The Marathon Coverage Manifesto: The Six Key Principles to Covering a Major Marathon

I don't know about you all, but if you stayed up until 4:30am like I did to watch the London Marathon, you were probably thoroughly entertained by the races and thoroughly appalled by the coverage.  Given that Boston last week wasn't much better, I decided maybe it was because they just don't know what we're looking for. 

The result: I wrote up my Marathon Coverage Manifesto: Six Key Principles for Covering a Major Marathon.  A snippet:

We were reminded yet again that marathon commentators and TV coverage still haven't figured out how to cover a marathon.  That's what I'd like to turn my attention to today, as nobody should have to sit through such a painful experience as distance running fans were subjected to this past week by Universal Sports.  Around the world there was fist-clenching, hair-pulling, head-shaking and much gnashing of teeth.  It was bloody grim.

Something needs to be done.  Marathons should not be enhanced by the mute button.  I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, because LetsRun devoted their real-time blog to bashing the Boston announcers, and the Science of Sport pretty succinctly summarized all that was wrong in the London broadcast.  To relive the damage in its gory details, there is also this LetsRun forum thread.  I'm not sure that I can solve this at 4:30am while I've got one eye on the computer screen, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Continue reading here to get the details around all six principles and some specific examples of what I hope to never hear again!

Update: Call me commish!  Some love from Runnersworld!  Thanks Peter!

Comments

[Brandon]

Couldn't agree with you anymore. I might as well been watching a boxing match since I spent most of the time throwing punches at the television. I tuned in to watch Meb go 2:09 and saw nothing with the second pack.