Demise of Grand Slam Track: Why the fans can’t have nice things

Progress over perfection. They tried, tweaked as they went along, and were making improvements along the way. Hopefully they have funding for 2026.

Yeah shame on you guys! It's your fault GST failed.

I can't believe you entitled track fans had opinions about this new track league. How dare you!

There is no way GST had problems that the fans pointed out, and that those problems led to it not being sustainable. It is because the fans didn't send out positive enough vibes that the league struggled. When Michael Johnson spoke to the public as if they were idiots, and he was the savior of the sport, we should have just shut our mouths and not had opinions. When the league's media arm portrayed a version of reality that was starkly different than what we saw with our own eyes, we should have just gone with it.

But instead, you bad boys and girls made the league go away with your negative thoughts. Thanks OP chastising the entitled fans on this page. I think that will be the first step towards progress.

Yes, watching Diamond League has been truly horrible, when we just saw 13 people run sub 13 in Oslo, and then was followed up with Almgren solo running a European record in Stockholm.

Much more exciting to watch "only the fastest" jog a 14:39 5000

The thing is they weren’t close to perfection. Or even progress over the diamond league. They were just handing out piles of cash. Unless you are willing on to burn billions like LIV has been doing, it is hard to make a dent.

I was critical of GST but I am not happy to see it fail.

My issue was in knowing that these sorts of opportunities that the sport and it's athletes deserve - a massive influx of financial capital, are so rare and difficult to secure, that a failed venture (especially one that didn't even see out the entirety of it's first planned season) could make it very difficult to ever see this kind of money be directed into the sport again. Because you know how this works - from now on, Grand Slam Track will be used as the reference point as to why investing into the sport of track (and field) is only fine if you aren't expecting a return.

So why was it frustrating? Because even a bunch of "idiots" on these messageboards could point out the flaws in the purpose and concept as soon as it was clear what it actually was, and low and behold we made it 2/3 of the way through the first season (8 of 12 marketed days) and now we are closed up for the winter.

Btw, Diamond League has been great so far this year. Nobody expects much from the first few meets but we still had some good stuff - a nice full stadium in Rabat was good to see, and the last two meets in Oslo and Stockholm were in general excellent and well presenting for the sport.

DL is just a perfect format for viewing

2hrs of usually top class track and field

Aside from prize money it didn't offer anything DL doesn't already offer and I never thought the prize money was sustainable nor did I like watching athletes compete mediocrely in off events. It was inevitable that they would eventually deplete their coffers and the league would fold but it folded even quicker than I thought.

I watched every GST meet as it aired this year because of Peacock and haven't seen a single DL meet aside from clips on YouTube. Peacock is worth paying for, FloTrack is not. It's obviously not enough to fix all their problems, but this was a huge plus IMO. (Don't come at me with your VPNs - make it easy for normies.)

I was a huge supporter of GST until they dropped 25% of the events I came to watch and screwed Fisher/Ngetich out of the Athlete of the Year standing. I still hope it rebounds next year and succeeds because I am a Track Fan (TM), but I'm a lot less excited about it now.

$30m should have secured the completion of 4 meets. The least you can do is half the prize money for the LA games, to make sure it still happened. MJ mis-managed this. I enjoyed GST. I was sad it ended. 2026 will be hard sell for me to be emotionally invested in it again.

LIV actually purchased their TV airtime the first 2 seasons! Their investors have limitless pockets and a 50 year time horizon.

Still LIV isn't doing very well, because golf is all about tradition, and LIV has very little of that.

Of course now there still may be a settlement merging LIV and PGA, we'll see.

I'm not American so I can watch DL for free on YouTube without a VPN and I watched GST on CBC for free using a VPN. DL is far easier to watch here than GST.

Michael Johnson focused on the handful of elite runners who aren't Diamond League regulars, and somehow believed that showcasing them would overcome all the flaws in his product.

Bigger obstacle is that the United States in general doesn't view track and field as must-attend or must-watch. Johnson failed to attach it to anything. Heck, he could have spoofed his own match race failure by presenting intriguing match races at each stop. That would have held greater anticipation and publicity than some of the meaningless doubles.

I thought the races themselves were more interesting than I expected. The presentation wasn't 10% as clever or groundbreaking as I anticipated.

compare LIV to pretty much rival league (the usfl, xfls,…) in the past 40 years and they are an unmatched success🤣I am still suspect of them becoming a commercial sucess unless that pga merger bails them out.

To some extent a lot of sporting events thrive on tradition that is hard to manufacture. People watch horse racing 3 days/year. Running has something’s like the Boston Marathon. But track is a lot more limited. Maybe Milrose in it’s prime.

But to some extent you need to generate interest outside the events. Triple crown dies best when a horse wins the first 2. For track maybe you need to qualify for the final (top 2 in first 3) and then race for 100k. But it is hard. You need a bit of a gimmick but you can’t get to far away from the core of the sport.

If you want the league to last, the runners need to put on a show for us. Hobby jogging isn't going to cut it. I feel sorry for Ngetich but Fisher has to take a lot of the blame for this.

LA Slam, LAGP, NY Slam, Millrose MSG, NYGP failed even though they were under charity meet rules not subject to Hollywood regulators and NYC Red Tape. Fans just don't go for track meets in the US. No matter how hard you try. Even Snoop Dogg couldn;t rescue the Nike 2024 Olympic Trials train wreck.

Which makes it funny when some posters call for the Chinese DLs to be cancelled when they can actually sell tickets.

Every word of this. GST wasn't unlucky. The organisers stepped on almost every rake laid out in front of them. Someone needs to talk MJ down from his fetish for doubling. Just because he was a specialist at doubling doesn't mean it's the height of achievement in the sport.

And yes, it hasn't helped GST that this year's DLs have got off to an amazing start. The direct comparison is stark.

I've seen this movie play out in several sports already. Although sometimes the product is fun to watch, I don't buy the "progressing the sport" narrative when an aggressive approach (deliberately conflicting calendars, exclusivity contracts) to existing circuits is combined with elite-only field and no desire to detect and develop unknown athletes.