month, while only 17 track meets have been scheduled for television all year.
Professional poker has shown that television exposure can increase the popularity of a sport. After 30 years of moderate growth, the poker industry exploded in popularity when ESPN televised the World Series of Poker main event in 2003. Poker’s unknown stars became celebrities. The 12 million dollars awarded to the winner of the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event made it the largest monetary sports prize in the world.
The lack of interest in track and field is especially surprising when you consider the number of Americans who run on a daily basis. Running is America’s most popular sport in terms of participation. Seventy thousand high school athletes compete in track and field every year. Almost 40,000 people finished last year’s New York City marathon.
New Yorkers are lucky to have access to professional track and field. The Armory, the home of Stuyvesant’s indoor track teams, is also the site of frequent professional track meets. New York also houses Icahn Stadium. Built in 2005, Icahn is one of only three IAAF-approved American stadiums and one of only 61 in the world. These venues give New Yorkers an opportunity to support the world’s oldest sport.
The reason for America’s disenchantment with professional track and field can be linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Even though steroids have been prevalent in several major American sports, the effect it has left on track and field has been especially tarnishing. The advantage steroids give to a runner is too huge to be ignored: not only do they increase lean muscle mass, they also increase the ability an athlete has to recover.
But a resurgence in track and field may be on the way. Over the last seven years, the 88 track meets that have aired on television have averaged a 2.0 on the Nielsen Ratings—only half a point behind the average Major League Baseball Game on Fox and a 30 percent increase for track and field. This, along with the upcoming 2008 Olympics could bring a new age in the popularity of American track and field.
The purely physical aspect of track and field is a source of distrust but also involves the performance of the human body at its finest.
