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Diamond League?

  • 03-03-2009 4:30pm
    #1
    ecoli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,762 ✭✭✭✭


    Anyone have any opinions on the scrapping of the European Golden League series and the introduction of the new international 16 event Diamond league with expansion to include races in Africa, China and US?
    Do we think this to be a good move by the sports governing bodies in an attempt to revitalise the sport?


Comments

  • #2
    thirtyfoot
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭thirtyfoot


    ecoli wrote: »
    Anyone have any opinions on the scrapping of the European Golden League series and the introduction of the new international 16 event Diamond league with expansion to include races in Africa, China and US?
    Do we think this to be a good move by the sports governing bodies in an attempt to revitalise the sport?

    The Golden League had gone a bit stale so I suppose anything will be good to get the interest going in the sport again. I'd like to the Diamond League picked up by BBC or ITV or RTE and then it might start getting exposure again.

    Sort of related, did you see they are attempting to get an Inter-City league together in the UK. Held in various cities throughout the season it will allow two guests per team and all other team members must have a link of some sort to the city. It would involve snappy 2-3 hour programme with points won in each event. There is an indoor version on a smaller scale at the moment which Belfast compete in. If the other kicked off, I think Dublin should try get a team in it. They are trying to create an exciting, spectator friendly league and I suppose anything new should be looked at.


  • #3
    Rineanna
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,614 ✭✭✭Rineanna


    On the whole I think it's a positive development. As Tingle rightly said, the Golden League was beginning to have the stale factor. Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't find better quality fields and crowds at any other athletics comps, and that's fine for the already athletically-literate fans, but it just wasn't capturing the attention of non-fans outside teh sports existing fan base.

    I'm glad they've amalgamated the Golden League and the Super League, meaning it can be marketed as a whole package, rather than fragmented into different meet levels. That should make it more attractive to the non-athletics sports fans, who can follow a league of standardised meets on all corners of the earth, like Formula one, rather than a Europe-centric programme.

    The biggest plus it'll bring is that it'll spread the benefits/dosh equally among events, rather than the 'sexy' events hogging all the lime light (Women's PV, Men's 100m/400m/etc). As I understand it, all events except the hammer will feature equally, meaning that we might actually see events like the Women's Shot, Men's discus, etc more frequently.

    They're thinking of setting up a dedicated Hammer Challenge league to circumvent infrastructural barriers at these meets' stadia, and this is a problem which could be turned into a huge opportunity for the Hammer to be rejuvenated as an event. Make the existing main hammer meets (like Warsaw, Doha, Tallinn, etc) and work them into a league of its own of say eight meets with a minimum number having to be attended to qualify for the race for prize money and the diamond. I don't know if the Morton Memorial is being run again, but it could be one of those meets involved in the league.

    As for BBC/RTE picking it up, didn't Setanta have the rights to the Golden League last year? I'd imagine while they have it, RTE/BBC won't get near it, unfortunately. It's a shame, as this new effort to promote the sport to a wider audiences will be hampered if it's not available to the masses rather than those select who have Setanta.


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