This thread was started about an emergency meeting being called by Michael Johnson with the contracted racers of Grand Slam Track today. Matt Lawton of the Times of London then reported on the emergency meeting being called here (story updated to reflect the LA meet has been cancelled)
And Front Office Sports was the first to report The Grand Slam Track LA meet has been cancelled. Story here.
The Philly meet was the best one yet in terms of attendance, so the hope the year would end on an upswing in LA. Jon at meet #1 was given the indication that the series would end with a bang in LA.
The only hope is this saves them enough money for them to try and regroup into year #2. But if you're doing that aren't you worried that cancelling one of your 4 meets is a bad look?
The other alternative is this is the end of GST and the investors will get a little more money back than a complete wipeout.
If you're looking forward to next year, you hold the LA meet while cutting costs as much as possible and regroup in the offseason. Cancelling entirely means they're not worried about relationships for next year.
This is a bummer, but I'd like to know more about what's happening behind the scenes. I assume Grand Slam expected to lose money in year one — how bad were the financials/fan engagement details that investors don't see any hope going forward and figure they're better off cutting their losses?
yeah, one of the outdoor minor football leagues did this a couple years ago. it's not coming back. they got in over their heads, and the vendors and prize leaders would want to be back-paid for this year, when it sounds like they are already broke, much less fund next year. which banks and tv and big names will flee after this.
Apart from SML a lot of these athletes would have been on the Diamond League circuit and made the meets so far a lot better. Imagine if Arop was in the 800 at Oslo later, or if any of the 1500 big hitters had been available?
Quality meets and fields > more meets.
Absolutely right. Diamond League has been a near-perfect product for legitimate T&F fans for years. Nonstop action for an ideal 2-2.5 hour window with field events seamlessly interwoven, consistently great fields and (for the more established European meets at least) great crowds and atmosphere. In my opinion, GST broadcasts and races have been really poor in comparison. Somehow even after condensing to two days, they leave 30-40 minutes on each end of the broadcast window to fill without races, and so many of the races are like, Trey Cunningham running a 10.4 100. Like you said, there’d be no reason to complain if GST wasn’t negatively impacting the DL fields, but it is—like today’s “Dream Mile” not featuring any of the top 6 guys from the Olympic 1500. Track is better off with a consensus 1A circuit, and that circuit is the Diamond League.
Really pathetic for GST not being able to execute its first year, four meet schedule. The lack of intelligent planning is inexcusable, and Michael Johnson should be embarrassed.
I disagree. The DL can present it's product so much better. It has the advantage of having great crowds at most meets so it's a good spectacle. However, there's so much it can improve. The 2 hour broadcast we get in the UK has no analysis at all. It's just event after event. There's space for at least some studio analysis. They could also do more with on screen data, and even just basic things like letting viewers know what the pacing lights are set at. Yes, I know I can go find that, and other data on the website. But viewers shouldn't have to, no other sport expects viewers to do homework while they're watching. Finally, the insistence on pacing each and every distance race is boring. There's a place for paced races, but there's also a place for just racing.
The thing is, the DLs issues are easily fixable. GST has a much more fundamental problem because of it's insistence on trying to make a market for track in the US. Right now, Americans don't want to pay to watch a pro athletics meet and extending the meet over two days and introducing a half-baked doubling concept hasn't changed that. The question they should be asking is what can they learn from Brussels and Zurich? Packed out meets that don't rely on a homegrown star to draw crowds.
The Philly meet was a great experience as a spectator. Was hoping to go back again next year.
I agree, I had a great time. I picked Philly over the other locations to attend since it seemed like a much better experience for the other ~21 hours in the day (no dealing with cars and parking was the main part). None of the other GST cities seemed to have nearly as good a location as Franklin Field for spectators.
The Philly meet was the best one yet in terms of attendance, so the hope the year would end on an upswing in LA. Jon at meet #1 was given the indication that the series would end with a bang in LA.
The only hope is this saves them enough money for them to try and regroup into year #2. But if you're doing that aren't you worried that cancelling one of your 4 meets is a bad look?
The other alternative is this is the end of GST and the investors will get a little more money back than a complete wipeout.
Call me a skeptic it looks like the latter.
General Thought: Seems they went to big with the prize money, and perks of the operation. Maybe that was needed to get athlete names and establish buzz, but they really overshot the competition and that has to spook investors when they make a really bad decision to go to Jamaica, do 3 days in a ghost town atmosphere, and then it's a necessarily small affair in Miami in that small stadium.
