Why You Should Watch the NCAA T&F Championships on ESPN

EUGENE, Oregon — It’s safe to assume that if you’re on this website or receiving this in an email, either you care about college track & field or you really care about someone involved in college track & field.

Whether you’re a coach, a student-athlete, a parent of an athlete, a media member or a fan of the sport, you are invested in the sport in one way or another.

So, with that in mind, let me tell you how to spend your Friday and Saturday night.

You should spend it watching the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I outdoor track & field championships.

Every minute of the meet – one of the best in the world – will be aired live on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3/WatchESPN, and ESPNU. Days one and two were wildly successful in terms of competition, setting up a dramatic conclusion to the meet.

But the particularly good minutes are the men’s finals—Friday, 7:30-10pm ET on ESPN—and the women’s finals, Saturday night 5-7:30pm ET on ESPN2.

First of all, you should watch because they’re going to be collegiate track meets like you’ve never seen before.  Both nights are two and a half hours of straight action, with fourteen finals and a team trophy.

You’ll be able to follow the team score as a linear progression and follow one story at a time.  Under the old format, you got to see half of the story at a time—and you spent that half switching back and forth with another story.  These are going to be two separate, streamlined, thrilling stories.

As Oregon head coach Robert Johnson – who leads two NCAA title-contending teams – said last year, this is the best track meet in the United States.  It’s the only one that combines incredibly talented athletes—think Edward Cheserek, Travyon Bromell, Marquis Dendy, Sandi Morris and Demi Payne, Jenna Prandini, Natoya Goule, and so many more—with an intense, high-stakes team competition.

But, if you’re somehow on the fence, if that’s somehow not enough, remember what I said at the top? Either you care about college track & field, or someone you really care about cares about college track & field.

Division I college track & field, like most NCAA sports that aren’t football or basketball, isn’t exactly swimming in money right now. When the new format was first broached with ESPN and the NCAA, though, ESPN saw the potential for something huge.  And when the schedule got passed, ESPN agreed to air the men’s and women’s championship in prime time on national television.

ESPN isn’t a charity, though.  If something underperforms in the ratings, they’re not particularly interested in broadcasting it.  The idea behind the new setup is that it’s more attractive and digestible for people who care even a little bit about college track & field, i.e. you.

If this year’s Championships – which are projected to be among the most exciting in history – are widely viewed, that means more much-needed national exposure for the sport could be forthcoming down the ESPN pipeline.

Without being too corny or treacly—the future of collegiate track & field is in your hands!

If enough of you watch the meet live or DVR it — literally, you can help this sport by taking thirty seconds to DVR the meet — ESPN is more likely to invest in the sport, making the sport we all love more visible and viable.

You might be asking yourself at this point: why do I care how much Division I track & field thrives? I’m not a DI athlete or coach. 

The answer to that is: all levels of the sport are intertwined.  If the best American meet can’t get a prime spot on television, the sport can’t grow.  And if sports that aren’t basketball and football don’t generate some revenue, there’s little incentive for the NCAA to continue in its current form.

Of course the NCAA has lots and lots (and lots and lots) of problems.  But if you like the Division II and III national championships, be aware that those meets are entirely funded by the NCAA. If that goes away, those championships go away.

This is as simple and as urgent as it gets:  the more people watch that watch the meets this weekend, the stronger the sport is.

Again: watch the men’s meet on Friday night on ESPN starting at 7:30pm ET /6:30pm CT, watch the women’s meet on Saturday night on ESPN2 starting at 5pm ET/4pm CT. 

You’ll be doing the sport we all love a huge favor, and watching some of the best track & field the world has to offer, to boot.