Why do you guys f-ing care so much. The system how it is now with diamond leagues, World Champs at the end of the season, Olympics, Continental tours, etc is perfect, this grand slam garbage league is unnecessary.
Agree this Grand Slam venture is not needed as presented, but the system is far from perfect. There was a great series of Diamond League races last summer featuring Faith, Jakob, breaking records, and no one watched. Enough disinterest that Peacock sold it off to Flotrack. And from an athlete's point of view, they keep getting less money for showing up.
Yes but the pitch from MJ is that this league will only help those athletes at the tippy top (top 4 in each event silo). It will not help us as fans. As a fan, I don't care if diamond league isn't as popular as NFL. They are trying to market this to other people, not LRC message board posters. As an LRC message board poster, I don't give a rats butt if others don't watch. I like track and that is my cross to bear. If they want to make money on that, fine but please don't ruin it with bad ideas.
I agree with all of this. My biggest concern is the three-day format. It’s challenging enough to generate attendance and ratings for one day of track in the US. How is this league going to do it for three days, when championships aren’t even at stake?
Been on vacation.
Positives: *Lots of money will get stars. Way more prize $ than I thought they’d have. *Focus on matchups (hopefully between stars)
Negatives: this doubling thing completely changes how the sport is scored. I just don’t think it’s necessary in every event and have major concerns about it the more I think about it. Some athletes are great at doubling but others aren’t.
And the doubling changes the focus completely. The winner is not the winner of one race but who does best across two races. It changes what the sport is about completely.
Say Omanyala wins the Olympic 100 this year. He’s a terrible 200 runner. His skill set is ignored in this. Would he even do it?
But say the fans come out to watch the 100 on day 3. Omanyala smokes Lyles but Lyles is celebrating because he was 1st in the 200 and picks up $100k?
And we’re supposed to get fans out for 3 days when on each day each race means nothing on its own? If they put 100 on day 1 , as a fan would want to see that but then the money would be determined by the 200 on day 3 right? I’m supposed to come out for all 3 days?
and like others said I have no interest in watching the same guys race a 3k and 5k the same weekend. Also if the same people are doubling in the same events each meet I think we’ll sort of understand how it will play out.
I may start thread on doubling after the trials but would like to see someone put real names to paper with a proposed lineup before we make more judgements but I think we’re underestimating how the doubling thing completely changes how the sport is scored and what is important.
What if they just put 3 million in prize money and didn’t require doubling? 2 day meet max.
I want to see if Coleman or the high school kid can beat Lyles at 100. I could care less they will then get smoked at 200.
Let’s think 800/1500. different guys will likely win each event but we’re supposed to really care who gets 4th in their off event?
The 2nd race will end for all these events and the tv will be trying to figure out who the overall winner of the series is right? Is that really a better product?
Maybe have 1 meet where people have to double and score it that way but this clearly is rewarding what Michael was good at.
After listening to the podcast debate my question is why didn’t they just invest more to beef up the Diamond League rather than introducing another series? Even the Diamond League has difficulty filling stadiums for one day - why do they expect better from three day format? It’s true paying more will draw athletes but I’m not seeing how this format is an improvement. It’s all about profit motive which may help top athletes but likely relegates next tier to sidelines which does not help to develop the sport long term. Maybe nobody cares about the up and comers and seeing only best of best is what people want. It all feels wrong but maybe the next generation doesn’t want what we always thought was important.
Because they don't care about the sport. These are investors hoping to get rich.
Having had some more time to think about this.
1) I don't think they'll get good crowds for 3 straight days.
2) IF we want to have Grand Slams or Super DLs (WA is already doing one of them), I wish we'd just use established meets that have history as you've poitned out.
sharp books like betonline/betcris already offer betting on t&f and there is VERY little liquidity (100-300 max for olympic finals)...they would offer higher maxes if there was any sort of market for it... maybe on the US legals it will drive some action I just have a hard time believing it's going to do much but agree in order to generate any interest from the public need to have some real betting markets
in fact i bet marcel jacobs today to win 100m for olympics at +1800 on bet online... they accepted 50$ ... this actually leads me to think they'll be taking decent sized max come finals at least for the 1500m
After listening to the podcast debate my question is why didn’t they just invest more to beef up the Diamond League rather than introducing another series? Even the Diamond League has difficulty filling stadiums for one day - why do they expect better from three day format? It’s true paying more will draw athletes but I’m not seeing how this format is an improvement. It’s all about profit motive which may help top athletes but likely relegates next tier to sidelines which does not help to develop the sport long term. Maybe nobody cares about the up and comers and seeing only best of best is what people want. It all feels wrong but maybe the next generation doesn’t want what we always thought was important.
