“Track and field has failed to reach its potential for years,” says Michael Johnson, an American sprinter with four Olympic gold medals. A ranking of the 100 best-paid athletes in the world by Sportico, a trade publication, does not feature a single athletics star. Indeed, the journal estimates that the highest-profile track athlete, America’s Noah Lyles, may not have earned enough last year to make the top 1,000.
What keeps athletics in the slow lane? Whereas most individual sports hold several contests a year, giving athletes a platform and generating content for broadcasters, athletics’ main events—the Olympics and World Championships—provide just three competitions every four years. In 2010 World Athletics, the sport’s governing body, introduced the Diamond League, comprising 15 meets a year. It has struggled: with so many disciplines, each meet contains only a selection of events, and athletes can pick and choose when to compete, meaning the field is sometimes thin. Without big stars locked in, broadcast revenue is limited. Prize money was capped at $10,000 last year.
Mr Johnson hopes to change things with Grand Slam Track, which begins in Kingston, Jamaica on April 4th. The competition, backed by Winners Alliance, a sports-rights company, consists of four “slams”, mirroring the number in tennis and golf. Its athletes must compete in all four. “Our biggest innovation is that we put the athletes under contract,” Mr Johnson says, so that fans know who will appear. Four events are intended to provide enough space for narratives to develop, while being a small enough commitment to persuade elite athletes to sign up.
The schedule is streamlined: the longest discipline is 5,000m and there are no field events. Winners will receive $100,000, plus a base salary. Mr Johnson was encouraged when he signed up his first athlete, the American 400m hurdles world-record holder, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (pictured), whom he calls “notorious” for rarely competing. Of 45 athletes who won Olympic medals in relevant disciplines in Paris last year, Grand Slam Track has 21 under contract.
Even with stacked fields and bumper prizes, Grand Slam Track must chase something more ephemeral: excitement. It has hedged its bets by hosting its first events in modest venues. Kingston’s National Stadium holds 35,000, less than half the capacity of the Stade de France. Venues for the next three meets, in Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, are similarly realistic. “For the first year, they really need the stands to be full,” says Ed Warner, a former head of UK Athletics. “There is nothing that a TV producer likes less than empty seats.” ■
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