Michael Johnson: The Saviour of Track and Field
Okay, not track and field. Just track. Earlier this week, Michael Johnson debuted Grand Slam Track, a new athletics league designed for runners that has the potential to revolutionise the sport.
The Facts
Johnson, a four-time Olympic champion and eight-time World Champion who will serve as the league’s Commissioner and CEO, spoke in a podcast with Citius Mag following the launch.
“What’s exciting is I’m able to bring athletes and fans what they’ve been screaming for over the last few years. More head-to-head matchups, more fans getting to know these athletes, athletes able to connect better with their fans, and athletes being able to realise more value for themselves.”
So, how does he plan on making this happen?
Four annual “Slams” that will showcase only the world’s best track runners
The events will be split between two US cities and two international locations, with Los Angeles serving as the home of Grand Slam Track and the only permanent venue on the calendar
All Slams will meet World Athletics regulations, meaning performances will be eligible for rankings and standards
Athletes will compete in their own sponsored kits, without traditional hip numbers or bibs
The inaugural season will begin in April next year
Grand Slam Track will feature two groups of competitors: 48 contracted “GST Racers” committed to all four annual events and 48 “GST Challengers” selected on a per-event basis. Racers will receive an annual base salary, while Challengers will earn appearance fees. Both will be eligible for prize money
Athletes will compete in one of six categories:
Short sprints (100m/200m)
Short hurdles (100m/110m hurdles, 100m)
Long sprints (200m/400m)
Long hurdles (400m hurdles, 400m)
Middle distance (800m/1500m)
Long distance (3000m/5000m)
Each athlete will race twice per Slam in their assigned category, with their combined placing determining the winner
There is a focus on racing and rivalries, meaning there will be no pacing lights or rabbits used in any of the events
The champion in each category will take home $100,000, with prize money scaling down to $10,000 for last place. In total, Grand Slam Track will award $12.6 million in prize money annually, in addition to base compensation for contracted athletes, making it the most lucrative competition in the sport's history
In addition to the financial benefits of competing in the league, GST Racers will have access to a content and data services team as well as “inclusion in the league collective, group licensing, and new revenue opportunities. GST Racers are compensated under contract to race and promote the league and receive additional marketing and brand support.”
Two-time Olympic Champion, three-time World Champion, and four-time world record breaker Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is the first GST Racer to be signed
Michael Johnson speaks at the Grand Slam Track launch event
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Good
It feels like Johnson has finally found a way to make professional track athletes…professional. Yes, plenty of athletics stars run for a living, but they are paid through sponsorship contracts, prize money, and appearance fees. Now, for the first time in the sport’s history, athletes will be contracted to a league and paid a salary by that league. As Johnson notes, “[Grand Slam Track] is different from current track and field, but very similar to thriving professional sports.”
“You have athletes who want to be recognised and compensated for being the best in the world. Well, in order to do that, you have to put yourself out there to entertain a financial source. That financial source is fans. Take the Dallas Mavericks: you know, I was the former owner of that team, and they can’t just show up when they want to and play. They have a schedule that is mandated by the league, and they have to show up and play on those days…they are a reliable entertainment source to a fan, which is a revenue source. That’s what a real professional league provides.”
This is what differentiates Grand Slam Track from World Athletics: Johnson thinks there is a supply problem, and Seb Coe thinks there is a demand problem. While World Athletics is coming up with new events to run (a steeplechase mile and a mixed 4x100m are among the events they will be testing in the coming months), Johnson is relying on the fact that athletics is the most watched sport at the Olympics: he believes that it’s not about changing the format, but about trying to replicate the allure of the Olympics more often. Indeed, that is one of the slogans to come out of Grand Slam Track: once every four years four times every year.
Johnson makes a good point with this observation. Track's yearly schedule is a moving target, and the best athletes rarely come together over the course of a season. Last year, the top three male sprinters competed against each other once, with the top three female sprinters doing it twice. The reason is simple: there are only eight lanes on a track. Last year, some 15,000 athletes competed across the World Athletics Continental Tour, with 2,500 of those making it to the World Championships. Johnson acknowledges that all these athletes need a place to compete – which is why he doesn’t see Grand Slam Track as a competitor to the Diamond League – but understands that what people really want to see is the best go head-to-head. In the marathon, money keeps the best athletes apart because there are so many races willing to pay top dollar for the stars, so they all get dragged in different directions. In track, because this league is the first of its kind, Johnson’s unprecedented prize pool will actually serve as a uniting factor to bring the biggest names to the same stage more often.
