Noah Lyle’s comment about track and field being a true world championship sport while the NBA is “World Champion of what? The United States?” continues to make news almost one week after the triple sprint world champion in Budapest made his comments mocking the NBA’s self-proclaimed world championship designation. 

More and more writers and commentators are giving Lyle his due, acknowledging how the world of international basketball is not represented fully in the National Basketball Association, despite the best players from the international ranks ending up in the NBA. Foreign-born players currently make up over 100 of the 450 NBA roster positions, including some of the absolute best, like recent league MVPs Joel Embiid (Cameroon) and Nikola Jokic (Serbia).

It is no longer like the early decades of the NBA, where the rest of the world did not play the game and it was a major international story when the Soviet Union beat the United States at the 1972 Olympic final in Munich with the help of horrific officiating. But that was a major, how-could-this-happen-to us shocker. 

The line between the past and the future of international basketball was drawn by the 1992 Dream Team which stomped the rest of the world at the Barcelona Olympics in the first year professional athletes were eligible to compete. Since that time, kids around the world have grown-up dreaming of playing basketball in the NBA.

Thirty years later, there’s no guarantee a compilation of American-born NBA All-Stars will win an international competition. Just this past Friday, 1 September, the USA men’s team began the second phase of the 2023 FIBA World Cup by defeating Montenegro 85-73 in a game much closer than anyone might have thought going in, which makes the point.

Still, one reason track and field doesn’t get its proper due is because, simply put, the stakes in track are so low compared to the truly professional sports of the world. The very best athletes growing up rarely aspire to be track and field stars, because they know they can’t make real money doing it. 

I did a story in June 2014, AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD, while covering the Brooks PR Invitational high school meet in Seattle. I interviewed several members of the Brooks Beasts, including Nick Symmonds and the sadly departed Gabby Grunewald. 

When asked what one thing they would change about track & field, they said that there be a true professional wing to the sport rather than a one-size-fits-all, amateur to professional, cradle to grave, all aspects of the sport, under one organizing umbrella. Because that model simply doesn’t have the resources or the operational focus to lead a professional endeavor. Not when its primary job is to develop the sport across 214 national governing bodies, while catering to youth, maintaining masters, introducing ultras, staging race walks, not to mention all the field events. It’s too broad a portfolio with multiple conflicting operational goals.

As previously noted, as currently constituted, athletics would be analogous to having Major League Baseball, Little League Baseball, slow-pitch softball, fast-pitch softball, wiffleball, cricket, polo, and croquet through all age categories, pure amateur to the highest professional levels, all under one governing umbrella. The odds of that working out well for Major League baseball are as low as they are for professional track and field in its current model. 

It’s not that World Athletics Isn’t trying. The current leadership lived through the stages of track being highly popular, then corrupted, and now being put back on a forward path. It’s not that they don’t seek improvement for professionals. It’s just not their sole focus of attention while competing against other sports where it is. 

Almost 2,000 competitors from 192 countries were in Budapest, Hungary to compete at the nineteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships. A total of $8.5 million in prize money was on offer. 

Prize money for individual events

PLACE	PRIZE MONEY
Gold	$70,000
Silver	$35,000
Bronze	$22,000
4th	$16,000
5th	$11,000
6th	$7000
7th	$6000
8th	$5000

Prize money for relays

PLACE	PRIZE MONEY
Gold	$80,000
Silver	$40,000
Bronze	$20,000
4th	$16,000
5th	$12,000
6th	$8000
7th	$6000
8th	$4000

While this isn’t chump change by any measure, it doesn’t compare to truly professional paydays in other sports. 

32 teams of 12-man rosters are currently playing in the FIBA World Cup in Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the most prestigious international basketball tournament. That’s 384 players total, 19.2% of 2000. 

The prize money breakdown for the 2023 FIBA World Cup has yet to be announced. But in the 2019 edition held in China, the prize money pool was a record $15 million, with the winning team receiving $2.5 million ($208,333 per man), the runner-up team $1.5 million ($125,000 per man), and the third and fourth-placed teams $1.2 million each ($100,000 per man).  And that payoff for the American team represents little more than pocket change compared to their annual pro contracts and shoe deals.

Plus, while Noah Lyles is currently the fastest man in the world, that’s not to say that he could take his speed to another sport with anywhere near the same level of acumen that an athlete in another professional sport might display in track and field. Though there’s little doubt that shot put champion Ryan Crouser and any number of his competitors could learn to be linemen in the NFL based on their size and athletic talent. 

There are some very fast people in other sports. They may not be as fast as Noah Lyles, but they still would be in the picture frame. Could Noah Lyles play competitively in another pro sport? Sprinters have historically not fared all that well in American football. Could Lyles go on a Premier League soccer pitch and be seen as other than the what-is-he-doing-here outlier? 

Track doesn’t need to market itself better, it needs to separate its professional wing from its developmental wing, while supporting that developmental wing in the process. By staging a World Championship with 2000 athletes over ten days, the sport underscores its competing agendas. Trying to be all things to all people rarely produces the highest expression of any endeavor.

Until a truly professional expression of athletics is achieved, the sport will continue to lag and not get the respect it deserves, notwithstanding Noah Lyle’s accurate description of its scope.

END