A track and field circuit of 26 to 29 televised indoor and outdoor meets a year is being studied by The Athletics Congress/USA, ruling body of the sport in this country.
Reacting to falling fan interest and increasing migration of top U.S. athletes to lucrative foreign meets, TAC/USA announced Friday a ”feasibility study” for a series of 90-minute live TV meets that could start on Saturday nights of the 1989 outdoor season. Indoor meets would start on Friday nights with the 1990 season.
Ollan Cassell, executive director of TAC, estimated the package would cost $3.5 million a year, including TV time, contracts for 50 athletes and a unique system of profit sharing for athletes.
Dr. Leroy Walker, president of TAC, disputed the $3.5 million, a figure considered too low to attract the highly paid athletes who earn considerable appearance fees at invitational meets.
”I`m not quite sure when you put all the numbers down that that is the number,” Walker said.
Cassell said he has talked with all the networks and to cable outlets about the possibility and was confident the idea will work, although details remain incomplete.
Cassell has been criticized by meet directors in the U.S. for his distribution of funds from Mobil Corporation, sponsor of a Grand Prix prize system for indoor and outdoor meets. This year, 15 of 16 Grand Prix outdoor meets were outside the U.S.
Cassell said national championship meets plus special dual meets such as U.S. versus East German women could be included in the series.
Walker said a possibility exists that college athletes could be included in the concept. Indicative of the sport`s problems was the recent elimination of track by Northwestern, Oregon State and San Jose State.
Interest in the sport in the U.S. peaks every four years, culminating with the Olympic trials covered by media outlets around the world. Yet the current eight-day competition here, already one of the great track meets in history, is being televised in the U.S. only on three weekend days.
”We don`t own the rights to this meet,” Cassell said.
TV rights to Olympic trials are owned by the United States Olympic Committee.
One of the missions of the TAC/USA American Plan outlined Friday was ”to build U.S. track and field into a world leader.”
”We were not overwhelmed to find out we ranked 17th in spectator appeal behind bowling,” Walker said. ”We have to improve our image.”
– The oldest athlete with a chance to make the Olympic team, 41-year-old discus thrower John Powell, advanced with no trouble to Saturday`s final. Powell is trying to becoming the first U.S. man to make five Olympic teams.
”Just think, if I make the team this year, I might become a Trivial Pursuit question,” Powell said.
– There is still a possibility that sprint rivals Ben Johnson of Canada and Carl Lewis of the U.S. will meet before the Olympics. The best chance would be in a 100-meter race Aug. 17 in Zurich.
”Ben definitely will run the 100 meters at Zurich, and I understand Carl will,” Larry Heidebrecht, Johnson`s agent, said Thursday.
Lewis` manager, Joe Douglas, said he was beginning negotiations Thursday to arrange such a meeting. Douglas was not optimistic.
”I have found Heritage Corporation (trying to promote the race for Johnson) difficult to work with,” Douglas said.
Johnson and Lewis have not met since the 1987 World Championships, when Lewis equaled the world record of 9.93 seconds but Johnson beat him with a 9.83. A planned match race series between the two was canceled when Johnson hurt his leg in early May.
Johnson has not completed an outdoor race this year. He is scheduled to run the Canadian championships Aug. 4-5.
– Lewis hurt his ankle slightly while taking an unnecessary sixth jump in the long jump Monday. He already had the competition won and he had two 200-meter races yet to run.
”He wanted to please the crowd,” Douglas said. ”If I had been down there (on the track), I would have said, `Carl, don`t do it; it`s just stupid.` Because of what happened in 1984, he probably was very sensitive to the desires of the crowd.”
Lewis was criticized for having taken only two long jumps while winning the event in the Olympics. It had always been his intention to back off if he were ahead because he had several more races to run, but that strategy was not explained by Lewis or Douglas in advance.
The sore ankle must have bothered Lewis in Wednesday`s 200-meter final, which he lost to training partner Joe DeLoach. Lewis never mentioned the injury, apparently because it would have detracted from DeLoach`s triumph.
– Connie Price of Savoy, Ill., began throwing the discus only after using up her basketball eligibility at Southern Illinois in 1984.
As a junior forward at SIU, the 6-foot-3-inch Price ranked third in the nation in field-goal percentage, getting most of her points from close range. Price, now 26, didn`t have much range or accuracy when she first tried the discus. Of her first three throws, one went 98 feet and two went into the cage surrounding the discus ring.
Three years later, she was challenging the American record in the discus
(216-10) with a throw of 212-8. Thursday night, Price won the Olympic trials` discus at 201-0.