Sports disruption is hard without entrenched history/sponsors, just look at LIV Golf. It's a colossal failure with all the money in the world and initially having big names.
Something seems off with the economics of outdoor track in the US. The stadiums are too small/inconvenient in big cities. Philly's about the only one that makes sense financially it seems. Maybe Austin could work too. The NYC Grand Prix can pretty much sell out, and it's clearly a loser financially even without big-time prize money. Rest of sizable stadiums are in college towns/small cities.
The Indoor meets seemingly work because you can charge a lot more to pack the house and the locations are much better (NYC/Boston). While I liked GST, just making the 1-day meets already here (NYCGP/LAGP even bigger or putting one at Penn instead) would be enough for the calendar. Europe/DL has us pretty well-covered with great meets at high frequency.
Absolutely right. Diamond League has been a near-perfect product for legitimate T&F fans for years. Nonstop action for an ideal 2-2.5 hour window with field events seamlessly interwoven, consistently great fields and (for the more established European meets at least) great crowds and atmosphere. In my opinion, GST broadcasts and races have been really poor in comparison. Somehow even after condensing to two days, they leave 30-40 minutes on each end of the broadcast window to fill without races, and so many of the races are like, Trey Cunningham running a 10.4 100. Like you said, there’d be no reason to complain if GST wasn’t negatively impacting the DL fields, but it is—like today’s “Dream Mile” not featuring any of the top 6 guys from the Olympic 1500. Track is better off with a consensus 1A circuit, and that circuit is the Diamond League.
Really pathetic for GST not being able to execute its first year, four meet schedule. The lack of intelligent planning is inexcusable, and Michael Johnson should be embarrassed.
I disagree. The DL can present it's product so much better. It has the advantage of having great crowds at most meets so it's a good spectacle. However, there's so much it can improve. The 2 hour broadcast we get in the UK has no analysis at all. It's just event after event. There's space for at least some studio analysis. They could also do more with on screen data, and even just basic things like letting viewers know what the pacing lights are set at. Yes, I know I can go find that, and other data on the website. But viewers shouldn't have to, no other sport expects viewers to do homework while they're watching. Finally, the insistence on pacing each and every distance race is boring. There's a place for paced races, but there's also a place for just racing.
The thing is, the DLs issues are easily fixable. GST has a much more fundamental problem because of it's insistence on trying to make a market for track in the US. Right now, Americans don't want to pay to watch a pro athletics meet and extending the meet over two days and introducing a half-baked doubling concept hasn't changed that. The question they should be asking is what can they learn from Brussels and Zurich? Packed out meets that don't rely on a homegrown star to draw crowds.
GST seemed doomed from the beginning, for the simple reason that Johnson had no long term plan for carrying the league for the many years it would take to be self sustaining. This was nothing more than a cash grab by Johnson. There are lots of examples of failed sports leagues in the US, a real business plan would have baked in at least 5 years of loss if there was intention to keep GST track going. It likely would have taken over a decade before GST was profitable. By most accounts it took MLS over 20 years to become profitable, and that's probably the most successful example of creating a sports league in the US ever.
The Philly meet was the best one yet in terms of attendance, so the hope the year would end on an upswing in LA. Jon at meet #1 was given the indication that the series would end with a bang in LA.
The only hope is this saves them enough money for them to try and regroup into year #2. But if you're doing that aren't you worried that cancelling one of your 4 meets is a bad look?
The other alternative is this is the end of GST and the investors will get a little more money back than a complete wipeout.
Call me a skeptic it looks like the latter.
General Thought: Seems they went to big with the prize money, and perks of the operation. Maybe that was needed to get athlete names and establish buzz, but they really overshot the competition and that has to spook investors when they make a really bad decision to go to Jamaica, do 3 days in a ghost town atmosphere, and then it's a necessarily small affair in Miami in that small stadium.
Sports disruption is hard without entrenched history/sponsors, just look at LIV Golf. It's a colossal failure with all the money in the world and initially having big names.
Something seems off with the economics of outdoor track in the US. The stadiums are too small/inconvenient in big cities. Philly's about the only one that makes sense financially it seems. Maybe Austin could work too. The NYC Grand Prix can pretty much sell out, and it's clearly a loser financially even without big-time prize money. Rest of sizable stadiums are in college towns/small cities.
