Michael Johnson Track League unveiled - Grand Slam Track will require athletes to double in siloed event groups

How much base pay will people really need? I’m assuming very few athletes will get much of base pay if I understand this right as the prize money is pretty big in terms of track. This has way money per year than the World athletics ultimate championships they announced a few weeks ago.This prize money alone I assume will attract most of the stars. This is the prize money per event . So athletes can make 4x this amount:

1st $100,000.00
2nd $50,000.00
3rd $30,000.00
4th $25,000.00
5th $20,000.00
6th $15,000.00
7th $12,500.00
8th $10,000.00

You show up and get last at every meet and you’ll take home $40k. You finished 1st , 2nd , 2nd and 3rd and you get $230k for 4 meets. How many athletes are doing better than that? But if Sydney commit, then Femke might be less likely as Sydney is likely to win.

The only weird thing is athletes have to double at every meet. So hurdlers have to run 100h and 100 and it’s scored between this events to get the money. So it’s like Superstars competition. I guess that is being done to take away any emphasis on time? Make fans and athlete focus on place across two events? But then do we lose individual brilliancsay Wanyonyi and Jakob are both in 800/1500 and I’m supposed to care really who does better in their off event? As that likely determines what they get paid assuming they both win their main event .

The doubling thing is the most radical and what I need to think most about.

Otherwise this is a series of 4 track meets with lots of prize money. You do that and you will get top stars.

I could get Noah and Sha’Carri to race in my backyard tomorrow with enough money.

Another way to think about this is 4 track meets spread over 12 days with a lot of money and less events.

The Diamond League is 15 meets over 15 days with a lot of events people don’t care about and less money.

This has almost as many tv days as DL. The DL actually has too many events compacted together.

Many stars will run but will fans watch? Is doubling thing gimmicky or a way to get fans to just think of Place?. But I don’t care usually what someone does in an off event.

Rojo (or Gault) please relay your concerns to Michael or ask him for comment. I'm sure this can be changed.

Dissing Hayward Field is stupid!

I think Michael Johnson is gambling that fans don't want to watch Jakob Ingebrigtsen race a 1500m week after week after week. They'd rather see him do a variety of races. Show more than just a single dynamic.

"Jakob won the 1500m last week and got beat in the 5k. This week he's rematching Bryce Hoppel in the 800m and having a showdown with so and so in the 3k"

I don't know about you but this sounds more fun to me.

I agree, but I assume they are relying on the $$$ to attract the big names, and keep them away from other meets like the DL.

That sounds dumb to me. I already know how Jakob would fare in an 800 against Hoppel; I want some consistency and simplicity. I'd love to see Jakob vs Kerr 4 times a year in the 1500, that would be awesome

Important thing here is this is outside of World Athletics and they don't control this league in anyway. They are betting that the star power will bring the audiences.

Something Rojo has missed in his critical review: Guaranteed long term contracts. That's a big deal.

I like the innovation GST in general, but not sure about the event groups. I’d love to see, say Michael Norman vs Rai in a flat 400m, but that’ll never happen with Norman presumably in the 200/400 group and Rai in the 400h/400 group. And as you mention, likely missing out on a lot of the current top milers being more 1500/3000 guys.

Maybe requiring athletes to double to earn the full contract, but letting each individual pick their 2 events could be the way to go

Yes exactly.

This looks fantastic! Agreed, not a fan of the event groups, nor with the forced doubling.

For distance, what I'd love to see is a single distance event every meet, where the distance varies. Perhaps a 1500m, a 3k, a 5k, and an 8k, over the course of the 4 meets. It would be fascinating to see the strengths and weaknesses of the different athletes, along with a variety of tactics.

Should have had 5 meets. 2 in America, one in Africa, one in Europe, and one in Asia. Build a global audience for a global sport.

As someone who has followed track very closely for a while at this point, I agree that Zurich, Brussels, Monaco, and Oslo are the grand slams of the DL.

But here's the thing: I had to think about that for a sec, and say "but are they really? what do those meets look like and entail?"

Performance and field wise they might be the best of the diamond league meets but they aren't recognizable in any way whatsoever. And i'm a hardcore track fan. I mean, i'm posting on letsrun and I had to actually think "yeah Zurich, but what about it?". Can you imagine how much of a branding problem that's gonna be to a casual fan?

