I am trying to care about GST, but struggling to find space for it in my T&F matrix of caring.
Olympics, World Champs, National Champs are all major meets to care about. Diamond League is like the "regular season" to care about, with a nice champs to cap it off. Still not sure where GST fits here. Especially with the weird doubling thing, and the huge financial incentive for "will never ever medal" tier athletes to peak and go all in on trying to win GST. Idk.
I am trying to care about GST, but struggling to find space for it in my T&F matrix of caring.
Olympics, World Champs, National Champs are all major meets to care about. Diamond League is like the "regular season" to care about, with a nice champs to cap it off. Still not sure where GST fits here. Especially with the weird doubling thing, and the huge financial incentive for "will never ever medal" tier athletes to peak and go all in on trying to win GST. Idk.
They are promoting the sport by throwing half the athletes (field events) under the bus...
Which is ironic, since the world's best field athletes regularly show up against each other.
Look at the World Indoor battles in the pole vault, jumps or shot put compared to all of the ducking ducKerrs in the in track events.
Starting from the young ages on through to adulthood, the numbers of people competing in field events is just a very very small fraction of the number of people that run. The pool of those athletes is much smaller, so like, for example with ultra-running, the competition is not as deep.
Hobbey-horse use to be a field event in what you call athletics. Was it missed when it went away?
I want to try and throw in some perspective here, to all of the field wannabes that want to try and turn this into Grand Slam Track and Field. It’s not that; it’s just Grand Slam Track.
They are bringing in Dalilah Muhammad to run 400 hurdles. I'm not surprised at that. I follow Dalilah on Instagram and it's been obvious she has been back in training, despite not mentioning and plans and after supposedly retiring last year.
It makes sense for Grand Slam Track. Dalilah has far greater name recognition than competitiveness right now. It will give John Anderson and others a story line, instead of just saying let's watch Sydney win this by 3 or 4 seconds.
The over/under on Dalilah would probably be 56 range or slightly lower.
Cool for you to pop in here - and to caveat the below, athletics does need drastic changes (as we've had the big story this week of Ben O'Connor turning down a GB vest as he'd have to pay to run).
But... as a Brit i'm struggling to be that interested in GST, and not because of the timezones.
I really think that putting the event behind a paywall is a bad idea, at least for the first few meetings. As I said, athletics needs a shake up and it's cool you're doing that. But as a fan, I struggle to see how a 3-day meet that I have to pay to watch is in any way better than the Diamond League that lasts 2 hours and I can watch for free?
Yes, Worlds and the Olympics can at times drag over a week, but the "regular season" as you'd call the meetings in the DL are almost always fantastically well packaged, fast paced, and again, free. I currently have no buy in to GST, and if I have to pay then I feel more inclined to need to commit to watching over 3 days. That doesn't feel like the best way to attract fans? I realise there's different cultures in the US compared to the rest of the world, but there's a long list of sports that have gone behind paywalls here and in doing so have destroyed their fanbase, the Premier League is just the outlier.
I also saw Jess Hull suggesting fans in Australia get a VPN to watch, because it's not being broadcast there at all? That's really not the best way to launch a new event right? Feels like maybe the first couple of meetings could have been on YouTube for free, get people invested and then go behind a paywall (and make that clear throughout)?
I hope GST succeeds, its heaps cool you're in here and why I felt like making a more fleshed out post (rather than a 1 sentence hot take). Thanks!
Cool for you to pop in here - and to caveat the below, athletics does need drastic changes (as we've had the big story this week of Ben O'Connor turning down a GB vest as he'd have to pay to run).
But... as a Brit i'm struggling to be that interested in GST, and not because of the timezones.
I really think that putting the event behind a paywall is a bad idea, at least for the first few meetings. As I said, athletics needs a shake up and it's cool you're doing that. But as a fan, I struggle to see how a 3-day meet that I have to pay to watch is in any way better than the Diamond League that lasts 2 hours and I can watch for free?
Yes, Worlds and the Olympics can at times drag over a week, but the "regular season" as you'd call the meetings in the DL are almost always fantastically well packaged, fast paced, and again, free. I currently have no buy in to GST, and if I have to pay then I feel more inclined to need to commit to watching over 3 days. That doesn't feel like the best way to attract fans? I realise there's different cultures in the US compared to the rest of the world, but there's a long list of sports that have gone behind paywalls here and in doing so have destroyed their fanbase, the Premier League is just the outlier.
I also saw Jess Hull suggesting fans in Australia get a VPN to watch, because it's not being broadcast there at all? That's really not the best way to launch a new event right? Feels like maybe the first couple of meetings could have been on YouTube for free, get people invested and then go behind a paywall (and make that clear throughout)?
I hope GST succeeds, its heaps cool you're in here and why I felt like making a more fleshed out post (rather than a 1 sentence hot take). Thanks!
saw it was being streamed on Total Running Productions website. is that not available outside the US?
is that kind of thing geo-blocked or whatever they call it?
This post was edited 20 seconds after it was posted.
This is going to fail and it’s going to fail spectacularly. Nobody is going to watch it, the distance races are going to be a jog and kick joke fest, all the doubling is going to slow times even further, there’s already been scratches, the sprinters who have actually committed are not going to take this seriously, there’s little to incentive to win. How do you people not realize all this? Grand Slam might be the single worst idea for promoting the sport ever and you people have bought into it without question. It’s a track series with no stakes that doesn’t matter. It’s going to hurt the athletes preparedness for worlds. Jakob is sitting at home laughing hysterically at how dumb Kerr and the others are.
Since this is my job, I’ll give you a little insight — this happens at every single meet, you just don’t know it. It’s why most of the time you don’t get the start lists until the day before.
We made the decision that we’d rather publish the field 3+ weeks in advance of the 96 athletes that were intending to run. That’s not a soft verbal - those are contracts.
Unfortunately, things happen. I polled a bunch of media members, including Gault, asking if they’d prefer this methodology or only getting the final list a day before and their opinions were unanimous.
Remember, the Racers committed months ago! Some as far back as June 2024. And many Challengers signed in December. It’s impossible to know then that their Achilles would be bugging them the week before. When is the final lineup announced in the NFL or MLB? It’s sports!
I tell ya, when this fails and you lose millions, you are going to feel like a fool. It sounds like you are in denial. Nobody is going to watch this series. Dude, it’s a financial disaster waiting to implode and I got the feeling you already realize it. You are a first rate loser, and i got a feeling that after Grand Slam inevitably fails and after the Trump tariffs take effect, you are going to be camped at the unemployment line for some time. I’m so glad I’m not you.
