We’re at 177 issues of The Lap Count now. That’s 177 emails discussing – among other things – how to improve the sport of track and field and make it more broadly appealing to sports fans at large. 

We have an idea of what needs to be done. But we’ve barely touched on how we’ll know if it all worked. That’s not an easy thing to know: what does becoming popular actually look like? Thankfully, there are dozens of other sports out there that are extremely popular globally, so we can take a few cues from them. Here are a handful of hypotheticals that will signal we’ve reached critical mass as a sport.

Spoiler alert: they’re almost all bad.

Fans are fighting. You’re in the cheap seats at Stade de France. We’re moments from the gun sounding for the women’s 400m hurdles final. Beside you sits a Dutch family. You’ve been drinking. So has the dad. He punctures the silence of the stadium, loudly attempting to start a “laten we gaan Femke!” chant. The disrespect. You’re incensed. You throw your Syndey McLaughlin-Levrone Fathead to the floor, rip off your replica Team USA singlet, and begin wildly throwing haymakers. It’s a bench-clearing brawl. Your entire section gets involved. We don’t condone spectator violence, but it’s a reality of big-ticket sports. We’ve made it.

Officials – and athletes! – are booed. Somebody twitches in the blocks of the men’s 100m at the London Diamond League. An elderly official walks to the center of the track and brandishes a red card. Brit Zharnel Hughes has been disqualified. A chorus of boos rains down. A red flag goes up when Malaika Mihambo puts a toe over the white plastic in the long jump. The entire German delegation rains expletives down on the infield. Excessive celebrations from the sport’s biggest heels are met with a wave of anger. An accidental shove in the 800m sets the stadium on fire. We’ve made it.

Contracts are awarded out of nepotism or wild speculation. Eliud Kipchoge is nearing the end of his unparalleled career, but he’s still a prize catch – no marathoner in recent memory has quite captured the public’s imagination, or moved so many shoes. Everybody still wants to sign him. But one enterprising sports marketing rep gets a wild hair… “What if we signed Kipchoge’s son, Griffin, to a deal?” Training for one final World Major with his son as a teammate proves too much to pass up, and Kipchoge goes with that brand. A more deserving athlete is left working part-time to cover his airfare to the Chicago Marathon. Everyone is pissed off. We’ve made it.

Gambling becomes an issue. An age-old tradition: the sport’s biggest stars get taken down by a gambling scandal. Sure, we’ve got Shohei Ohtani’s unscrupulous translator looming in our rearview mirror, but that doesn’t even come close to touching the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal. Every runner who gives up a place by easing up at the line is dogged with allegations and investigations? We’ve made it.

Stephen A. Smith weighs in. Stephen A. Smith is brought in to guest-author The Lap Count. Every section becomes an all-caps screed about why Ryan Crouser or Sha’Carri Richardson need to abandon their coach and decamp to New York City to join the Knicks. The CITIUS MAG live show becomes an episode of “Sports Shouting.” You click unsubscribe and sigh. We’ve made it.

It won’t always be pretty. We may not always like it. But these are the realities of loving a sport that’s also beloved by billions of others.

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