Michael Johnson Track League unveiled - Grand Slam Track will require athletes to double in siloed event groups

ransolo wrote:

Very disappointed, although thinking a little I don't know why I would expect anything different. This is an American sprinter's view of T&F (with the grouping, the doubling) and clearly a view that primes stars (and wannabe stars) who happen to be athletes rather than athletes who are stellar. Sidney is a heck of a runner, but I enjoy Mondo's love of the sport much more, even if they are comparable all-time greats in terms of the quality of their performances. Maybe MJ's proposal is fine and it will be successful in the US, where track and field is and will always be niche because there is no culture of T&F (unlike Europe). Personally, I love to see meets in Oslo, Zurich, Brussels, etc., and all the money in the world cannot make Doha (and, unfortunately, lately, Eugene) less than a sad spectacle for T&F in my opinion. And the storytelling is why I stopped watching T&F while I lived in the US before streaming became common. I could not stomach all the stories that seemed to be more important than the competition (did you know Alyson Felix is a mother?)

I would have gone with a team concept. Most people watch the Olympics, the NFL, the NBA, etc because of their allegiance to a team, whether it is their country, their city, their university, etc. Soccer and basketball are wildly popular because of the team-based nature of the sport: stars are important, but within a team. The slams and ranking system work for tennis because of the nature of the competition (one on one matchups); it was a good attempt to import some ideas, but it has been hard to apply to T&F (the ranking and qualifying times is an odd hybrid, let's face it). I enjoy relays and like the team competition at NCAAs (it would be more fun with fewer but deeper teams). Rather than having Ingebritsen doing 800s or having multiple groupings of sprinters, I'd prefer to have about 10 teams (say, Barega, Hoppel, Warholm, Holloway and a few others vs Ingebritsen, Mondo, Kejelcha, Benjamin and a few others vs ...) and have them do a few regular season competitions and then a Final Four kind of event. Something like the Continental Cup used to be but in a league + playoff format and without the continental elements; more like NBA or NFL franchises.

CO Coach wrote:

ransolo wrote:

Very disappointed, although thinking a little I don't know why I would expect anything different. This is an American sprinter's view of T&F (with the grouping, the doubling) and clearly a view that primes stars (and wannabe stars) who happen to be athletes rather than athletes who are stellar. Sidney is a heck of a runner, but I enjoy Mondo's love of the sport much more, even if they are comparable all-time greats in terms of the quality of their performances. Maybe MJ's proposal is fine and it will be successful in the US, where track and field is and will always be niche because there is no culture of T&F (unlike Europe). Personally, I love to see meets in Oslo, Zurich, Brussels, etc., and all the money in the world cannot make Doha (and, unfortunately, lately, Eugene) less than a sad spectacle for T&F in my opinion. And the storytelling is why I stopped watching T&F while I lived in the US before streaming became common. I could not stomach all the stories that seemed to be more important than the competition (did you know Alyson Felix is a mother?)

I would have gone with a team concept. Most people watch the Olympics, the NFL, the NBA, etc because of their allegiance to a team, whether it is their country, their city, their university, etc. Soccer and basketball are wildly popular because of the team-based nature of the sport: stars are important, but within a team. The slams and ranking system work for tennis because of the nature of the competition (one on one matchups); it was a good attempt to import some ideas, but it has been hard to apply to T&F (the ranking and qualifying times is an odd hybrid, let's face it). I enjoy relays and like the team competition at NCAAs (it would be more fun with fewer but deeper teams). Rather than having Ingebritsen doing 800s or having multiple groupings of sprinters, I'd prefer to have about 10 teams (say, Barega, Hoppel, Warholm, Holloway and a few others vs Ingebritsen, Mondo, Kejelcha, Benjamin and a few others vs ...) and have them do a few regular season competitions and then a Final Four kind of event. Something like the Continental Cup used to be but in a league + playoff format and without the continental elements; more like NBA or NFL franchises.

This isn't T & F, just T. This sport just can't stop shooting itself in the foot.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Yeah the doubling thing is a HUGE deal because clearly that's much easier for a sprinter than a distance runner.

Here is where the "no pacer, no lights" thing concerns me. We all love moaning about pacing and how it dilutes the "spirit of real racing" but the truth is, it is really important and it's even more important in this proposed format. Let's say you are doing a 15/5000 at one meet (has the difficulty of this been taken into account btw?!) - how are these races approached by the field? Do we have a situation where the 1500m goes out in 2.04 and the 5000m in 8.30 because of that? Yeah we will get "real" racing but at what point does that then become just as repetitive as paced races on the circuit but just with much slower performances. And this will matter - we don't mind seeing 13.15 win a world/OG 5000m title with a massive burn up because we understand the gravity of a world/OG title. How cool do we think it will be in this format of racing? Right now the 1500m is just insane at world final level with the new standard being well under 3.30 just to medal - but if this goes back to 3.37/3.38 how long before the novelty of that wears off.

Another thing is with only track events happening and presumably a short meet duration, how much time are we giving people to recover so they aren't obliterating themselves in one meet per season, let alone 4? Think about this - you get Jakob who is the best guy over 1500/3000/5000 on the planet. He needs to run a 1500-3000 or 1500-5000 double within what, 1.5 - 2 hours and has to do this 4 times a season? So yeah it's fine if you are running the 100-200 or even the 200-400h, but the more I think about it, the less I see how this feasibly works for any events over the 800m. Do you say "okay, that is too tough to ask these distance runners to do that" - okay, now how do you figure out the prize money etc without pissing everyone off?

So I'll reiterate - super interested to see how they problem-solve and find solutions to things like this (granted the intel we have been given so far is somewhat accurate in principal).

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Show me the money wrote:

I like the innovation GST in general, but not sure about the event groups. I’d love to see, say Michael Norman vs Rai in a flat 400m, but that’ll never happen with Norman presumably in the 200/400 group and Rai in the 400h/400 group. And as you mention, likely missing out on a lot of the current top milers being more 1500/3000 guys.

Maybe requiring athletes to double to earn the full contract, but letting each individual pick their 2 events could be the way to go

It seems a very simple fix with these overlapping groups:
-You have 8 lanes (4 stars/4 contenders) run the non-overlapping events e.g. 110H/400H/100
- You sit the contenders for the overlapping events and have just the stars double
-The idea of having athletes never racing despite running overlapping events is silly and not in the spirit of this at all

Groups that make sense:

100H/110H (should be standalone, hurdlers outside of Holloway for the most part will run 10.05-10.20 and even he will probably lose handily zzz)
100/200 (H2H with long sprinters in 200)
400/200
400H/600 (H2H with 800 guys, if Rai complains whatever dude)
800/600
1500/3000 (these guys don't need to double, just run three 1500s and one 3000)