Because they don't care about the sport. These are investors hoping to get rich.
Having had some more time to think about this.
1) I don't think they'll get good crowds for 3 straight days.
2) IF we want to have Grand Slams or Super DLs (WA is already doing one of them), I wish we'd just use established meets that have history as you've poitned out.
I agree, you need:
1. A unified calendar of events, 2. A very penal ranking system that penalizes non-participation severely. This will professionalise track and field by automatically creating a field of top 20 elite athletes for each event. Unfortunately the downside as we've seen with other individual sports is that all the money will flow to the elite athletes who will get super rich, the rest will experience even more abject poverty. However, this system although unfair, gives great match-ups and rivalries as an elite athlete needs to protect their ranking at all costs. So I also think the answer lies in optimizing what already exists. But perhaps Michael Johnson and partners have found a World Athletics body that is unwilling to budge from the status quo, and so such moves may be necessary to get to the optimal end result.
I agree with all of this. My biggest concern is the three-day format. It’s challenging enough to generate attendance and ratings for one day of track in the US. How is this league going to do it for three days, when championships aren’t even at stake?
Been on vacation.
Positives: *Lots of money will get stars. Way more prize $ than I thought they’d have. *Focus on matchups (hopefully between stars)
Negatives: this doubling thing completely changes how the sport is scored. I just don’t think it’s necessary in every event and have major concerns about it the more I think about it. Some athletes are great at doubling but others aren’t.
And the doubling changes the focus completely. The winner is not the winner of one race but who does best across two races. It changes what the sport is about completely.
Say Omanyala wins the Olympic 100 this year. He’s a terrible 200 runner. His skill set is ignored in this. Would he even do it?
But say the fans come out to watch the 100 on day 3. Omanyala smokes Lyles but Lyles is celebrating because he was 1st in the 200 and picks up $100k?
And we’re supposed to get fans out for 3 days when on each day each race means nothing on its own? If they put 100 on day 1 , as a fan would want to see that but then the money would be determined by the 200 on day 3 right? I’m supposed to come out for all 3 days?
and like others said I have no interest in watching the same guys race a 3k and 5k the same weekend. Also if the same people are doubling in the same events each meet I think we’ll sort of understand how it will play out.
I may start thread on doubling after the trials but would like to see someone put real names to paper with a proposed lineup before we make more judgements but I think we’re underestimating how the doubling thing completely changes how the sport is scored and what is important.
What if they just put 3 million in prize money and didn’t require doubling? 2 day meet max.
I want to see if Coleman or the high school kid can beat Lyles at 100. I could care less they will then get smoked at 200.
Let’s think 800/1500. different guys will likely win each event but we’re supposed to really care who gets 4th in their off event?
The 2nd race will end for all these events and the tv will be trying to figure out who the overall winner of the series is right? Is that really a better product?
Maybe have 1 meet where people have to double and score it that way but this clearly is rewarding what Michael was good at.
On the doubles part I agree: this is going to be like decathlon, where if you are not already a t&f fan you will wonder why the hell the dude that just won the 1500 is maybe 6th overall, while the one that hobbyjoged it in 5:10 is celebrating his gold medal...of course it is not going to be so extreme because we are talking about similar events (it's not like they are making Lyles running the mile or throw a javelin...for now, at least), but still it is a stupid idea for the average person who is not a t&f fan.
The doubles should be like 800/200 and 5000/400 so we can answer the important questions of how fast distance runners are as they try and sprint for 100k
Why do we not do teams at the professional level? If winning times aren't the goal, assemble 4 professional teams, get some relays mixed in there and give fans another thing to be excited about!
