sportstyle

F or a sport where the U.S. has been a g lob a l le ader – at t he World Championships and at the Summer Olympic Games – for decades, it's interesting that track and field doesn't play a bigger role on the American sports scene from a media coverage perspective. Fur thermore, some of the greatest athletes in American sports have been track and field participants, but their talents have, generally speaking, only attracted headline attention every four years. Now that the sport is fully professional, the world's great track and field athletes continue to spend their summers living and competing on the outdoor European track and field circuit, which has annual stops in places like London, Brussels, Zurich, Oslo, Stockholm, Monaco, Paris and Lausanne, Switzerland. Here in the U.S., SFIA reports there are 3.7 million track and field participants in the U.S., with 1.1 million participating on high school teams. Of those, 55 percent are boys. At the high school level, outdoor track and field is the second most popular high school sport for boys and is the most popular high school sport for girls. Those numbers make team dealers very happy and the sport has evolved into an important category for Coaches Corner in Indiana. "Track has become a big business for us," says GM Claussen. "In addition to singlets, we sell all the field equipment such as shots, the discuses, pole vault poles, high jump bars and pole vault bars, as well as the spikes that screw into track shoes." They do sell hurdles, but infrequently since they last so long. In Texas, track and field is a huge sport from the point of view of participation, according to Carey, of Carey's Sporting Goods. "We sell everything that is needed and worn in track and field, whether it's field equipment, hurdles, uniforms or spikes," says Carey, who sells to high schools in 12 counties in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex area. In south Florida, high school track and field may not attract large crowds to meets, but it attracts a large of number of competitors — both boys and girls. That's good news for Joel Dunn, the south Florida- based salesman for Baker's Sporting Goods, which is headquartered in Jacksonville. "We sell all the hard goods for track such as javelins, hurdles, the discuss and the shots for the shot put, but those items have a long lifespan, if you take care of them, before they need to be replaced," says Dunn. Meanwhile, his track uniform business is strong. TEAM / SPECIALTY SPORTS TRACK & FIELD KEEPS RUNNING Inside The Track Numbers According to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association's Track and Field Single Sport Report, of the 3.9 million track and field participants in the U.S., nearly 60 percent are male. Of those, 1.8 million are considered core participants who participate 13 or more days a year. Of those 1.8 million core participants, it's nearly a 50-50 gender split between boys and girls. Almost 70 percent of track and field participants are between the ages of six and 17; and 52 percent come from a household whose annual income is at least $75,000 a year. The two largest geographic concentrations of these core participants is the South Atlantic section (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware) and East North Central region (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin). FUN FACT Throughout the rest of the world, track and field is officially referred to as athletics. At the recently completed Summer Olympic Games in Paris, the U.S. fared well in "athletics" by winning 14 gold medals, 11 silvers and nine bronze. sportstylemag.com • sportstyle September/October 2024 • 33

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