The first question was simple.......Did you go to the Cork City Sports?
The answer was 70% No and 30% Yes.
Some points...
1) Thanks to the 102 people who took part in this poll. That number is probably large enough to get an accurate answer.
2) As you might expect, the vast majority of visitors to this blog are probably runners and are probably based in the Cork region. It raises a serious issue for the organsiers of the Cork City Sports...if they are failing to attract local runners to the event then what hope have they of getting the general public to attend? Remember that in it's heyday back in the early 80's, in excess of 10,000 people would fill the Mardyke grounds to watch.
The second question was Why didn't you go to the Cork City Sports? and 61 people answered this.
A...39% said that no-one of interest was taking part.
B...25% said they had no interest overall. Taken together, that's 64% of those that didn't go found there was nothing there to attract them.
C...20% of those that didn't go said that they didn't know it was on. If that is taken as a pecentage of the whole then it might suggest that 14% of all runners didn't know that the Cork City Sports was on. If this is supposed to be one of the main sporting events in Cork and some runners don't know about it, then a very high percentage of the general public must be unaware of it.
D...16% thought it was too expensive. It was €15 to get into the stand and €10 to get into the grounds.
So after all that, what conclusions can we draw?
It's obvious that money and sponsorship is a big issue. It is supposed to cost €120k to organise the Cork City Sports. Without the money, they can't attract the big names which in turn won't attract the crowds which in turn won't bring in the money. It's a bit of a catch 22 situation.
Possibly the list of events could be improved? Personally, I'd have no interest in watching a 1500 or 3,000 metre race but I think it would be great to watch someone attempt a sub 4 minute mile. Despite the fact that everything has gone metric, runners still think in minutes per mile and there is a certain mystique and history to the mile distance.
I'm not sure how the organisers advertised the event but obviously they are not getting their message out there. I only really noticed it when I came across a poster on a website about 1 week before the event. Again, if the message isn't getting to all of the running community then what hope have they of attracting the wider public?
A lot of interesting comments and suggestions were left under the earlier post if you want to have a look. You can leave a comment there or under this post if you want to. Click on the link below.
3 comments:
With so little athletics coverage on tv it's hard to even know who's any good so none of the names for this event mean anything to people. This is what leads to the apathy. Don't know how you improve on the crowds tho. Clubs could help a bit by trying to drum up interest maybe.
June might be a better date for this event as people are on holidays in july. This is the reason why I never went to this competition. Can the date be changed?
My biggest issue were the events, probably would have gone if there was a 5,000m there
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