How about an open long jump? I'd love to see Syd jump 7m+ and beat most., if not all, of the long jump specialists. Bowling jumped 8m in high school but stuck with sprinting, even though he's worse (there's more money). Holloway has jumped 8m. Many more have the ability. Let's see some of the elite sprinter / hurdlers show their stuff against the stop specialists...if this league is all about matchups. The trash talk/build up between the sprinters and jumper specialists would be amazing. Fred Kerley has posted videos of himself triple jumping, let's get the drama started!
And why is long jump boring? First, they take away the drama and stress of the rounds, and just show a 3 jump recap of the winners. 2. It's absurd that tv productions can't find a camera angle that make a 28 foot long jump visually impressive. In person by the runway, it is one of the most astounding human feats you could witness. It looks horrible on tv. Someone put in a graphic of where the nba 3 point line is, or something!
lol. This is GREAT timing for them to announce it. The trials start next week. The next two weeks and then during the Olympics are when more CASUAL fans will be paying attention to track and field. Now this story will dominate headlines and be discussed by announcers, commentators etc while there are more eyes on the sport. Great marketing strategy/timing by them.
Trials don’t start next week. They start this week.
Did you use the word "soiled?" That would be about right.
After listening to the podcast debate my question is why didn’t they just invest more to beef up the Diamond League rather than introducing another series? Even the Diamond League has difficulty filling stadiums for one day - why do they expect better from three day format? It’s true paying more will draw athletes but I’m not seeing how this format is an improvement. It’s all about profit motive which may help top athletes but likely relegates next tier to sidelines which does not help to develop the sport long term. Maybe nobody cares about the up and comers and seeing only best of best is what people want. It all feels wrong but maybe the next generation doesn’t want what we always thought was important.
Because they don't care about the sport. These are investors hoping to get rich.
Having had some more time to think about this.
1) I don't think they'll get good crowds for 3 straight days.
2) IF we want to have Grand Slams or Super DLs (WA is already doing one of them), I wish we'd just use established meets that have history as you've poitned out.
I'm having a really hard time seeing how they are going to provide 3 straight days of action with just this race selection. It sounds like there is going to be 10 minutes of introductions then 10 seconds of racing followed by x minutes of race analysis, another 10 minutes of introductions followed by 10 more seconds of racing and another period of post race analysis. I think we all agree adding more time between track races is not the answer to making track more exciting.
Just listening to the podcast and Rojo & JG are talking about how this will be the death of the diamond league, yet somehow they’ve overlooked the most glaringly obvious negative of this new Grand Slam Track - there are no finishing times.
Athletes are definitely going to still prioritise chasing quick times at DL events, yes they will want some bigger money but no one is qualifying for Worlds etc from a Grand Slam Track event
This 100% is not correct. There will be finishing times. There is no emphasis on them (except to break ties which might be important)
From the press release:
"All competitors’ final placement score will be determined by their combined finishing order between the two races. In the event of a tie across the two events, it will be the athlete who had the quickest combined time across the two races who will be deemed the winner."
But now in a lot of races when they finish we'll be waiting to see who beat who by more seconds to determine the winner?
Now they could get software to determine this instantaneously but someone gets 1st in 200 and 3rd in 400 and we'll have if their time is quicker than someone who was 1st in the 400 and 3rd in the 200 (actually this whole scenario will benefit whover wins the longer event as there is more likely to be a bigger time gap between places in longer events)
So all thing equal 200 meters runners will be advantaged over 100 meter runners. 400 runners over 200 runners. 1500 over 800. 5k over 3k (are we really going to have to watch the same 8 guys run a 5k and 3k 2 days apart?)
Can someone tell me once again why we need everyone to double? I'm fine with some athletes doubling but still am yet to see the benefit of scoring things across two events.
Champions league soccer does this with home and away matches but it is much easier to digest. It is known throughout the game who is winning. In this one forget about it. The winner of the race will often not be the winner of the 100k.
But only 2 of the meets will be the in US (once of which being LA, other TBD), with 2 other international locations TBD. You don't get your base pay unless you do all 4 meets.
Will be interesting to see the international Locations. Something like LA, New York, London, Paris would make sense.
Im thinking Jamaica and Bolt takeover for one of the meets would be God tier marketing
You could get creative with the multiple event system. How about a long jump-100m biathlon?
I like the idea of a fun event like the throes or javelin, and a distance event. Or athletes have one meet of the four where each whole group does two off events.
