And nobody's tuning in for these high hurdles groups which are completely lacking in star power.
How are the high hurdles groups completely lacking in star power?
The women's group is arguably the most stacked group in the entire league. In Philly, that group will have the 2024 Olympic gold medalist, the 2021 Olympic gold medalist, the 2023 world champion, the 2024 world leader, and the entire podium from the Paris Olympics. Plus Sydney!
The men's group is missing Holloway, but he's injured and hasn't been in top form this outdoor season anyway. That group will have the four fastest men in the world this year, including Tinch coming off his recent 12.87 win in China and Cunningham with his 13.00 win in Miami.
Great decision. Kudos to MJ and GST for listening to the fans.
Making the long-distance group 3K only alleviates the concern about those athletes burning out, which increases the likelihood of more top athletes deciding to participate.
It's also noteworthy that each day of racing will still be done in under 2 hours. No more long gaps in between races.
They should've scraped the men's LD group entirely. They're probably required to do a 3k because of the contracts.
This 3k in Pennsylvania is going to be mid af again because LD races are mid and usually terrible until the last few laps (Time trials are usually good).
They should've scraped the men's LD group entirely. They're probably required to do a 3k because of the contracts.
This 3k in Pennsylvania is going to be mid af again because LD races are mid and usually terrible until the last few laps (Time trials are usually good).
They should have exhibition road races at these meets instead, but that's probably too expensive.
-Thus love just simplifying to one race where these guys can forgo jogging at least after the first four to five minutes
-Friday's tickets sales indicated it wasn't worth going 3 days as people have work/obligations, the scene was much better on Saturday/Sunday
-I still don't need the sprint hurdlers sprinting, but whatever
- 2 days is better, if I didn't have my nephew/niece b-day party I'd go to Philly for both and even cough up for lodging if i couldn't find somewhere to crash.
Jonathan and I are working on an article on the news. But why does anyone think this will impact the jog fest nature of it? It might even make it more likely to happen. There is now a lot of prize money for one race so you aren't going to take any chances in serving as the sacrificial lamb.
They should have had one of the races be rabbitted. One not-rabbitted.
I’m not sure where to start but I shall do so from the few disjointed thoughts I have in mind:
1. I was taken aback when you mentioned JG was your ace staff writer then who do you think would be your ace forum commentator? That wasn’t mentioned and al I personally felt offended at the lack of mention. You will see why after reading through my disjointed thoughts.
2. You mention you took some offense at randomly eliminating the 5k instead if the 3k. Apparently nobody was consulted before coming to such an abrupt decision. Had Michael Johnson consulted the ace forum commentators on here maybe he would have known to scrap the 3k and go with 5k. It just doesn’t make any sense to have 5k totally abolished. You could have every alternate meets having 3ks and the rest having 5ks. Surprised you didn’t notice that prejudice over there.
3. Coming to this point I must say you Rojo are absolutely misbehaving in front of your fans and members. First you and JG were basking in joy at how Stanford Electricity graduate Grant Fisher figured out the math of winning Kingston grand slam without even trying in the second race and now you seem to be offended that Fisher didn’t try? Are your thoughts so fickle?
4. JG deserves credit for making a good observation that athlete personalities mean a lot for us fans. For example in the first 2 slams we sometimes witnessed the not-so-savoury and a touch spine-tingling female geese (goose) display of a certain American middle distance athlete on the start line. It got us entertained in a mouthwatering way for all the wrong reasons but entertained nonetheless. The fact that we didn’t know whether to laugh, smile or cry is in and of itself exceeded all entertainment expectations. Another example when another athlete from Scotland celebrated boisterously pointing at his skull repeatedly 5 to 6 times with his index finger when he crossed the finishing line victoriously and then preening and prancing himself in front of the camera and fans like the king of the jungle beast stands in direct contrast to the forgoing female geese (goose) in terms of entertainment. It’s entertainment at its primal natural best. I think you would agree that most people actually pay tickets to wait on the Scottish athlete beasting around after winning the race, I know I did.
5. My last thought is that you shouldn’t encourage dopers to go for WRs by selectively increasing the prize money. I think that’s woeful and sets a dangerous precedent. You can already imagine an intelligent bloke from Stanford like Grant Fisher is up to no good planning and scheming with Scannell how to unfairly appropriate those riches for themselves gleefully.
At this point this is all I have at this moment. I’ll come back to you in a bit once I have my thoughts fully straightened out.
-Women's side LD was working OK though the 5K wasn't too additive IMO, Men's side was a disaster with some entertainment value, but not of the right sort
-Thus love just simplifying to one race where these guys can forgo jogging at least after the first four to five minutes
-Friday's tickets sales indicated it wasn't worth going 3 days as people have work/obligations, the scene was much better on Saturday/Sunday
-I still don't need the sprint hurdlers sprinting, but whatever
- 2 days is better, if I didn't have my nephew/niece b-day party I'd go to Philly for both and even cough up for lodging if i couldn't find somewhere to crash.
