Kudos to them dropping a ton of dollars for trying but the problem with the meet is it's not repeatable.
You liked how athletes got excited for the team stuff. Well that's because $1,000 was on the line and the gerrymandered the teams to make sure it came down to the 4 x 400. At the other meets (and in person in NYC, I was there), the team stuff was totally irrevelant or unfollowable. I watched a replay on tv and the announcers did a good job with it but it's still an exhibition. The marquee names - hell Allyson Felix - aren't racing.
What do you want them to do? Have another meet where people get into the team results? There's a reason why conference meets are exciting - they are one-off affairs.
Plus I don't see how this ever works financially.
Think about it. There are 36 athletes per team x 4. So that's like 144 athletes. If they spend just $1,000 per athlete for travel/hotels,etc that's $144,000. Add in prize money. It was roughly $11,000+ per event x 13 events. That's $143,000 x 3 as there were three meets. That's basically $450,000.
So you're looking at something like $600,000 in expenses for the athletes without even counting GM salaries, etc. Then you need employees to pull it off. I had no idea how labor intensive this is but bet it takes a ton of work. When you add in employees, I think expenses are easily over $1 million as 8 employees at 50k is 400k.
So let's say you are looking a million easily just in expenses.
How many people were at Randall's Island? 2,000? 3,000? How many of those were paying customers. Well there were 600+ in the road race that got admission and I'd be stunned if there were that many 'paying fans'. But let's say 600 in road race and 600 paying fans. That's 1,200.. I'll be generous. Let's say it was 1500 paying fans/road racers + 1,000 freebies for kids, etc.
Average ticket or entry fee was 25-30 bucks. Lets say $30.
1,500 x $30 = $45,000. Let's say the other two meets equaled that (combined). So we have revenue of 90,000 and expenses of over a million.
And don't say, "What about the tv money?" I'd be my life that TrackTown did a time-buy on ESPN. I bet one of the biggest expenses is for tv coverage.
Yes, I know there were some sponsors etc. But the diamond league in new york got WAY bigger crowds and didn't last. The only way to make money would be to get tv to pay you but how is that ever going to happen? I just don't see it.
In tennis, team tennis exists. Minor league baseball exists. So maybe it's not impossible but it's going to be tough.