Review of Day 1 - Grand Slam Track - What to Make of New Series?

Who won the men’s 400?

I agree 100 percent. I remember the thrill of the California High School championships and the Arcadia Invitational in the Obea Moore / Michael Granville days. Those high schoolers were there to compete, not to collect a paycheck. The stands were packed and all of us spectators were having an absolute blast. That was the spirit of track. Grand Slam is a money grab that neither evokes nor instills love of the sport.

Michael Johnson 53.27

I am deeply concerned about the future of this new event. The concept sounds exciting on paper and can bring intrigue to the sport but the execution has been extremely poor. For $30M to put on a show like this is embarrassing and gives our sport a bad name. How has it been mismanaged this poorly?? Broadcast was whack, the results can’t even show properly, we have no splits, and there were about 17 people in the stands so it doesn’t seem enticing to fans at the moment. The most glaring problem was that this event is BORING to watch with huge gaps of 10+ minutes of nothingness in between races. I have seen middle schools execute a track meet with better preparedness and scheduling.

I really want this event to succeed because our sport can use all the help it can get. Stale showings like tonight’s event are not going to improve the sport. The positive news is that this was only night 1 and they have more events to go. But they still have a VERY long way to go.

This made whiskey travel through my nose. 😂

Fyre Festival was a con. GST is not.

Agreed with most of what you said. Time between races need to be much much quicker. It should be snappy and exciting, race after race after race with music/some other gimmick + find a way to fill the stands. You need people to watch in person or else it signals to online watchers it isn’t worth watching.

I said it 3 months ago on New Year's Eve.

"No one is paying to see a track meet that should be done in 1 day, spread out over 3 days. The only people that will attend are bored locals who are already fans. No one is going to travel and pay for a hotel for 3 days to see these people hobby jog around the track because they are only there for a paycheck. The entire premise is stupid and will never work. The people in Jamaica don't give a rats a$$ about Nikki Hiltz or Cole Hocker, or SML, they don't even care about Oblique Seville who is one of their own. This entire thing will fail miserably and MJ will be clowned for the rest of his life for this epic disaster."

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=13245402#post-6

Nailed it!

Chris Bailey

It's a shame we couldn't somehow do a series like this indoors where a small crowd seems large. You'd like to create the sensation of "sold-out, special" etc. You only have once chance to make a first impression.

Along those lines, I have zero idea why they pick Jamaica's national stadium and Franklin Field as 2 of their venues. WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too big. Track and field is not popular in Philly. The Penn Relays just attracts a lot of Jamaicans and parents and traditionalists. The largest stadium for something like this shold be Miramar.

If you are going to hold it Kigston, pay whatever it costs to tarp off 80% fo the seats. The entire back half of the stadium. Hell make it look like an ad for Jamaican tourism. Make it something that they can keep - "VisitJamaica.com" or something.

My son and recently went to watch the world's most popular atlhlete in Lionel Messi in Altanta. For some reason, the entiire third deck was tarped off. I assume they could have sold out but they wanted a buzz and tickets going way above face. If Messi is tarping off seats, you should be as well.

I had been there for a long time before I realized the third deck was tarped off. I only noticed it because season ticket holder told me about it.

Open image

Lots to say about how this was poorer than a lot of meets I’ve seen. But I was also really surprised about some little things done poorly. Empty stands and such can be hidden with good camera work tarps, whatever. And drama can also be enhanced by focusing on the racing.

Let’s forget the men’s 5k, aka 400m. If you didn’t fall asleep or start swearing after the D3 pace at 4600m, at least the last 400 was fun I guess.

But the women’s 3000! Main complaint is not even how it quickly broke into the haves and have nots. But then the announcers are telling us how important it is to race for the spots in that second pack. And what does the camera do at the finish? They focus on the winner walking around doing nothing while we don’t even get to see if that second pack has an interesting race. That was pathetic. How could they not have a camera person who knows what to do? That winner wasn’t going anywhere, come back to her later, after watching the race.

This does not take great instinct. Anyone who’s gone to a high school meet after someone wins you don’t just sit there staring at them. No matter how much slower the next finishers are coming in, people get excited to see them racing it out.

I mean, it’s like they had someone doing camera work who’s most recent prior job was filming for the Hallmark Channel.

Finally, somebody’s got to coach these athletes a little bit about the finishing. I don’t want them making a fake show of emotion. But you know what, they’ve gotta be willing to have some fun and yes, show a little emotion or celebration at the end

At least Niki Hiltz was fired up to win the unexpected race. That was cool to see. I know, I don’t expect to see Cooper tear and Dylan Jacobs dancing around the track after placing top three. They don’t wanna make fools of themselves. But they could pump some fists , show some surprise, maybe give each other a high five.

I don’t blame the athletes, they are probably a little averse to being over top showmen. But again, GST could coach them that the show is part of this, don’t be afraid to be genuine and have fun.

@michaeljohnson… read this stuff!!

what you’re doing could be great. I love it and think you are a giant Effing track hero

Yesterday was lackluster. Improve it.

The reason that the meet was pretty much a disaster was that Michael Johnson surrounded himself with people that don't really know track & field. I have been meet director for national level and world-class meets and Johnson just didn't get it right from an actual management standpoint. Many of the things that have been listed here are correct but Johnson didn't seem to know that. And this is what is wrong with having a world-class athlete try to understand the basic concept of a meet. You can go to any big high school meet in Texas, Florida, California and the management of the meet is done so much better.

There is not much to dislike

It was day 1 of a 3 day weekend of a 12 day event of something never attempted. At least 3-4 of the events had exciting finishes. Growing pains? 100%. I'm not saying to glaze the damn thing, but it is not Pre, it is not nationals, it is not DL. Do they need to make progress by the next event in Miami....yes. And if they get some more challengers, like a Shelby, it will just draw more eyes and attention.

How do you eat a blue whale*? One bite at a time.

*Most elephants are endangered....so lets not eat them.

Empty field, empty stadium, just a lot of emptiness and dead air without the field events. T&F go together; the DL/Tours are clearly more entertaining products because there is constant sport action occurring.

The brilliance of the format clicked for me yesterday during the women's 3000m. Cranny, Morgan, and Lobun started to fall off the pack. In a normal DL, everyone who falls off usually just strings out as they all try to hang on to run as fast as possible. But with pointson the line, everything changes. There was a race within the race, as the commentators noted. It's part of what makes college track or XC exciting — the scoring.

Normally, any pro event exclusively rewards either times or medaling. Nobody cares that much about getting 4th vs 6th. But now we do, and in a race like the women's 3000, we got two races for the price of one.

But, then we also saw GST shoot themselves in the foot as once the leaders crossed the line, we saw none of the Cranny-Morgan-Lobun battle. This is such a common move in race broadcasts, because the average viewer doesn't care about 5th place and they just want to see the winner. But in GST, where there's only 8 athletes, we DO want to see every athlete finish!

Also, broadly, I agree with what MJ and Merber have said — gripe about format and production all we want, but at the end of the day it was great to watch the best in the world race each other in April.

But, Mr. Merber, please, I implore you to speak with the broadcast team to request that they always show every athlete finish. The fate of our sport lies in your hands.

Agree that it was very hard to watch it live. More enjoyable to watch the races the following day on Youtube.