Grant Fisher Screwed, Grand Slam Cuts Long Distance Prize Down to 50K

I was thinking about this- I'm sure they have contracts and they must be compensating them somehow.

The prize structure for competitive running is a joke to begin with. I recall placing in a major marathon back in 2006 and it took 4 months to get paid I was beyond annoyed. Fast forward to winning a major poker tournament get paid cash day of $50k.

Maybe the guarantees ought to be like $10,000 for the win and any more is on a sliding scale based on finishing time. They'd have to figure it out, but something like: if youre under 14, you get a bonus of $5,000. Under 13:30, Bonus is $20,000. Under 13:10, Bonus is $40,000, and so on. Maybe the only way to get $100K is to run under 12:50. That would at least tend to keep the effort honest.

The Grand Slam reminds me of the ITA , The International Track Association (ITA) was a professional track and field organization that existed in the United States from 1972 to 1976. The first professional track league. It was a great idea and they came in with a boat load of money. There were reports that they even offered Pre $100,000 which was NBA like pay in the 70's. It was a great idea and armature track sucked with people in the US getting money under the table yet the Eastern Black Nations subsidizing their athletes and the African nations giving their best runners sham jobs, plus the boycotts of 76 and 80 and the turmoil in 72.

But the ITA could never attract the top distance runners in their prime and the only great runner still in his prime who competed was Ben Jipcho and a washed Jim Ryan and Kip Keino.

That league a great idea was destined to fail and perhaps the same will happen if they are not careful with the Grand Slam.

I don't see the organizers containing to pay world class distance runners to run high school and college lever times, times the best female can beat at the same meet!

Grand Slam will change or disappear!

Yes ….just keep hating on GSL you let’s run posters. You can collectively help destroy our sport then keep posting about politics…well done😵‍💫.

Darn, I'm really going to miss those guys jogging 14:30 5ks.

Mame time standards possibly sub 1315 to get full payout sub 745. Incentives do wonders

If it's one race, should have been a 5k. Unless the LA meet will also be a 2 day with just a 5k?

In that case i would like to see a pacer for a quick time at least.

Kind of seems like they're changing the rules as they go. Sydney wouldn't stand for this. Or they wouldn't do it to her.

They can have back to back long distance races. They don't need 3 days with the times they're running.

I think the problem with "time based incentives" is that people are then just running single-file (like a workout) to get a cash prize. That is not watchable for most people.

Honestly, I don't want to watch that either. Imagine Grant Fisher pulls a line of dudes around a track for 12.5 laps in a time of 12:50-12:59. Sure, in that scenario they all "broke 13" and got paid, but it isn't viable as a race.

Honestly, the "preems" are a better way to do it. Give whoever is the leader at the 1K, 2K, 3K, 4K a premium of $10,000 if they finish within 20 second of the winner's time.

Now, like the Tour de France, you have five races in 12.5 laps instead of just one AND they have to hang on for an honest finish. If they don't stay within 20 seconds of the leader, their preems get added to the overall winner's pot.

Grant outsmarted himself out of $50k x 2 haha

no kidding. and at a jog probably at that. if they were counting eyeballs on event, fisher would have to pay them. who do you think is watching this? of the handful of people going out of their way to watch these events, they watch the sprints.

Totally predictable and predicted. The next step will either be to cut the distance entirely or make it 400/800 and 1500/3000. There is no doubt that Grant Fisher's short-term calculation was effective, but his failure to think big picture is already costing him a potential $50k per meet!

Since Grant is in the spotlight and was obviously calculating for maximum prize money, one might think he's the only one making these calculations. But he was just the one doing it for the 100K.

If you make a competition where athletes can "cheat within the rules" and the money corruption is big enough, people will take advantage of that ...

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I actually like the idea except you want to remember 12:50 is extremely fast and NOONE has ever done it 5 times in a year. They were scheduled to run 5 meets and 5- 5000m, so 12:50 is feasible possible for 5 meets. So that's WAY too fast, maybe just sub 13 minutes and the win= $100,000

NOW would the tier payout also apply to all the other events? My take is it would cause some athletes not to run GST because its no longer a competition, or would transform into "you want to get paid then run what I tell you to run"

So GST is dead already? The doubling is/was stupid. Now it’s transitioning to just a regular meet that pays out way more money than it will ever make.

With reducing the meet from 3 to 2 days, they are going to be refunding the people that bought Friday tickets. I’d put the over under on the number of people they will have to refund at 25

I don’t see why they’d cut the 800/1500, as the races gave been exciting and drawn buzz. 1500/3000 might end up being a group as you could then do an 800/1500 group which would still be loaded with Hoey, Arop and Kessler leading. Nathan Green, Abel Teffra among many prospects there. 1500/3000 group could be the Olympic podium and Fisher.

I don’t think Grant’s race tactics caused this. The women went from the gun in every race and those races were even less entertaining.

It seems like GST current idea structure is causing more harm than good, especially when it comes to scaring investors away. On a different note, I wanted to acknowledge MJ's role in the situation with Track. It's disappointing to see the impact this is having rather than helping to save it. Let's hope for better solutions moving forward.