ATHLETICS NEWS - Sebastian Coe is considering introducing an Indian Premier League-style auction to athletics as one of a number of radical proposals in an effort to revive the ailing sport.
Lord Coe, president of the IAAF, admitted athletics needs a facelift if it is to compete for audiences, advertising and sponsorship deals with other mainstream sports. This could include athletes being bid for by city franchises in a similar format to cricket’s IPL or even having temporary athletics tracks built inside football stadiums.
“Over the next year, our relentless focus on formats and the changes we make in the sport has to be laser-like,” said Coe. “I’m not ruling anything out now. Everything is on the table. I want to look at simple things. Why are we wedded to 400m tracks? Why not have a pop-up 300m track in a football stadium?
“There are lots of things we can do,” he added. “What about cities, teams, franchises? You see the excitement of the pick with the IPL auction. We need to have some early hour moments of unease about what we are prepared to do. We have to be radical.”
London 2017 saw a streamlining of the world championship schedule, with fewer individual sessions than previous editions and Coe said further changes could be made before the next world championships in Doha in 2019.