Live and let live that’s my serious advice to you. There is no cure all. If you think America has a weapon Russia and China doesn’t also have you are delusional. There is always something to forgo and sacrifice and something to take advantage of.
The switch to only 3k for LD group is great imo. Should encourage more aggressive race strategies and discourage athletes tanking one of the races, since they don't have to worry about doubling back. Will hopefully be overall more entertaining to watch.
It isn’t. There was a grave mistake eliminating the 5k totally. This is an Olympic event with great tradition can’t believe they pick the 3k instead.
Great decision. Kudos to MJ and GST for listening to the fans.
Making the long-distance group 3K only alleviates the concern about those athletes burning out, which increases the likelihood of more top athletes deciding to participate.
It's also noteworthy that each day of racing will still be done in under 2 hours. No more long gaps in between races.
Looking forward to Philly!
Sissy minded. We expect athletes to be gladiators like Rocky Balboa and William Wallace. Discipline yourself and you will not burn out. Burn out is a mental thing and this generation of athletes are weak and buckle under pressure. For example Fred Kerley. You see how weak this chap is? A little of provocation and eye staring and be raise his fists. How is he going to be a true gladiator like William Wallace of old? This sort of man is worthless, no discipline and self control.
I would have cut the 3 not the 5. But I guess there is a better chance distance guys run the 3 fast instead of tactical. Its not a good look to not deliver on what is promised though. I would have finished out the 4 meets and then evaluated for next year.
Sensible comment. It’s the common sense stuff really. I hope athletes read the terms of contract before signing to race. They should have bonuses for being 1st to 3k mark in a 5k race honestly if you ask me. That’s the way around a slow 5k race.
Good move to a two day meet - for all the stated reasons by posters.
Breach of contract for the distance guys and gals. Simple as that.
What does GST think the fall-out will be if Grant Fisher decides to not show up due to breach of contract? GST has made their change to their business model mid stream and will gain cost savings and will have a better product. However, it is my belief, a business can’t change their contracted payment structure during the contractual time period - Period.
From the article: "I’m sure Sasha Zhoya has a bunch more fans in the US after the first couple of Grand Slams because he is insanely charismatic."
Got a kick out of this line. I follow track pretty closely and have no idea who this is. I don't think a single member of the general public who's not already a die hard track fan would recognize this name before or after GST.
In my opinion, the fantasy of marketing track and field to a mass audience needs to die. It's not a good spectator sport. The product is inherently boring if you aren't very knowledgeable about the sport. Structure meets around the desires of the existing fans, and if you want to grow the sport then focus on expanding the market (investing in competitive youth running, high school, collegiate, etc.) rather than trying to cater to a fictional market that doesn't exist.
Disagree you are much too liberal with your desires. So if all the audience one day desires to hold a sex expo in conjunction with a track and field meet? Or if they all want to have a casino den right around the corner so they can satisfy their desires to make a quick buck in between long wait hours?
Good move to a two day meet - for all the stated reasons by posters.
Breach of contract for the distance guys and gals. Simple as that.
What does GST think the fall-out will be if Grant Fisher decides to not show up due to breach of contract? GST has made their change to their business model mid stream and will gain cost savings and will have a better product. However, it is my belief, a business can’t change their contracted payment structure during the contractual time period - Period.
They can if they had a contract that stated those changes beforehand. I think in this case it did.
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.
Yes, in no world would/could you reduce the 3rd meet of the series to 2 days and then keep the final meet at 3 - that would be even more embarrassing.
I think reducing a day saves a huge amount of money and they made this change early enough they can probably recoup a significant amount of money for this. I think that includes production, equipment hire, catering, permit stuff - I'd love to actually know the details on how much it all costs.
Great decision. Kudos to MJ and GST for listening to the fans.
Making the long-distance group 3K only alleviates the concern about those athletes burning out, which increases the likelihood of more top athletes deciding to participate.
It's also noteworthy that each day of racing will still be done in under 2 hours. No more long gaps in between races.
Looking forward to Philly!
No. The athletes were told there would be a possibility of earning 100 grand from each grand slam meet if they had the best combination in the 3k AND 5K! GST can't just make a last-minute change like this and decide not to pay out what they already promised. This is ridiculous. It's a terrible decision and it makes MJ look like a coward and a fraud. You don't mess with the runners' expectations like this. The runners should sue GST. I knew GST would try to pull something like this and change the prize money stipulations.
God, why is everyone such a combination of half-right and half-wrong on this?
"They should sue" is an ignorant take: whether they had any real right to the chance at $100k depends very much on the details of any contracts signed, which are not public, but probably do include clauses allowing GST to do what they've done.