The Indoor meets seemingly work because you can charge a lot more to pack the house and the locations are much better (NYC/Boston). While I liked GST, just making the 1-day meets already here (NYCGP/LAGP even bigger or putting one at Penn instead) would be enough for the calendar. Europe/DL has us pretty well-covered with great meets at high frequency.
A DL meet at Penn would be a huge positive outcome from GST. The US should be able to support two DL meetings most years.
I went to Philly and really enjoyed it as a spectator. It really is too bad the East Coast will go back to not having a top tier circuit meet.
The only way I could spin this as good news for the sport is that we'll go back to having one top tier circuit, so competition won't be very watered down.
A DL meet at Penn would be a huge positive outcome from GST. The US should be able to support two DL meetings most years.
I really hope that's one thing the DL powers-that-be take to heart. Perhaps On could take a leading role on it, and it could be a couple weeks before Pre. Get the top American sprinters and bring in strong mid-distance/distance fields. I can pretty much guarantee it would get 15,000+
How do you know this thread wasn't started by a journalist who wasn't quite sure of their sourcing or was afraid to piss of MJ/GST?
You're sidestepping the main point, which is that running stories are often revealed on this message board before any journalist has published it. It's happened many times over the years. Whether a journalist started the thread or not is irrelevant.
I think what we're missing is why is this a bad thing. Is it our job to protect journalists' employment?
GST picked bad locations, a silly format and was too long. I enjoy Citius but they were clearly way out of their depth as a media partner as well. All they had to do was pick two US cities and two EU. Put on a one night meet with the best racers in their events.
When Michael Johnson hired that idiot from Citius I knew he had no idea what he was doing.....
They wasted soo much money on very frivolous things....like covering the whole infield with their banner....sure it looks cool as hell but makes NO financial sense when starting from the bottom. At a minimum that thing cost $50k and then you have to ship it and store it....GREAT IDEA MJ.
The Philly meet was a great experience as a spectator. Was hoping to go back again next year.
Agree--I went also, and it was great. Best way for an American track league to succeed is to pair a youth meet in the morning with a pro meet in the evening. Charge a little bit more than is typically of a youth meet (e.g. $25 per event) for the premium experience. Youth meets in the U.S. can and do draw tens of thousands of people.
GST picked bad locations, a silly format and was too long. I enjoy Citius but they were clearly way out of their depth as a media partner as well. All they had to do was pick two US cities and two EU. Put on a one night meet with the best racers in their events.
I'm not certain if there's room for GST in Europe, due to DL being so popular and even WA Gold-level meets such as FBK Games and Ostrava Golden Spike being well supported.
The Philly meet was the best one yet in terms of attendance, so the hope the year would end on an upswing in LA. Jon at meet #1 was given the indication that the series would end with a bang in LA.
The only hope is this saves them enough money for them to try and regroup into year #2. But if you're doing that aren't you worried that cancelling one of your 4 meets is a bad look?
The other alternative is this is the end of GST and the investors will get a little more money back than a complete wipeout.
Grand Slam Track should have used pop-up videos and advertisements that took over the entire screen while broadcasting their events. That's the way to be successful in a running related venture.
The next story to break on GST is that all the big prize money is never going to be paid out or paid in reduced payments. Like other professional sports leagues over past half century in US, athletes are promised a salary then the funding craters and vendors and athletes get stiffed. DL meets are notoriously slow play affairs where athletes see funds 2-3 months after the meet. I highly doubt anyone has received prize money yet.
Numerous domestic meets that had been doing fine got blown out of the water for this.
Watered down several Diamond League fields.
Makes future investors more likely to be hesitant in the future.
Like a first year business major could have told you spending 10% of your total funding commitment in prize money for a single meet (not including travel, hospitality, broadcast costs) was a bad idea. Especially given one of those meets was in a market where the average annual salary is $12,000USD and the other was in Miami with a capacity of 4,000 competing with the Formula 1.
I think the doubling format is overall worse than a simple winner-take-all race. Seeing hurdlers run their off-event wasn't very interesting, and not knowing who won until the announcer announced it maybe wasn't the best. There were some cases where the Slam winner finished 5th in the second race. The bottom line is I care more about the race at hand than the Slam as a whole.
But seeing Arop and Wanyonyi mixing it up in a tactical 1500m was peak track TV. I thank GST for bringing us that.
Not sure how we can keep some of the positives of the doubling and get rid of some of the negatives in future meets. I really wish we could feasibly see Arop and Wanyonyi in a championship 1500m.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.