The B's Have It

For Athletics(track & field to us heathens in the US), this has been the year of Bs. After the Olympics in Beijing, everything centered on the World Championships in Berlin where the stars were Usain Bolt and Kenenisha Bekele. The successes and relative notoriety of the pair illustrate the nature of modern sport.

Bolt is everything the media want in a star. He not only performs spectacularly on the track, but he entertains. He has a signature pose. He goes through a mime routine before lowering himself into the starting blocks, then he turns the competition into one of a man against boys, Superman versus mere mortals. Bekele, however, is from a culture that frowns on self promotion and appreciates him for what he is, potentially the greatest distance runner of all time, an executioner who is comfortable crushing his opposition from the gun or with a last lap sprint worthy of a middle distance champion.

Thus, nearly everyone who follows sport and many who don't know who Usain Bolt is. Only the sport's aficionados recognize Bekele. In the entertainment world, self promotion is an essential piece of an athlete's resume, especially if your intent is to maximize the income you earn. Bolt's agent, Ricky Simms, says he hopes to parlay his charge's athletic talents into $10 million in economic rewards. Bekele runs to win championships and the money derived from that success is merely a bonus.

Nike, which has made good use of its endorsed athletes, doesn't use Bekele heavily in its promotions, while Bolt is the poster boy for the Puma brand. Bolt has been everywhere post Beijing to promote himself, his sport, and his sponsor associations. Interestingly enough he has been largely invisible in the US except for assorted television appearances, which speaks to the Eurocentric nature of the sport at present and the relative invisibility of the formerly potent US Athletics circuit.

Once the crown jewel of Olympic sports within the US, track has shrunk to becoming a niche sport followed almost exclusively by the die hard fans of the activity. Attempts are being made to reverse this decline, but just as the fall was gradual, rather than rapid, the recovery will also not happen overnight. While the US team is still the best in the world, the economic clout of the sport in the US is minuscule.

Some blame the stain of drug use, but that argument falls flat with the current revelations about baseball, which have done little or no damage to ticket sales and revenue in that sport. More likely the answer is in another b word, business. While the vast majority of people are attracted to the sport as a sport, an activity, a social network of people involved in the same pursuit, the business end of the sport does not have the success rate of the athletic side.

Sport in today's society is indeed big business. Athletics has yet to fully and effectively embrace that concept. Efforts are being made to correct that. The success of the sport as a business depends on how effective these efforts are at reaching their goals.