BELGOF ATHLETICS PROJECT
Athletics is a sport that has huge potential. Untapped potential. It will bring in billions of dollars in profits. It'll fill up the TV space Monday to Friday, just like tennis or cycling. The stars of this sport can rise, in acceptance and fame, to the level of the biggest sports stars. In fact, 26 new sports can be created at once. It will also bring hundreds of new betting opportunities for bookmakers and thus an incentive for sponsorship.
It only takes one thing. Organise competitions, world, continental and national cups in each of the athletics disciplines separately. And adapt the race format to this programme. Not one sprint with 8 athletes, but 25 sprints with 2 athletes. There will not be 6 trials and 12 competitors in technical events, but 2 trials and 50 competitors.
This is the sport that is the cheapest to organise. And at the same time spectator friendly. The advantage for television is the precisely calculated duration of the race. Every day there can be hundreds of races around the world. And each competitor gets adequate media space.
By the time the first race series are held, the system can work like a tennis tournament. That is, it will make a ranking of all the events.
How to get started:
1. Choose one discipline - men's or women's. The format is suitable for the disciplines 100m, 110m hurdles (25 runs of 2 competitors), 400m, 800m, 400m hurdles (12 runs of 4 competitors), jumps and throws (1st round - 50 competitors, 2nd round - 30 best competitors). 26 events in total.
2. Get a sponsor. A donation of 5,000 EUR is sufficient. Prize Money - 1st place 1,000 EUR, 2nd place 500 EUR, 3rd place 300 EUR, 4th place 250 EUR, 5th place 200 EUR, 6th place 150 EUR, 7th place 100 EUR, 8th place 90 EUR, 9th place 80 EUR, 10th place 70 EUR, 11th-20th place 65 EUR, 21st-30th place 60 EUR, 31st-50th place 65 EUR 50 EUR. Prizes for each participant will attract enough competitors. Of course, as interest grows, budgets and also Prize Money will be higher.
3. 2 500 visitors with an entry fee of 2 EUR will cover the cost of Prize Money even without a sponsor.
4. Arrange TV broadcasts or stream the race via the internet.
5. Report race dates and results to the Belgof Athletics Project. E-mail : info@belgof.com
Athletes should have the same opportunities as tennis players and cyclists. To participate in regular races, to make big money from the races, to be on TV every week and to enjoy the same popularity.
Athletics television broadcasts do not meet the basic parameters for the mass fan: clarity, agility, regularity, publicity of the actors.
Introduce a separate World Cup in each of the disciplines. If the Ski Jumping World Cup works, has 30 competitions per season, mostly full spectators and TV coverage of each competition, it will work in athletics.
From April to October there can be 16 World Cups in technical events - long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, throws especially for men and women.. There's football on Saturday and Sunday, cycling in the afternoons during the week, and the athletics world cups may run Monday to Friday evenings. And they should work similarly to ski jumping, i.e. 50 competitors in round 1, top 30 in round 2. Count the results of both rounds, so that the winner of the first round also has motivation. The focus shifts from performance (world records...) to winning.
The other 12 World Cup races will be sprints, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 110m hurdles, 400m hurdles - men and women. There can be 100 participants. There will be 50 sprint pairs - from weakest to best, 25 runs 400m, 800m, 400m hurdles fours and 12 1500m runs. The fastest time wins.
Clarity : there is a women's long jump world cup going on. There are no cuts to the oval where 10,000m is run, it is not interrupted by the 100m heat, the announcement of the winners of the 400m over hurdles that was run an hour ago, etc.
Agility: each competitor one attempt in one round and the top 30 one attempt in the second round, 20 seconds per attempt. No lengthy introductions of the actors to the audience, waving, clapping instructions, etc. Length of transmission - maximum 90 minutes.
Regularity: say every other Tuesday is the Triple Jump World Cup, Wednesday the Javelin, etc., and that there are 20 competitions a year.
Publicity for the players: after a year, the average fan will know the group of 50-60 athletes in the discipline they are watching, just as they do in skiing. They will see them 20 times a year, just like biathletes or downhill skiers. Today, 50-60 athletes in a discipline are really only known by a dedicated professional. It works like any product - massive advertising sells. For an athlete, advertising is the opportunity to be on TV every week at competition, then in newspapers, on the internet, social media. The fight for the World Cup runs all season long and attracts the interest of fans and media all this time.
A system of continental competitions, etc. may also be introduced. The best athletes become much more marketable when they are on screen and in the media for 7 months a year. Just as tennis players, cyclists or car racers are written about, so can athletes.
Who would be interested in the World Cup?
- Athletes? In the sports where the World Cup is held, it is the main trophy of the season and everyone wants to win it. Plus, apparently no meet allows 50-60 athletes to participate regularly in one event. Athletes would welcome this format.
- Television? Eurosport has an empty space in the evening and evening on normal days. Two or three cycling events in the afternoon and nothing in the evening. During the working week, on a selected day, athletics can offer top races for 20 weeks. Standard event length - 90 minutes.
- World Athletics? It'll have another competition, space on TV. It can get sponsors and revenue.
- Organizers? They'll automatically get the top in the discipline.
It's possible to start with two or three disciplines and evolve to see if it's a viable model.
Author : Jozef Stasík, Slovakia
E-mail : info@belgof.com
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