The marketing is atrocious, like they hired a bunch of highschoolers. Michael Johnson is extremely out of touch with what fans care about, and just gives off this huge inflated ego. It’s very clear that there are people at the top who don’t know anything about track and field. It’s hard to even criticize one thing at a time is just a mess. Bad hiring. Bad concept. Bad decision with the three day layout. It’s just not compelling.
Smart coaches are doing such a good job running Incredible meats on a very small amount of money. $30 million is just wasted. Especially by marketing! I can’t imagine how much they’re making and it’s just wasted.
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
Honest question and I’m genuinely interested - what do you think they got/are getting right?
Also what is possibly changing over time? The only thing that saves this is a considerable rethink in the holistic formula and that starts with the 3 day “slam” and honestly goes right down to how the races are set up.
But the problem I see is that 1) Johnson is an extremely headstrong character who I struggle to believe can concede his original idea just kind of isn’t good and 2) the people he has surrounded himself with, aside from Kyle Merber, aren’t really track and field people who would even know the right direction to point him in.
So I’m genuinely not out to antagonize here but what are you seeing that gives you this sense of (much needed) optimism?
For me, the racing. I hate sit/kick races, so the 5k gave me debbie downer feelings, but i just accepted it and watched the tension build, and it turned out to be an awesome finish. Turned out ten times better than watching the field strung out behind a pacer and wave lights. Women's 800? Also a blast.
The biggest snooze for me was McLaughlin. They ought to just give her the overall prize money now (winner of all races + dominance through the roof) and send her home. She doesn't look happy to be there (compare, e.g., post-race Grant Fisher), and every race she does with hurdles will apparently be a blow out festival.
after watching the crowd , during the rerun's ( it was hard to watch the drone camera) there were none, there was a small entry for the 800,3000 runs. Was there a limit into the amount of runners allowed?
Honest question and I’m genuinely interested - what do you think they got/are getting right?
Also what is possibly changing over time? The only thing that saves this is a considerable rethink in the holistic formula and that starts with the 3 day “slam” and honestly goes right down to how the races are set up.
But the problem I see is that 1) Johnson is an extremely headstrong character who I struggle to believe can concede his original idea just kind of isn’t good and 2) the people he has surrounded himself with, aside from Kyle Merber, aren’t really track and field people who would even know the right direction to point him in.
So I’m genuinely not out to antagonize here but what are you seeing that gives you this sense of (much needed) optimism?
A few things to clarify about my attempts to evaluate how GST is doing big picture:
We aren't the target audience. By "we" I mean people who are satisfied enough with the state of the pro track and field product that we're following it closely as part of our day to day lives. I think the DL is flawed but great overall. GST is trying to attract people who don't know that the DL exists, not people who are apoplectic that it will be in FloTrack.
I'm also not really framing my thinking in terms of optimism (their overarching goal is to make track more popular to a casual audience; I am naturally less optimistic about an ambitious, difficult goal), but whether they are achieving their more incremental goals.
So in terms of what I think they're getting right, first is definitely the overall field quality and locking the athletes in to competing a lot. This was clearly one of their most important goals for year one, and they did that. Given that this is a brand new initiative and many of the basic incentive structures across the sport push against this, I don't think it's fair to take that for granted.
Second is that, while I think there are some flaws with the competition format, I think the seeds are there to switch things up enough so that with the right event formula, big enough prize purses, and the right storylines that there are some inherently compelling reasons to watch. I suspect the men's 800/1500 group will be fun to watch all year. I suspect watching hurdlers run the 100 will get old very quickly. But things like excessive doubling, the scoring system, and the time between events can all be adjusted fairly easily.
I don't think "we" fully recognize how structurally flawed the DL is. I love it because almost every meet Jakob does something cool and then I'm entertained enough by the rest because I love the sport. But if you ask me, "Why should a casual fan watch the 100 [the most popular event] in DL meet X?" there would be a lot of times where my response would be no better than, "Uh, well, Akane Simbine is like the sixth best 100m runner in the world and he'll probably beat other guys I might have heard of." Not great.
A huge lurking risk for GST is whether the Racers do terribly at Worlds. If all of those athletes are fried, and the holdout stars clean up, you can imagine the conclusion many will draw about whether taking the GST prize money is truly worth it.
There is nothing different with this league other than the better pay. It is just an American centric league. Just look at the list of racers and challengers on the website, majority are US athletes or runners training in the US. There is nothing wrong with establishing a league primarily in the US/Western hemisphere but to claim that it’s solving some non existent problem is funny.
I disagree with this. They got Sydney to compete regularly. Two years ago she didn't even run WORLDS. If you're trying to pull in casual fans, this is the type of athlete the sport needs to have competing regularly. (And it's not just her. Most other event groups are good I think.)
Now, it would be fair to say, "Yes, but they don't have Lyles, Jakob, etc." But maybe they get there with a relatively successful first year. Ultimately this depends on how the investors define success because it will take continued money. While the attendance was obviously terrible, I really doubt the investors are like, "The stands were empty on day one of meet one. Pull the plug."
