Flashes of Panic

Pat Butcher has a splendid article in the Financial Times this weekend about athletics’ (track and field’s) declining profile in its traditional audience center, Europe. It makes a lot of the same points made by the Globe article about indoor track earlier this year.

The biggest problem with the article in question, however, is no fault of Butcher’s. In the print edition (I have to read something, and FT is around and in English) they illustrated “performing before empty seats in Osaka” with a shot of a javelin thrower. The background is not empty spectator seats… it’s the press tribune. A vast expanse of white desks which may look like empty seats in the background, even when they’re full.

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