Over the past two years, storied American Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson has poured millions into reinventing track and field to mirror the four major models in tennis and golf. He’s managed to attract some big names and secure four North American locations for his first season. Yet, his newest venture, Grand Slam Track (GST) already faces challenges before the gun has even gone off.
The biggest issue? Star power—or lack thereof. Of the 20 Olympic track champions from Paris 2024, only six are on the GST roster. Even Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, its biggest name, rarely races, and there’s uncertainty over whether she’ll be at the first event in Kingston. The league is missing massive global stars like Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Noah Lyles, Letsile Tebogo, Faith Kipyegon, Sha’Carri Richardson and Keely Hodgkinson. These are the athletes fans pay to see—yet they’ve all turned down this new athletics venture.
Why is that? Why has women’s Olympic 100m champ Julien Alfred chosen to run at the Miramar Invite in Miami instead of GST’s Kingston opener? Why have Tebogo, Tokyo 100m champ Marcell Jacobs and even Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson opted for the Shanghai Diamond League over GST’s Miami event? When top talent looks the other way, it can be a sign that something is wrong.
Could it be because half of the 48 athletes on the GST Racer’s roster are American, and several international athletes like Ingebrigtsen and Akani Simbine declined due to travel, time and cost issues? GST has marketed itself as a North American-centric product rather than trying to be a global spectacle.
The inevitable risks
So, what’s the problem? Lyles called GST on his podcast, “track and field with extra steps,” and he’s not wrong. The April-May schedule is early for athletes looking to peak for the 2025 World Championships in September. It demands extra risk—athletes must race twice a weekend, with one of the events being outside their regular discipline. Ultimately, this increases the risk of injury.
Take the Short Sprint category, where GST competitors are slated to race the 100m and 200m. But Short Hurdles athletes also run a separate 100m flat? That makes no sense, and the two events are vastly different. Why not merge them and pit hurdlers against sprinters over a 100m? A simple fix, but nope.
Just days before the inaugural event in Jamaica this weekend, GST revealed 10 of its competitors, including American 400m star and Olympic champion Quincy Hall, have already scratched. Although the reasons for these withdrawals have not been disclosed, the league already faces a recurring challenge in track and field—getting top athletes to buy in and show up.
Running the numbers
Even major track organizations have chosen not to buy in. UK Athletics declined involvement, citing financial concerns. Birmingham and London were considered as host cities before being replaced by Philadelphia and Miami, but as UKA put it, “Three days (eight events per day) of just track athletics is a lot of tickets to sell in the London Olympic Stadium.”
Financially, GST is a gamble. The league constantly boasts its US$30 million investment (which helped launch it) and the record-setting $12.6 million total prize pool, with $100,000 for each event winner.
Take the meet in Kingston, for example, held at Jamaica’s National Stadium (capacity: 35,000). The venue hasn’t been half-full since the Usain Bolt era. GST is charging US$10 per day or US$20 for a weekend pass, but with Jamaica’s weak economy and an average monthly income of around US$700, why would someone—unless they’re a diehard track fan—spend $60 on three weekend passes? That’s a tough sell for an unproven event with almost no Jamaican stars. Even a sellout at those prices wouldn’t cover the $3.1 million in prize money per meet.
OBLIQUE SEVILLE BEATS NOAH LYLES OVER 100M IN JAMAICA IN 9.82 – WORLD LEAD pic.twitter.com/Z4GVIokoFA
— CITIUS MAG (@CitiusMag) June 2, 2024
GST’s second meet in Miami faces even more challenges. It is scheduled to be held at the 5,000-seat Miramar Ansin Sports Complex, where tickets are expensive and locals view it as just another meet at a venue that hosts track events almost every weekend during the spring. Known by sprinters as the windiest place to race on earth, the complex is hardly ideal for setting fast times, so spectators who bought tickets to see fast wind-legal times could be disappointed. Unless every seat is priced at $500/day, it could be difficult to profit here. That leaves Philadelphia and L.A., two highly competitive sports markets where other track meets like Penn Relays or L.A. Grand Prix already struggle to draw a sold-out crowd. So, what is GST doing differently to stand out?
No need to reinvent the wheel
Like Lyles said, track doesn’t need to be reinvented. It needs to be easier to follow. A better approach? Use world rankings like golf or tennis. Let the Diamond League function like the PGA Tour, where top-ranked athletes compete, while Continental Tour Gold, Silver and Bronze meets serve as developmental levels like the Korn Ferry Tour or PGA Tour Canada. This system rewards talent and builds progression.
I hope Johnson and his team find success with this venture. But right now, GST hasn’t given fans an incentive to care. Two years from now, who will remember who won the GST Miami Long Hurdles event? Fans aren’t showing up just to watch athletes earn bigger paychecks.
One possibility for GST: rebrand. Bring in athlete or corporate sponsors. Turn it into a team-based competition, like F1 or LIV Golf, where athletes race for more than just a bigger payday. Either way, the ongoing success will depend on how much it’s willing to evolve over the next few seasons.
