Kurt touches on an important point - in other sports marketing a personality works because, for the most part, the personalities end up competing for whatever title is up for grabs. Tiger would not be Tiger with a long series of 10th place finishes.
Right now marketing Adam Goucher or Tim Broe is a poor investment because when it comes to OG or WC they ain't gonna be doin' it come the last lap. Marketing a foreign personality in the US has not worked all that well because Americans love to see Americans win. Thus we get all of the focus on the events the Americans traditionally do well in or in an event you can label such as the decathlon or heptathlon. Steve S <2. However (there is always a "however"), Marketing focusing personalities has it's pitfalls. Remember the "Dan and Dave" ad campaign from 1992? It worked magnificently in terms of getting these guys some name recognition leading up to the Barcelona OG. But the whole thing quickly turned into a laughing stock when Dan no-heighted at the trials and whole premise of the ads promptly turned into ashes. A Broe vs. Gaucher ad campaign could crater just as easily when one of them doesn't live up to the hype in some way. And the whole thing could turn into an even bigger laughing stock when Broe and Gaucher do their best but end up finishing in 11th and 12th place in the big showdown race (OG or whatever) behind a big flock of north and east Africans. People are gonna say "What was that all about?".>
