Great Move? Grand Slam Track Shifts to 2-Day Schedule, Cut LD Group to 3K only

I can't help but wonder whether these changes were in some way obvious.

There are three things I wonder.
1. Did they talk to the long-distance runners and offer them the choice: either 1 race and half price money, or have 2 races across both days (maybe 2x3000m, etc.)? Depending on who you are, I am not sure this is an obvious answer. JG, if you could confirm this, that'd be swell!
But how much they really cared about their racers feedback depends on the next point...

2. My guess is that the organizers were not fully happy with the (men's) LD group, realizing that that product is simply poor in the current format (for a large group of viewers). If true, it's clear that you'd want to make an adjustment. Moving LD to a two day format seems like a surefire way to invite even more slow jogging. So in that sense, it's out of the question.

3. Finally, should the LD guys have realized that they are digging their own grave? As one of the primary racers (who are likely to participate next year as well), even if you expect changes to only occur next year (instead of so soon), it seems terribly short-sighted to only run for a given weekend's price purse. I especially think about Fisher's decision to only fight for second. While that surely maximized his prize-money winnings on that weekend, I wonder how much of that contributed to the cutting of the event to 1 day, as it truly exposed some of the issues in the format.

"Grand" Slam will henceforth be known as Slam, as its no longer grand.

You must be new here!!

Right, and without beating a dead horse this is the crux of it all. How was it possible that with the great MJ and his team of top sports executives and experts, was this not logically realized well before it got to this? Well all know the details they have been discussed for the last 8 months here - 24 events per slam, 18 of them are 2min or less and you wanted to spread this out over 3 days? No field events to occupy your fans between races and you dragged each session out to 2 hours. Each day costs a fortune to run operationally no matter how many fans turn up or how well anyone runs. It's just all so mindblowingly backwards it defies belief. Was it really that nobody there, in all the times I bet they spent in meetings, had the foresight to raise these or any issues? Or did they want to but didn't feel it was in their best interests to challenge the Olympic hero Michael Johnson?

I made my predictions on GST months and months ago - I have another one now. That when the dust settles from this venture, somebody that was there is going to come out with some pretty crazy stories of what it was like behind the scenes dealing with Johnson, Gera et al. Someone said a few weeks ago that this will one day be part of a sports management paper as a case study in how not to do things and I agree with them.

I thought you were calling on me as a fellow Vancouver Island Separatists runner to offer my wisdom on the subject.

Glad Jakob didn’t associate with this garbo.

3k and a 400m. Want to tell me that see a bunch of distance going all out for 400m for 50k wouldn’t be fun? Can also make the 400m guys run the 800m…

Honestly this product is broken. Doubling isn’t a good gimmick. I like the idea of building tension of who is getting the big bucks but you could do that over 4 meets. Have the distance guys race a 1500/3k/5k and the. A 3k championship. for the middle distance guys do the 800/1500s and then a 1k championship.

Look. All along the entire LRC team said 3k and 5k wasn't a good idea.

But I'm not for treating the 3k/5k as an inferior event. If they scrap this mid season they should pay $100k for the winner of the 3k at each meet.

So now we're going to be all about doubling except for the 3k? and never have a 5k?

I assume this means they are dropping entirely the 3k next year which means you'll piss off the distance fans the more I think about it.

But the 400 hurdlers still get $100k just because they run an extra 400 and the same with the short hurdlers running a 100?

Treating one event differently than the others isn't a long term solution.

LA is going to be 2 days right?

Anyone know did they just save 33% on TV production as well? I'm sure for Philly they didn't save much, but if they're needing to save to make it to year 2 this is a way to do it.

Grant may not be happy with his potential earnings being cut in half.

However, he has stated many times his feeling about needing to improve his race tactics, thus his full-in optimism about GST and its non-rabbited format -- as well as the doubling, which somewhat simulates what he goes through @ USAs & Olympics/WCs.

Now, the later is gone, but the former remains, with the more likely scenario of going full-throttle in the 3000 in hot/humid/windy conditions vs the 5000.

To your point highlighted above, Grant should very much appreciate the new 2-day/1-race format when the GST/LA meet rolls around, as he has his first mile race since hs coming up just a week later @ Pre.

NOPE. 100 meter runners can actually run multiple full speed races in one day. They can run 3 rounds in 4 or 5 days, with all of their races at full speed or 99%. It doesn't take just as much out of them. just lol.

And nobody's tuning in for these high hurdles groups which are completely lacking in star power.

Cranny's boyfriend, Charlie Sweeney, commented that the LD group should have become a 1500/3k group for better racing and overlap bw racers so I'm assuming that this would have been her preference as well.

Cutting the 5k was exactly what I predicted. I took Grant Fisher to task for jogging his races and doing the minimum necessary for the cash. He recognized the immediate incentives and acted accordingly but ignored the longer-term incentives of making the distances viable within this lucrative system. He's not the only one. All the guys engaged in the jog fests in Jamaica and Miami are to blame. Economically, cutting from 3 to 2 days also helps the league's sustainability. Fans can better afford a two day meet (one hotel night) and it's much cheaper for accommodations and food for the athletes and organization as well.

You’re missing the point here.

Investors want to see positive returns on their funding. There have been other meets not on NBC that have done much better. CNBC as an example see numbers much higher. These numbers match NCAA Champs on ESPN that do little to no promotion that the event is even taking place.

With the amount of social media and buzz around these events it’s not a good sign. Also, with numbers that low will make it very difficult to move into a NBC slot without pouring even more money in. Networks need to sell commercial units and with 250k in viewership as its track record those assets won’t sell and the network would be taking a risk.

Obviously this a good move long-term. BUT doing it 2 weeks out from the meets in the middle of the "season?" Bad move.

This only applies to a few thousand people, but consider people who already bought tickets, booked travel, booked hotels, and got PTO approved for work to travel to Philly to watch in-person. This move, again just 2 weeks out, really screws fans planning to attend in person.

Personally, I was going Friday-Saturday. All my travel plans were Friday-Saturday. Changing is a headache, cannot get refunds for booked flights, and keeping my schedule would just leave watching one day in-person. I'm pushing for a full refund.

I can see why you are disappointed. But if you don't want to go through the hassle of changing your travel plans, why not make the best of it and use the extra time on Friday to explore Philly? You could use the time on Friday night that you would have been at the meet to go to a nice restaurant, a Phillies game, a play, a concert, their summer festival, etc. Lots of options. See the link below.

With the restructuring of the GST meet, you're also getting a better deal. In the original schedule, you would have seen 16 races spread over two days. Now you can see 11 races in one day, while saving the cost of a ticket for the second day.

The other option is to adjust your travel plans to be there Saturday-Sunday instead of Friday-Saturday. Yes, it's a pain, but the benefit of doing it is you'd get to see 22 races instead of your originally planned 16. That's more racing bang for your buck.

https://www.visitphilly.com/articles/philadelphia/best-festivals-and-events-in-philadelphia-for-may/

Same they should just award $50k for the two distance races separately.

as several have already pointed out, your take doesn't make sense. distance races are the ones with drama and excitement for >5 seconds. they develop and have a story. obviously people have their preferences, but sprint races are the dull ones for me as they're often predictable. in my opinion they could have made this decision to cut the 5k more palatable if they also cut both hurdle groups' flat sprints. then it wouldn't seem so tilted.