An interesting take on the popularity of the sport + financial implications

ecoli

Good post here by an American runner who has been actively campaigning for better funding within the sport and also having some success:

http://www.flotrack.org/blog/40848-OwnYourSkin

Also while being a novel way to raise funds for his foundation it also is a way in which athletes (and indeed the sport as a whole) can venture down new avenues to generate revenue:

http://www.i-bidder.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/mo-farah-foundation/catalogue-id-2626

Sprocket77

Interesting read and good to see an athlete who'll both fight his corner and come up with new ideas for funding. I did laugh a bit when I read this line though:

"Track and field’s waning popularity is due in large part to the logo restrictions put in place by the IAAF"

This type of argument is counter intuitive, because where the rest of his blog is reasoned, well argued and has some nice ideas, this statement is just silly.

I'd like to see an Irish athlete try something a bit different for fundraising. What he tried with ebay might work here, but you would need it to be one of our top athletes and it would probably only work once. It would get media attention the first time for the novelty, after that it would be common place and less news worthy.

Perhaps some road races could be run where the money goes to a particular athlete rather than a club, commercial organisation or a charity. Would probably work best in country areas where everyone in a community would know of the athlete and be proud of the local association.

myflipflops

Stolen from Letsrun, an interesting blog from US 800 meter runner Nick Symmonds:

http://www.flotrack.org/blog/40848-OwnYourSkin