When the decision was taken to stage a first World Athletics Championships on US soil, Lord Coe explained in his role as the president of the international federation that the ambition was to make more of an impact on the American sporting landscape. With 50 million active participants in athletics in the US, the majority of them being amateur runners, it was certainly worth a shot.
In the US the big four sports — American football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey — dominate. Take a look at a list of the largest television audiences in US history and only one show other than the NFL’s Super Bowl breaks into the top 30. At number nine, with close to 106 million viewers, is the “Goodbye, Farewell
