TRP... singlehandedly keeping track fans in the know for years now. So Yeah, the sport needs to be seen and available for ALL fans if they want it to grow.👍👍
@@MansaMusa_ll_of_Timbuktu GST means goods and services tax in quite a few countries. Always pays to do acronym searches haha, but yes, acronyms help a lot.
Wow. This is LIV version in TRACK! The reason so many pro-golf players ghosted to the Saudis is because everyone, from 1st to last place, gets PAID. Johnson has tapped into something. I like this because we know that even the last place finisher is one of the top 8 fastest people in the world (among we mortal humans). They deserve to be paid compensation for their efforts
@@goblack6770 ..the last place guy does not get five figures just to be in the race. Everyone gets paid....a cashier gets paid, so does Apple CEO....the question is HOW MUCH you get paid.
This is nothing like LIV - this is not Sports Washing and top golfers were already getting paid huge money. The only thing bad about this is it only will help the very top runners (I guess that is like LIV 😉)
@@toadlguy i am not saying that they will be PAID like the LIV....It just has a pay structure like the LIV. And I agree, only the top runners will probably be there.
@@THE_HMRC The last place athlete will have to race more in Europe…maybe twice per week and place higher in races in order to earn more prize money. But the bottom line is if he/she wants to earn a living from Track and Field they will have to become an elite performer. Track and Field athletes are paid based on their performance.
Agreed. Look at other sports like combat sports. They don't just have competitions, they have events. They have shows. You want to draw eyes and sponsor dollars to track? It could use some spectacle.
@@ThingsYouMightLike track makes plenty overseas already. This is a US centric problem. Chances are, this will flop and not last long unless international viewers up the revenue.
MJ putting that Business Administration degree from Baylor to use. Just goes to show you, no matter how talented you are as an athlete, being well educated can always help.
Anywhere in Europe is better for Han the US. It’s virtually impossible to see the meets here anymore unless it on the bighorn channel.in Europe or outside the U s make most of their income.
Now they need to go sign Femke Bol so Sidney McLaughlin has a proper rival to race against! Can you imagine how many people would watch that race? And they need as many of those kind of rivalries as they can get signed! Do that & it’s must watch TV!
If this takes off, i can most guarantee one shoe brand will have the rights and you're going to have to wear their kit(but you can wear your sponsor's shoe) like other professional sports leagues. But im glad to see Track athletes starting to get paid
@@certifiedchaos4643 if that shoe company (nike or adidas) cuts a huge check,it will not be secondary. A huge sponsorship from them can increase the athletes pay day or/and grow the league
Response from the DL & WA Continental Gold Tour will be interesting to track! Hope ATL gets that 2nd Slam in the US ahead of NYC & LDN is 99% likely to be one of the 2 International Cities!
London would be great; I saw the London Diamond League last year and it was CRAZY! (I live in Britain). Us Brits love ourselves some athletics (London Olympics 2012, World Championships 2017) not to mention London is one of the world's major cities so it's most likely to draw the most attention! My guesses would be LA (obviously), Eugene??, London and Paris (maybe could be Budapest after last year's World Championships and the future World Ultimate Championships in 2026!).
@@AthleticsEditz Brits are a very passionate sports crowd who will in a good way attend practically any sporting event :) Commonwealth Games Stadium in '22 being practically packed out every single day/session was very impressive! Plus the London DL is always a 50K+ sellout! They want 2 of the Slams in the US & with LA on the West Coast already confirmed as one location, I just feel somewhere on the East Coast like NYC or ATL (where ppl from around the country can easily get to as compared to Eugene) will be the 2nd US location.
@@AllInTheGame01 Yeah probably. I also happened to be at one of the days of the commonwealth games in 2022 as well! That was even more packed than the diamond league (although obviously a smaller stadium lol).
Track is a sport that is “dying” in popularity. This is an attempt to resuscitate it. I like that they are changing some of the old antiquated practices, but there are still some major shortcomings. I suggest rabbits and pace lights because folks want to see world records. Also there should be a HUGE bonus if a World Record is achieved. Without this these will be tactical slow races. Overall, Unfortunately, I don’t see this winning many new casual fans…great effort though.🙌🏾👍🏾
T&F athletes deserve to get paid. The reward they receive is really not reflective of all the hard work that they put in. This is excellent news. Michael has the first hand experience and connections to pull off something really special.
