USA Track & Field will begin a circuit of meets in 5 U.S. cities next summer, including Los Angeles. It's part of an ambitious plan to make track and field the country’s *fifth most-followed sport* by the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
in the quality of its international fields. Los Angeles will host one meet, Siegel said, adding a desire to reach fans particularly in hotbeds such as Florida, Texas and California.to take advantage of what it has called a critical six-year window in hopes of making track and field the country’s fifth-most-followed sport by the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
A World Athletics-contracted Nielsen study from 2019 found that track and field was the eighth-most-followed U.S. sport, with 37% of slightly more than 1,000 respondents indicating they were interested in it. To move into the top five behind football , baseball , basketball and soccer , track and field would need to surpass swimming, tennis and motor racing.
It’s why Siegel’s plan hinges heavily on this month’s world outdoor championships at Oregon’s Hayward Field — the first time the meet has been held in the U.S. — acting as a springboard for fans’ interest that USATF hopes its upcoming domestic circuit can then hold. “There are so many reasons why L.A., if you can catch the fire here in L.A. for the sport, I think it will spread,” Franken said. He called USATF’s plan “a smart idea because there’s been so few events in recent years in Los Angeles and really so few major events.”
“That one Eugene town, they’re die-hard track fans,” said Kendall Ellis, a 400-meter star at USC who has qualified for the world championships. “But for the rest of America, for the most part, there is just not enough respect and passion and support for the sport of track and field as a whole. I think L.A. is like a microcosm of that. It’s a small look at it, but the issue is overarching.”
Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., has become the de facto capital of U.S. track and field, hosting the NCAA outdoor championships, the U.S. national meet and for the first time this summer the world outdoor championships. Both Franken and Williams questioned whether USATF, given its sprawling responsibilities to serve track and field and runners in the country at the youth, elite and masters levels, was best equipped to stage and promote such meets, just as how USA Basketball does not run the NBA. Siegel said the appeal to some sponsors has been that their investments aren’t focused only on a circuit but in a nationwide market for track.
“We felt it was absolutely important to take advantage of this opportunity to try to elevate track to our audience,” Gesue said.
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