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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 17: Alexis Ohanian, husband of Serena Williams watches on from the stands during her second round match against Eugene Bouchard of Canada during day four of the 2019 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 17, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 17: Alexis Ohanian, husband of Serena Williams watches on from the stands during her second round match against Eugene Bouchard of Canada during day four of the 2019 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 17, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The 2024 track season wrapped up in style with Alexis Ohanian’s all-female Athlos NYC event, and let me tell you, it was nothing short of extraordinary! Athlos NYC completely flipped the script for women’s track and field—not only was it an exclusive meet for the ladies, but every athlete walked away with some serious cash in their pockets! Imagine this: first-place finishers raked in a jaw-dropping $60,000 each—yep, that’s double what the Diamond League offers for its grand finale! But wait, it gets even better!
The second and third-place finishers didn’t go home empty-handed either, snagging $25,000 and $10,000, respectively. Even those who landed in fourth through sixth place walked away with some impressive prizes of $8,000, $5,000, and $2,500. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter, the first-place winners also received a stunning Tiffany & Co. crown! A finish fit for track royalty!
The Alexis Ohanian brainchild meet kicked off at Icahn Stadium, and it was a star-studded affair! The event drew in a dazzling lineup of attendees, from Flavor Flav to soccer star Ashlyn Harris and Nathalie Emmanuel of Game of Thrones fame. Not to mention popular YouTuber Sean Evans was also in the mix, alongside track legends like Rodney Green and Justin Gatlin!
On their Ready Set Go podcast, Rodney, fresh off soaking in the Athlos NYC vibe, couldn’t help but rave about it. “Diamond League, take note—it was amazing, man! This is what we want to see!” He was thrilled to see so many male athletes showing up to support the ladies. “We had a lot of the men you know from our sport—men with names in our sport—show up. Fred Kerley, we had Wallace Spearmon. We had Erik Kynard, you know, showing up to support our women!”
For Rodney, it’s crucial for the guys to have the women’s backs. “What’s good for our women is good for us,” he said, advocating for a united front in track and field. He’s eager to see more big-name guys at future meets, adding, “If they ever have a meet like this ever again, I would want more of our headliners and our bigger names in the sport, even smaller names in the sport. Men, come and support our women.” Rodney dreams of a world where everyone backs each other, making the sport stronger for all!
Justin Gatlin was totally on board too, jumping in with, “Absolutely, man!” He highlighted how this was all about community support. “People was like well this is a track meet only for females. The focal point of this was for the females, but the desire was to make sure the community of track and field supported this meet. Yes, men and women come out to support this meet.”
Gatlin gets it: everyone knows the thrill of winning and the sting of losing, and it’s time for track and field to step up its game, especially when it comes to prize money. He gave a big shoutout to Alexis, saying, “Hat off to Alexis. He did an amazing job tonight. He had a vision he saw the vision through, and it was a dream come true, man.” While the track and field stars are absolutely raving about the meet, it wasn’t just the prize money that made Athlos NYC so special—there’s a whole lot more to this story!
Alexis Ohanian’s Athlos NYC is a game-changer for track and field!
The buzz around Athlos NYC kicked off in spring when Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder and Serena Williams’s husband, shared that his firm, Seven Seven Six, was supporting women’s track with the 776 Invitational. He told ESPN that he noticed a lack of media coverage outside the Olympics. “Every four years, during the Olympics, this is a really popular sport, and then all the coverage and everything seems to go away,” he said, highlighting how the sport fades into the background after the Games.
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Alexis Ohanian, co-founder and executive chairman of Reddit, speaks during the Annual Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Event in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. NFT.NYC brings together over 500 speakers from the crypto, blockchain, and NFT communities for a three-day event of discussions and workshops. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
And the prize money? Well they had the biggest purse ever for a women’s track event, as reported by ESPN. Alexis Ohanian stated, “Most important is this had to be the largest purse in the history of women’s track and field.” He was shocked to find out the previous highest was only $30,000 for a Diamond League final. Ohanian noted, “There is a healthy tension that exists, which is the prize money should be directly correlated to the sort of scale and scope of the event itself.”
But wait, there’s more! Athlos NYC introduced an awesome giveback program. According to their website, 10% of revenue from ticket sales, sponsorships, and broadcasting will be shared among all competitors. This way, every athlete gets a piece of the pie, making it a true celebration of the sport! Talk about an epic event!