So we are supposed to believe MJ and his investors in a fledgling new track league are going to turn down a sponsorship from a major shoe/athletic company?? 😲😂🙄😬
If they have several millions to spare, why not but such event takes a lot of $ and manpower. I don't think the crew is up to that task just yet. Anything that involves the public and public streets is "dangerous" for the organizers because negligence will cause you not only millions to run but millions of lawsuits tha follows
I'm very skeptical about this. If the top athletes all do this then the Diamond League will either become obsolete or a second division event. Also if the athletes get injured they can't compete at all. There seems to be no attempt to provide any field events either.
Should this not also create more match-ups between the more elite? That is barring who signs up, but having more head to head with the Jamaican and US women.
I'll sign up as the 8th athlete to get the 10k. That's fine with me (as long as people are patient enough to watch me finish, and that there are no more than 8 athletes)
These athletes drop out with the slightest injuries. Is it just another Diamond League, where the top runners show up only if they feel like it? The whole sport is weird and unprofessional. People don't even show up for the world indoor championship.
100% will not go to the UK because it would mean all athletes would have to give up 50% of all prize money for UK tax. I'm guessing he has a broadcaster interested in streaming this else it seems to exclusive to be on any interests to 90% of all athletes. We really need something more inclusive.
this all sounds great and can only improve the sport imo, hopefully they will manage to get some dedicated coverage as track & field is still quite difficult to see live in a lot of places, even here in the UK, theres so much i would miss out on if it wasnt for TRP so many many thx for doing what u do and spreading the word
I'm glad things are happening to push track forward. I wish track would take a page from team sports and do something like the following: 4-6 full track teams are formed...probably associated with a city. So lets say they are teams called Oregon, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles, and New York. Each city hosts a meet and (like college and even in some ways with Olympic medal count), you keep a team score. Each meet wouldn't have to be a full meet, like maybe run either the 800 or the 1500 but not both. But I think it could help track fans learn and care more about the events outside their specific area and it could give an added incentive for the athletes...they are trying to get their TEAM to win.
They thought it wasn’t entertaining enough just like diamond league did🙄…also one event at a time over only 3 hours, it simply wouldn’t work in their opinion.
This sounds a lot like the PTO is trying to do with the T100 series in triathlon. I think 4 meets is more doable than the 6 in the T100. Would like to see Johnson add a “grand final”. Of course would love for them to come to Atlanta!!
I think no rabbits or wavelighting will make for boring and slow times for the distance races. Tactical races are way too common nowadays especailly if 100k is on the line
I couldn't disagree more. This is about racing and prize fighting. And you are only talking about distance events. It is about creating interest and excitement, duals and head to head strategies. No guts no glory. Building fan favorites and following them through a series, a season where you know you will see them more than once every 4 years. Pacers and pace lights are as artificial as the unrecognized Sub 2 hour marathon. Yes it proves how fast a human can run in a lab but racing is what we want to see. At least IMO. To me the records that are the purest are the championship records where there are no pacers or lights... like Sydney's.
It's very exciting and I am happy the athletes will be financially rewarded for years of training where until now they haven't been compared to other sports. My only concern is if it takes off i wouldn't want it to take anything away from Olympic achievements, by that I mean in tennis(and other sports)the Olympics is not considered as big of a deal as winning grand slams. The Olympics has always been the pinnacle of Track and field
Some quick thoughts: 1. who pays the air fares? 2. any penalty for not attending? 3. injury clauses? 4. drug testing? 5. record breaking bonuses? If they could get a streaming deal from this it could quickly become self-funding.
"Short Distance?" It doesn't help the sport to literally capriciously change how we refer to the events. It's always been called Middle Distance. "Short Distance" is a non sequitur.
no they need to do more to draw fans so they can do more. right now you can bet 95% of americans don't even know where or when the olimpic trials are taking place. mostly only the die hard fans know. they need to change that,
I see they've got "more than $30 million in financial commitments from investors and strategic partners" for the launch of the league. That's a good start, but I think it's a much bigger project than that.
Yeah. This is the entire question. The initial 30 mil is nice, but I’m sure those people are expecting that money back at some point. If no one watches, it doesn’t continue.
