It’s off-season for the track and field. But this year, the sport is witnessing a departure from the silence that is otherwise prevalent during this period. The USA’s 4x Olympic sprinting champion, Michael Johnson, can claim his fair share of credit for keeping the buzz alive. His upcoming track and field league ‘Grand Slam Track’ is simmering with new developments.

On November 11, Johnson had announced that Kingston, Jamaica, will host the inaugural Grand Slam Track meet in April 2025 out of the four meets the league has planned for next year. Amid the excitement of Jamaica’s track and field legacy getting such huge recognition, one piece of upsetting news has struck the league.

UK’s Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium and the London Stadium were rumored to be among the candidates to host one of the four meets of the league. But UK Athletics has reportedly rejected the chance to be involved in the $30 million extravaganza. The organization has cited financial risk as the reason for the rejection.

“We’re positive about Michael Johnson’s format. But three days of just track athletics is a lot of tickets to sell in the London Stadium and the cost base comes pretty high there. They did approach us and we had a really good discussion with them. We would like to have a bigger, more comprehensive events portfolio, but we want that built on strong foundations that are sustainable,” The UKA’s chief executive, Jack Buckner said, as reported by the Guardian.

“We are also conducting a feasibility study into a bid for the World Athletics Championships. We understand that the next one available is 2029 and then potentially 2031,” Buckner further added. But where does the loss stem from?

According to reports, In 2022, UKA lost £800,000 ($1,012,708)  in one day when it hosted the Diamond League in Birmingham in 2022 and another £500,000 ($632,942) by staging the World Indoor tour in February 2023.

The Times only provided credence to that claim, reporting that UKA only had £430,000 ($544,330) in the back at the end of 2023. So it’s no wonder that despite securing $30 million in sponsors and having a $12.6 million total prize pool, UKA doesn’t want to risk another financial disaster.

“We don’t want to – gamble is too strong a word – but if you don’t get an event right and you don’t budget for it properly, it can lose a lot of money quickly, which is what happened historically,” Buckner said, referring to the losses incurred earlier. Meanwhile, on November 13, the UKA announced a loss of £1.2m for the financial year up to the end of March 2024. However, the good news is that it’s down from the £3.7m reported last year, with the governing body projecting a loss of £250,000 for next year and a break-even position in 2025-2026.

“We never like negative results but we’re pleased that our plan is on track. In fact, we’re slightly ahead of our plan and that’s our intention to keep step by step improving the position of the sport,” Buckner said. Interestingly, despite incurring losses from the Diamond League in the past, Buckner believed that the Diamond League can be “like Silverstone” and a “profit-driver for us”. For the GST, the UKA just wants to see how it goes. Despite the British setback, all four venues for the GST are already set.

After Miami, Kingston, and Los Angeles, Philadelphia has been announced as the final venue of the league. “Philly has a reputation for bringing intensity to every event, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for with Grand Slam Track. There’s a unique energy in this city, and we’re excited to see how the athletes respond to that. Philadelphia’s sports culture is something else, and it’s going to elevate the competition,” 57-year-old Johnson said about the inclusion.

The Philadelphia Slam will be held at Franklin Field, at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia on May 30, 31, and June 1, where the world’s fastest racers will compete. Tickets will go on sale on Friday, December 6. With all that, the league is bringing in several unique aspects that are remarkably different from the traditional track and field competitions,

Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track aims to bring fresh air

Michael Johnson is baking on a huge turnout when his racing league travels to the nation that gave the world Usain Bolt. “Jamaica has such a strong history in this sport. The talent and the love for the sport here make it a perfect fit for what we’re building,” Johnson said about the nation where his revolutionary league will kick off.

The 57-year-old is also generating buzz through constant social media marketing. However, his ultimate trump card for GST is the massive prize pool. With a prize for each event ranging from $100,000 for the winner to $10,000 for the eighth-place finisher, Johnson hopes to attract a star-studded line of track icons for his league. And with an innovative approach, it aims to ensure that fans get to see their favorite athletes compete more often.

GST will contract 48 GST Racers who will receive annual base compensation on top of their prize money earnings to compete in all four Slams. Among those who have already signed up are 400m hurdles Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, reigning 1,500m world champion Josh Kerr and US sprinter Fred Kerley.

The other 48 athletes will be known as GST Challengers, who will be paid a set appearance fee to compete at individual Slams. They will be chosen based on their performances and the most intriguing matchups. Johnson’s aim is to elevate the league to the likes of Grand Slams in tennis and Majors in golf. So it has borrowed heavily from the format of the other sports.

For instance, Johnson is the commissioner of the league. The concept is not much heard in track and field. But fairly common in other professional leagues. Alongside, he also note that most lucrative competitions are run by independent entities rather than federations.

“You take something like Formula One, the FIA does not run Formula One. It’s Liberty Media that’s doing that, and they’re a for-profit, private organisation. Think about the NFL or the English Premier League, it’s not the football federation that’s doing that, it’s not the English FA that’s running the Premier League,” Johnson had said, speaking to SportsPro in late July.

“So the same situation, I think, was always going to be needed for track and field: to have a commercially-minded organization that could actually come in, take this sport and commercialize it in a way that it needs. For Olympic sports, we typically look for the federations to do everything, and I think that it’s time for us to look elsewhere,” he further added. Looking at all these, it seems that the UK episode was just a small bump in the road that the league is ready to leave behind.