I hope the grand slams get names like the WWE. Something like Chicago Clash, maybe just less corny.

It's going to be hard to do this with a bunch of people that don't speak English. A key part of understanding what's going on is hearing from the athletes. If they can't communicate properly it's going to be a serious problem.

I'm still trying to compare this to other sports. There are a lot of different athletes in track and field, and just because you like sprinting doesn't mean you like distance. Not many other sports have such a wide variety of activities/comp. When you watch golf you are not watching 10 different events, it's one event, same goes for football, baseball, etc...

Still trying to see how this works in real life. Best forum for this would be indoors where the crowd is close, but indoors has a bunch of other issues, like track size, etc...

I think this is very overblown. You're telling me someone who pays money to see a 100m in a stadium is going to be bored watching a 1500m with Jakob and Kerr? No shot. Ok, a 10k I get it, maybe a 5k.

Yeah the doubling thing is a HUGE deal because clearly that's much easier for a sprinter than a distance runner.

Here is where the "no pacer, no lights" thing concerns me. We all love moaning about pacing and how it dilutes the "spirit of real racing" but the truth is, it is really important and it's even more important in this proposed format. Let's say you are doing a 15/5000 at one meet (has the difficulty of this been taken into account btw?!) - how are these races approached by the field? Do we have a situation where the 1500m goes out in 2.04 and the 5000m in 8.30 because of that? Yeah we will get "real" racing but at what point does that then become just as repetitive as paced races on the circuit but just with much slower performances. And this will matter - we don't mind seeing 13.15 win a world/OG 5000m title with a massive burn up because we understand the gravity of a world/OG title. How cool do we think it will be in this format of racing? Right now the 1500m is just insane at world final level with the new standard being well under 3.30 just to medal - but if this goes back to 3.37/3.38 how long before the novelty of that wears off.

Another thing is with only track events happening and presumably a short meet duration, how much time are we giving people to recover so they aren't obliterating themselves in one meet per season, let alone 4? Think about this - you get Jakob who is the best guy over 1500/3000/5000 on the planet. He needs to run a 1500-3000 or 1500-5000 double within what, 1.5 - 2 hours and has to do this 4 times a season? So yeah it's fine if you are running the 100-200 or even the 200-400h, but the more I think about it, the less I see how this feasibly works for any events over the 800m. Do you say "okay, that is too tough to ask these distance runners to do that" - okay, now how do you figure out the prize money etc without pissing everyone off?

So I'll reiterate - super interested to see how they problem-solve and find solutions to things like this (granted the intel we have been given so far is somewhat accurate in principal).

I am a big supporter of this league. I think people are coming up with too many specific examples of athletes it doesn't exactly suit (in terms of the competition groups). The money will bring interesting matchups for us fans to watch! Let's not rip this thing to shreds so fast.

400/800 makes more sense to me than 800/1500 given the strength of most 1500 runners. I dont know what else they would pair the 400 hurdles with which is obviously important with Sydney. 800/1500 is hard to imagine at this point the training is completely different for most of those athletes.

SoundRunning is thrilled. A major track League that will draw American athletes without a 10K? Sounds like big names and money for The TEN.

Who in the world today is on a world class standard in both the 400 and 800?

Wanyonyi, Kessler, Wightman, and more are all sub 1:46 and sub 3:34

You'd do very well to find an athlete that's sub 45.2 and sub 1:46.

It seems a very simple fix with these overlapping groups:
-You have 8 lanes (4 stars/4 contenders) run the non-overlapping events e.g. 110H/400H/100
- You sit the contenders for the overlapping events and have just the stars double
-The idea of having athletes never racing despite running overlapping events is silly and not in the spirit of this at all

Groups that make sense:

100H/110H (should be standalone, hurdlers outside of Holloway for the most part will run 10.05-10.20 and even he will probably lose handily zzz)
100/200 (H2H with long sprinters in 200)
400/200
400H/600 (H2H with 800 guys, if Rai complains whatever dude)
800/600
1500/3000 (these guys don't need to double, just run three 1500s and one 3000)