Another thing the league needs is to remove the 100m and replace it with the 40 yard dash so that it aligns with other sports better (football and soccer). Everyday people, casual fans and football folks know the 40 yard dash…so seeing elite Track and Field times will bring it more into perspective. Also the 1500 must become a mile. People know mile times not 1500m.
It's not always about being the best, although MJ did that. It's about what happens throughout your history before, during, and after your competitive career. Michael Johnson is a GOAT.
Beats me but the older I get, the more I enjoy/love track and less of the so-called mainstream sports as they get politicized and rather so much intrasquad bs drama! Looking forward to it all unfolding.
I love the elimination of pace lights and bibs. But overall this is the wrong emphasis for the sport. Elitism and money could help athletes but it won't grow the sport for the public. This new circuit is just another version of the Diamond League with different sponsors and money. What track needs is conference level dual meet schedules for D1 NCAA teams. We need scored team competition, that matters and leads to conference and national team competition, and not all this emphasis on individual qualifying elite level championship racing.
More capitalism crap from the USA ,would love to know how much Sydney got paid to sign up and would also imagine this will have a negative effect on other athletic events around the world.
It's good that it will be out of the the US as well, after the mudslinging between USADA and WADA over testing in the previous Olympics it's a good idea to get some of those athletes out of the country and tested by other countries just to build confidence in their status.
No pace makers won’t invite many guys that have to run fast to gain attention in their nation For Ethiopia the 6 fastest athlest over 5.000m are a 12:43 or quicker all-time athlete
sounds good, promising, all but the LA part. I stopped going to LA for events, too much traffic and arseholes. they should launch here in San Diego, where everybody likes to vacation, travel to Japan, and Barcelona, and finish in Orlando.
They need to shorten their name to an acronym GST. Put that everywhere. When was the last time you saw National Football League or Major League Baseball 😅 But I like the idea. It could become the “default” pro league that get kids saying “I want to be a GST Racer when I grow up” 👍🏾
This is a fantastic start. With time, we will have bigger prize money. I love this. It should help Track Teams across the globe develop talent knowing there is actually a chance of sustainability especially from these big pots of prize money. I can only hope that it doesn't become segregative like what the ATP became of Tennis. If there is a structure made for this sport in terms of having some kind of seeding athletes, it would be good for the sport. Since it is a Grand Slam, it is actually possible to have a heat, semi final and Final all in the space of just one week especially for distances up to 5K. I just can't stop thinking of how good this can be for the sport!
Wow this is long overdue! Track is so far behind, this will immediately be successful if they get the top sprinters to run, and if they make it at the very least accessible to view. One of the biggest problems with track is its broadcasting. iI'm suprided he didn't get Noah on board immediately like he did with sydney; maybe because noah got his 200m record? lol
0:40 Be more definitive than that! You said, "They signed one particular athlete that I think might have been the perfect athlete for this business"... That's limp wrist language for no reason. Just say, "They signed the perfect athlete for this business." ...Take a concrete stand to grab more interest from the viewers!
This league will definitely grow the sport but it will probably diminish the importance of the Olymppics and World championships due to the differences in money payouts ..eg tennis is one of the highest paying sports but an Olympic gold in tennis honestly isn't that big of a deal and thats where this league is gonna take T&F
This could radically change the sport. Hopefully makes it more mainstream. Whether successful or not a shake up was needed and I'm rooting for this to be wildly successful.
The key to make this successful and multi-year is the marketing behind it and the TV deals. Track and Field is everywhere but professional track and field is not marketed properly. This should be marketed at every track meet going forward - high school, collegiate, nationals globally etc. That's where you'll get ordinary fans interested in the professional level of track and field. With Twitter and other platforms, this shouldn't be too difficult. Just be creative.
I can't see many athletes turning down that kind of money compared with what they are used to, so they should have their choice of the best. This will be necessary for it to draw enough attention to make the business viable, which I am still unsure that it is. We obviously need to raise the profile of athletics and get more people interested, watching and competing and this seems like a great way (possibly the only way) to achieve that.
I like the idea but the keys to long-term success is going to be TV rights or some other form of sponsorship, unless Johnson just wants to give away a milli every year. At the very least tho it's making waves in a sport that desperately needs them.