But "makes MJ look like a coward and a fraud": yes. There are many things you are legally allowed to do that you should not do, this is one of them. If you bait people into making a high-stakes decision to organize their seasons around this financial opportunity (and forgoing DL participation), you had better deliver. Even if GST hasn't done anything legally actionable (depends on how smart their lawyers were, a year or more ago when this league was coming into being), they are burning trust in a wholly unnecessary way.
It was also too early to make this decision: it's an iterated game, not only within GST events due to the double, but between different Slams. Part of the fun was going to be seeing people try different tactics in response to previous attempts. We already saw the 5000s play out two very different ways (last-lap kick vs windup from 4 laps out), and there was more to come, especially with Hagos G presumably returning for the next one.
On that note of the opportunity cost an athlete pays by doing GST instead of the Diamond League: if I were Grant's agent I would be calling up the DL organizers and seeing what appearance fees I could get my guy for upcoming races. I'm sure the DL sees an opportunity to dig into their competition here. There was an incentive for both sides (GST, athletes) to stick to the arrangement, but since GST has fired the first shot, there's no moral obligation to stick to it on the athletes' side. If they were the first to renege on the deal it would look bad, but no one should blame them for reacting negatively to these altered circumstances.
And nobody's tuning in for these high hurdles groups which are completely lacking in star power.
How are the high hurdles groups completely lacking in star power?
The women's group is arguably the most stacked group in the entire league. In Philly, that group will have the 2024 Olympic gold medalist, the 2021 Olympic gold medalist, the 2023 world champion, the 2024 world leader, and the entire podium from the Paris Olympics. Plus Sydney!
The men's group is missing Holloway, but he's injured and hasn't been in top form this outdoor season anyway. That group will have the four fastest men in the world this year, including Tinch coming off his recent 12.87 win in China and Cunningham with his 13.00 win in Miami.
They could have 1000 gold medals, they just aren't a marquee group. Not that the D guys are real stars, but distance at least has it's own very reliable cult followers.
Edit: im wrong and out of touch. Masai Russell seems to have a very strong following.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
I would have cut the 3 not the 5. But I guess there is a better chance distance guys run the 3 fast instead of tactical. Its not a good look to not deliver on what is promised though. I would have finished out the 4 meets and then evaluated for next year.
Sensible comment. It’s the common sense stuff really. I hope athletes read the terms of contract before signing to race. They should have bonuses for being 1st to 3k mark in a 5k race honestly if you ask me. That’s the way around a slow 5k race.
There isn't really a difference between a 3k and 5k if they are gonna sit til the last mile, at the earliest. might as well save the 5 or 6 minutes.
Good move to a two day meet - for all the stated reasons by posters.
Breach of contract for the distance guys and gals. Simple as that.
What does GST think the fall-out will be if Grant Fisher decides to not show up due to breach of contract? GST has made their change to their business model mid stream and will gain cost savings and will have a better product. However, it is my belief, a business can’t change their contracted payment structure during the contractual time period - Period.
They can if they had a contract that stated those changes beforehand. I think in this case it did.
How would you know that or why would you think that?
My guess… is no. No to cutting race purse expectations. Otherwise, GST wouldn’t have been able to sign the distance racers they did.
My guess… is yes. Yes to have the flexibility, in running their business and therefore being able to change to two days or adjust race distances (possibly).
Therefor, I believe GST to be in breach of contract with respect to race purse expectations and should pay the full expected amounts for the one race change to 3,000m
I am a fan of GST and also like the two day and one distance race change. What I don’t feel is on is changing the race purse expectations that distance racers signed on to.
Have any long distance people announced "F This" yet? I won't be surprised.
They should all drop out and post on X a group photo of them flipping the bird. Distance runners are always the first athletes to be screwed by meet organizers at every level; from junior high all the way to the pros and beyond to masters competition. It's high time they stuck up for themselves and tell MJ and those freeloaders to fill the empty time slots with local hobby joggers because they are sick and tired of being taken advantage of and walked on like carpet. GST is no different than the AAU of old and I called it that something like this would happen where they would end up screwing the athletes out of prize money two months ago on this very message board.
If they want to turn the event into a farce by trotting around at 2 minutes outside world record pace then the male distance runners only have themselves to blame.
As for the women if it was on sporting merit rather than being a white American Elise Cranny would not even be a top 25 choice.
I like that they're willing to change. But I think they need an incentive to run faster at 3000 (or maybe the 5000 instead).
The prize money could be based on time.
The long distance group is screwed. It won't be back next year. Fundamentally, it can twork. They were given a chance but they've delivered three out of four boring races. I won't blame them as doubling 3k and 5k is difficult but tbh, as an event, GST would be better spending the long distance money on field events that have genuine star power like Mondo in the vault and Davis-Woodhall in long jump or Rojas if she's fit again. Even Crouser and Healy would be better for a US audience. I'm a distance fan, but it just isn't working. The DL and standalone events for the 10k and 5k are just going to have to find a path to success. It not impossible as Night of the 10000 PBa has shown