Grand Slam Track is already walking the walk, having signed Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as the first GST Racer. McLaughlin-Levrone is a once-in-a-decade sprinter: this generation’s Usain Bolt, if you will. However, she is frequently criticised for rarely racing outside of major championships, especially not against her fiercest rivals. Since beating Femke Bol – the Justin Gatlin in this analogy (although without the doping, it must be said) – to the Olympic 400m hurdles title in 2021, there has only been one rematch between the two (the 2022 World Championships, which saw McLaughlin-Levrone set a world record and Bol finish runner-up). Signing Bol would guarantee that the pair raced each other multiple times a year, which is exactly why Johnson is in discussions with her.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (R) and Femke Bol (L) after finishing first and second at the 2022 World Athletics Championships
Grand Slam Track also wants to draw in more casual fans and has put athlete-centred content creation at the centre of this strategy. They have employed the likes of Doubleday & Cartwright, a creative studio that has collaborated with Apple, Nike, and Red Bull, to define the league’s identity and work with individual athletes to develop their personal brands. On the marketing front, data-driven sports agency Two Circles will draw on its experience with the NFL, Premier League, and Formula 1 to optimise fan engagement and drive growth. Unlike other big track meets, Grand Slam Track has no affiliation with shoe companies, and athletes are actually encouraged to create custom kits that show off their personal brand.
Nine-time Olympic Champion, eight-time World Champion, and 13-time world record breaker Carl Lewis spoke alongside Johnson at the launch event, providing perhaps the best summary of the night.
“With this league, you will have specific events that the public can know that everyone is going to be there. It’s must-see TV, as opposed to now, where a meet will come on, and it’s like, ‘so-and-so is there, but this one’s not.’ I think that’s the biggest point. If you go to any Grand Slam in tennis or golf, you know the best are going to be there, so you actually plan to watch the US Open because you know they’ll be there. Right now, you don’t know that with athletics.” Grand Slam Track aims to change that.
Carl Lewis speaks at the Grand Slam Track launch event
The Bad
As good as this league looks to be, it’s not perfect. Dividing athletes into six categories creates a siloing effect that could actually prevent some rivalries from coming to fruition. If Johnson himself had raced in a Grand Slam Track format, he and Frank Fredericks would not have crossed paths. Fredericks was one of Johnson’s biggest competitors, having finished runner-up behind him in the 200m at the 1996 Olympics after medalling in the 100m a few days earlier. As a 100m/200m sprinter, Fredericks would be confined to the “short sprints” category, while Johnson – a 200m/400m athlete – would have been classified as a “long sprinter”. In the modern context, you need only look at the most intense rivalry in track at the moment: Josh Kerr vs Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Kerr, who is more of an 800m/1500m athlete, would be a “middle distance” runner, while Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who favours the 5000m just as much as the 1500m, would end up in the “long distance” category. More often than not, rivals will naturally fall into the same group, but there are enough exceptions that Grand Slam Track will need to come up with a workaround if they are to live up to their main catchline, “calling all rivals.”
There’s also the question of why these categories need to exist at all. In some instances, it makes sense: in the example of the “long distance” group, 5000m runners almost always compete in the 3000m throughout a season (and vice versa), so having these athletes double across the competition will no doubt be engaging. However, men competing in the “short hurdles” category, for example, will run the 110m hurdles and the flat 100m, with the winner being determined by who has the best performance across the two races. What’s wrong with having the winner of the race be, well, the winner? Rather than prize money being awarded to category champions with the best score from two races, they could simply halve it and award it to each race winner. Grant Holloway is a three-time world champion over the 110m hurdles and has run the second fastest time in history, while his personal best in the 100m is 10.21 seconds, which sits at 12,494th on the all-time list. Why should his performance in the “short hurdles” category be determined as much by his result in a flat 100m as by his hurdles race?
In his 13-year career, Grant Holloway has only raced the flat 100m three times
I understand that Johnson wants people to race more than once per meet, but nothing is stopping him from contractually obliging some people to still run two races; just let them pick which ones! Nobody needs to see Kerr beat Ingebrigtsen in an 800m, because the latter never races over that distance. The same goes for Ingebrigtsen dusting up Kerr in a 5000m. Let them run against the best 800m and 5000m runners, then meet in the middle for a 1500m as their other race.
I’ve called Grand Slam Track the most innovative competition in our sport since the inaugural World Athletics Championships almost half a century ago, and I stand by that statement. However, Johnson needs to be prepared to evolve with the league in these formative years if he is to truly disrupt this space.
The Ugly
Unless you work for World Athletics, nothing about this league is ugly. Sure, there are some kinks that will need to be ironed out, but overall, Grand Slam Track is extremely promising.
However, there’s a reason World Athletics is the only major outlet in the sport to not report the launch. In fact, the federation hasn’t produced so much as a social media post acknowledging that Grand Slam Track even exists.
The Diamond League – owned and operated by World Athletics – is currently billed as track and field’s premier racing circuit, but there’s a case to be made that it’s not even a league. In reality, it’s just a series of meets with the same title sponsor. There’s little continuity between each competition, and first place at a Diamond League will get you $10,000, which is what last place at a Grand Slam Track meet will yield.
World Athletics realised this and founded the World Athletics Ultimate Championship earlier this year in hopes of fixing some of these problems. While the premise of this competition is also exciting, it’s not on the same level as Grand Slam Track. World Athletics has scheduled the Ultimate Championships for every two years rather than four times a year, isn’t going to sign any athletes to the competition, and has yet to produce a plan to engage casual viewers on par with what Johnson has proposed.
And, as if to kick them when they’re down, Grand Slam Track will pack the action into three two-and-a-half hour sessions, as opposed to the three three-hour sessions secured by World Athletics.
You can access the official Grand Slam Track website here.