Hagos running 12.36 on the DL circuit but getting outkicked by Dylan Jacobs and Cooper Teare in 14+ race shows how seriously the athletes are taking this.
As a football (soccer) fan I am getting Saudi league vibes from this. It's just a payday.
Did you watch it? He made a BOLD move for the lead. You don't think a 30+ ethiopian track specialist isn't DESPERATE to win 100k? If was him, I'd get in the shape of my life for these slams and ignore worlds. But there needs to be some rabbits in some fo these.
The damage done by their choice of venue(s) cannot be overstated. The visuals of an empty stadium will overwhelm even the best of races. What a blunder. Truly an unforced error.
Yes big mistake not to open with whatever you think is going to be your most well attended venue to get some atmosphere and buzz around the proceedings.
The total lack of crowds gave it a sterile Covid era feel.
The other issue was not displaying wind gauge readings so you could interpret the quality of a performance in absolute terms.
Yes. But WEATHER. It looks like they went out of their way not to compete with DL.
I think they thought by having it Kingston they'd get the sprint stars wanting to get a race early in the year and get paid for it instead of not beig paid. They thought wrong.
They got the pre-event stuff right and the contracted athletes part right in my estimation. The lack of good graphics/splits/live results are kinda crazy. They use the word innovative, and an AWS style experience for TV would be great. But it was super minimalist instead. 3 days should be 2, there should only be one long race, and I don’t get Jamaica as a host. It probably should be indoors for at least one stop, no stadium over 10,000 seats. I also wouldn’t be married to 4 racers. There’re some undeserving racers and just go the challenger route if you have athletes who are not legit medal contenders.
Good post.
If you are going to have 4 slams, at least one needs to be indoor. And racers should be required to be of a certain level.
Yes. But WEATHER. It looks like they went out of their way not to compete with DL.
I think they thought by having it Kingston they'd get the sprint stars wanting to get a race early in the year and get paid for it instead of not beig paid. They thought wrong.
I think it’s still too early to tell. MLS and the WNBA were unpopular, losing money, and very nearly failed. But now both are (relatively) popular and profitable. On the other hand, every few years there’s a new attempt at a spring football league that always seems to fold after one season. I could just as easily see Grand Slam going either way.
Interesting question.
Football is super popular. Why in the hell can't a spring footballl league work? On LetsFootballdotcom are they ripping the organizers of the spring football league for not making it popular?
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
What is it that makes GST more meaningful to the athletes compared to other races? The only thing that's any different is the prize money, which leads to people like Sydney who shows up for a jog just for an easy paycheck.
What is it that makes GST more meaningful to the athletes compared to other races? The only thing that's any different is the prize money, which leads to people like Sydney who shows up for a jog just for an easy paycheck.
It’s the money. I think they also like being a part of a new venture, but mostly the money.
If Sydney was forced to race the other best 400 runners it would be infinitely more interesting. Hopefully they fix this.
Attendance was embarrassingly bad. Things like MLS and WNBA have taken years to catch on. The inaugural MLS game in San Jose was a sellout with 34k fans. The inaugural WNBA game in LA had 14k out of ~17k seats filled. For something new and exciting you would expect opening night to be the easiest ticket to sell. Hopefully this is a Kingston issue and not a GST issue.
The empty stands were a total disaster and completely unacceptable for a new league. It made it look like amateur hour. That was a dual meet sized crowd.
my suggestions:
1. Use smaller venues - like Stanford or your average high school - that basically just has stands on one side.
2. Make sure your stands are full at all costs. Free tickets for kids, etc. or lower prices if needed.
3. 8 runners is not enough in a 5k. Add some more if you are keeping this. 8 is probably even too small for a 1500m. 12 is probably closer to the right number.
4. Shorten the meet to 1 day. No one wants a three day meet or can take the time to go three days. Maybe a 2 day meet might be able to work but it is still a stretch.
5. The action needs to be non stop. There was way too much dead time between races.
6. Better race introductions. Think Worlds or Olympic marquee intros with lights on the track , etc.
7. Better display of splits. Showing only the elapsed time split and the fractions of second each competitor was behind is not meaningful. You need to also show the split time for the lap (was that a 60 or 79?). Learn from F1 on this.
The only thing 90% of Jamaicans care about is shoet sprints, and wven then it’a for them to put sown the big fatties and get up and move to go to a track meet.
Your creators need to be in media production trucks where they are able to control the camera, replays, and communicate with camera operators to direct the angel of photography.
The directors need to have access to create their own graphics and hire their own stats people to help create useful stories that match the story the audience is seeing on the broadcast.
The creators need to pay for these rights and benefit by building a larger audience. This cost/benefit creates a reliance on meet managers and media partners where we all win.
Agents need to work with their athletes to tell better stories that will inspire fans to watch and bring the audience to desire to buy tickets.
Agents need to work with ticket brokers to broaden the exposure and reward people who follow their athletes. ie - Limited time giveaways to my next race to the 100th fan to comment on my next post.