RunBlogRun introduces: The Breaking 2 coverage last May was a paradigm changer. For me, staying up in Doha to watch it was fantastic. Also observing the twitter world during the live coverage, and then my twitter comments had bigger numbers that I would have expected (Nike had huge numbers, RunBlogRun, during the live broadcast, had 275,000 viewers).
The new IAAF World Tour put several of the meets on Facebook Live. They were fantastic. The interaction with young viewers, the global connections and the amazing clarity and coverage of the meets was exceptional.
I asked Mike Deering, partner with Adam Johnson Eder and AJ Felice at the Shoe Addicts, to comment on his viewing of Karlsruhe.
Here is what he had to say.
Cindy Roleder, Karlsuhe presser, photo courtesy of Getty Images/IAAF
Keni Harrison, Karlsruhe Meeting, photo by PhotoRun.net
The first stop on the IAAF World Indoor Tour in Karlsruhe was an invigorating start in the build up to Birmingham 2018. The start of the indoor season is always a test to see where an athlete’s conditioning is. The assumption is plenty of Season Bests and World Leading marks to start off the season. The stand out events for me were the men’s Pole Vault and women’s 60m Hurdles. Raphael Holzdeppe of Germany out performed France’s Renaud Lavillenie, clearing a personal best of 5.88m (WL) and then took a few attempts at 5.95m. US competitors Sharika Nelvis and Christina Manning went 1 & 2 in the women’s 60m hurdles both clocking PBs and Nelvis set a world leading time. Meanwhile, crowd favorite Pamela Dutkiewicz was unable to deliver in her performance placing 5th. Other highlights were Genzebe Dibaba’s 1500m world leading finish 3:57.45 and the men’s 3000m where Yomif Kejelcha’s ran a personal best behind Hagos Gebrhiwet’s world leading finish. I’m excited to see Kejelcha’s development since his win in Portland at the World Indoors in 2016. Finally the Men’s 60m, Su Bingtian of China dominated the final with a PB and AR (6.47). If that’s what he can deliver early, I look forward to what he’ll bring to Birmingham in March.
Facebook Live coverage of track events was a smart decision by the IAAF. The fact that I’m able to watch an international track meet while I’m at home in sweat pants drinking my coffee is wonderful. I don’t need a special cable package or pay way too much for a website’s yearly subscription just to be able to enjoy a sport. Coverage today allows a person to not only watch on their computer, phone or tablet. It gives the option to watch live, or to playback the coverage whenever desired after a live broadcast has finished. I look forward to watching more events from the comfort of my home, or wherever the wifi gods smile down upon me.
