Grand Slam Track (GST), the new high-profile athletics league established by American track legend Michael Johnson, held its first slam in Kingston, Jamaica, last weekend (April 4 to 6) at Independence Park.
Billing itself as the “first truly all-professional league for track,” the league will continue with two US meets in Miami (May 2 to 4) and Philadelphia (May 30 to June 1) before the season finale in Los Angeles (June 27 to 29).
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The league has six event categories for male and female athletes. Each slam is made up of two events, each with eight competitors, covering short sprints, short hurdles, long sprints, long hurdles, short distance, and long distance.
The competition will give the athletes the chance to win a cut of each slam's $400,000 prize pot, with the league having a total prize fund of $12.6 million, split over the four events.
It has already secured a swathe of rights deals that will allow the league’s inaugural season to be broadcast in 189 countries and territories, following the league securing US coverage via national network The CW and US media giant NBCUniversal (NBCU) in February.
Johnson has previously said that television coverage is a priority for his new league, adding that he had been in contact with “all the major broadcasters, with a heavy emphasis for us on the US.”
Speaking to GlobalData Sport (Sportcal), president and chief operating officer of GST Steve Gera explained: “Very simply, what we're trying to do is give the millions upon millions upon millions of fans globally who we believe are underserved for high-end elite racing in between the Olympic cycles what they're dying for.”
What do you feel makes Grand Slam Track particularly commercially viable?
"Ultimately, what makes it commercially viable is that we're creating an IP business with athletes and storytelling.
"And so we contract our athletes to come and race in our events, and then we tell stories about them in between, before, and after, around the events. And as you can see, in the world of sports and entertainment, whether it's F1, UFC, the Premier League, La Liga, or NBA, strong structural sports entertainment properties that tell stories about athletes do well over time.
"So what makes it financially viable, and what's going to allow us to win, is that we have so many fans globally. You have a billion people who tune in to track during the Olympics. You get all the way down to 1.3 million people who will tune in to watch the Millrose games (annual indoor athletics meet held each February in New York) on NBC, here in the US.
"So there's an enormous fan base that's sitting there waiting to get track given to them in a packaged way. And so ultimately that's what makes it a financial no-brainer."
Who would you say your competitors are, and how are you differentiating yourself from them?
"So there's other track properties out there, but I don't know if we have a competitor, in the sense that there is no other league that centrally contracts athletes and then puts on major events over a year.
"You have all the meets that fall underneath the Diamond League umbrella, those are all one-day meets. It's just a very, very different product than what we have.
"I don't think there is anyone that's competitive to what we're doing, and I think we're complementary to them, and they're complementary to us."
What's the sponsorship strategy for Grand Slam track?
"The strategy is pretty simple. Less is more is one of our main mantras, and providing higher visibility and better visibility for fewer brands is one of the key constructs that we built.
"This works well for F1 and other leagues that do probably fewer global partners with better-focused storytelling around them."
What is your broadcast strategy for Grand Slam Track?
"Broadcast strategy is pretty simple. Build the biggest audience that we possibly can throughout the next couple of years. Here in the US, we've signed with NBC, Peacock, and CW, so we have streaming replays plus broadcast linear as a part of our strategy.
"And then globally, we have the same; we have streaming, broadcast linear, and then also social distribution in certain areas specifically designed around building out the biggest fan base that we possibly can.
"So in year one, for a startup league, we have 100% penetration here in the US of households. But then we also have 189 total countries and territories that are part of our broadcast package. So it's a truly global property from day one, and something that we're proud and excited of being able to cut such a dynamic broadcast deal in year one, to just go build as big of a top-of-the-funnel fan base as we possibly can."
Are you focusing on reach more than revenue from broadcast deals?
"It’s a bit of both. I think I'm really, really happy with the revenue outcomes that we are getting and we're going to continue to get, we have dynamic deals that I think are interesting.
"What I can tell you is that I think the deals that we have validate the opportunity in the minds of the broadcasting partners that we have; they are investing into this sport as much as we are."
What was the thinking behind the host city selection, and are there plans in place for expansion in following years?
"We've had a lot of folks come and ask if we would come and host a Grand Slam track meet in other cities, so expansion is likely on the table for the future.
"Today we chose Kingston, Miami, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, mainly because it's a year one property and simplicity around time zone. Simplicity, clarity, and consistency are important when you're building anything new. We already have three different time zones as it is, but they're all compressed and tightly packed into one another."
What are some challenges that you anticipate facing in your first year, and how do you plan to overcome them?
"The biggest challenge we're going to have is, how do you make what we're doing cut through all the other noise out there? Human beings have more options than they've ever had for entertainment, whether that be sports entertainment or just general entertainment. So it’s about cutting through and finding the stories that resonate with casual fans.
"I think your avid track fans, I feel great about them coming into the property and helping us build our top of the funnel. But for me, year one, it's all about how we find some special moments that cut through.
"And it starts with the racing; high-quality competition on the track is a thing that'll help us do that."
What have the greatest successes been so far?
"We've done the hardest part of starting this league, signing the athletes and getting the broadcast deals in place, and we've already accomplished both of those without holding one event. We haven't had to do a proof of concept, and yet we're in 189 countries globally.
"We have over 50% of all the medals that were won in the relevant distances from this past [2024] Paris Olympics. We will have the best top-to-bottom talent racing head-to-head across four three-day meets this year, and the fact that we've been able to do all that, and all that's going to go to 100% of homes in the US and 189 countries globally without running one event. That's amazing."
How do you plan to ensure that this is a long-term property?
"I don't worry about that as much, and the main reason is because I think our toughest year is going to be our first year. It's cutting through in year one.
"I think other startup sports leagues or startup properties, oftentimes they're starting as the secondary league or the tertiary league, or it's a sport that doesn't cut through. It may be popular recreationally, but it's difficult; it's never really actually been taken from recreation to having a professional sports storytelling property around it, right? That's a lot harder than what we're doing.
"What we're doing is we're taking a sport that already has amazing viewership, an amazing fan base, and all we're doing is creating more supply and repackaging it right for us, it’s a supply and packaging problem as opposed to a distribution problem.
"We have the right supply because we have the best athletes, and they're going to be consistently racing each other over the next four months. And now it all comes down to executing on packaging, and then we let the fan base take care of the rest. So, in all honesty, I don't worry so much about the second year; I worry more about the first."
