I’ve been following Track closely over the last year…
And it’s time to dig deeper as the space is heating up after great momentum from the Paris Summer Olympics.
- Athlos’ first women’s track event is tonight (9/26).
- Winner’s Alliance investing in Michael Johnson’s track league.
- Diamond League announced an increase in payouts for athletes.
Let’s Dive In 👇
*Notice I say “track,” as most of these formats will not focus on the “field” component of track and field.
Quick History of Track
Track has existed since the start of the Olympics, but it did not become popular until the 1860s.
- 1866 — England held the first championships for men amateurs
- 1873 — Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America held the first collegiate races
- 1888 — Amateur Athletic Union (which governed the sport for nearly a century) held its first championships
- 1896 — Modern Olympics began
- 1921 — First NCAA national championships were held for men
- 1928 — Women’s track and field became part of the Olympic Games
- 1968 — First sub-10-second 100m runs recorded
- 2024 — Gold medalists got paid for the first time at the Paris Olympics
As you dive into the space, it’s essential to understand the power players.
Structure
The space is about to get SUPER interesting!!! (yes, three exclamation points were needed).
World Athletics is the Global Governing Body for track and field. It helps sanction international competitions and manages the world anti-doping code.
The organization had ~$200 million in revenue spread over a four-year Olympic cycle.
Then you have the National Governing Bodies like USA Track & Field (USATF).
Some of USATF’s responsibilities include:
- Developing, selecting, and leading Team USATF at the Olympics, World Championships, and other international events.
- Certifying race courses, validating records, and educating coaches of all levels nationwide.
- Establishing grassroots programs to develop future stars.
- Enforcing the rules and regulations of our sport.
- Sanctioning more than 8,000 events each year.
Interestingly if you look at the USATF’s public financial statements — you’ll see they lost over $7 million in 2022.
- Next, you have Continental Competitions — such as the European Athletics Championships.
- Adjacent to that you have Independent Leagues — which is what we’ll touch on later.
- At the bottom are the high school and college levels, such as the NCAA Track and Field Championship.
Competitions and entity structure vary from country to country.
Formats
Track and field events have been prominent at the Summer Olympics since their inception in 1896.
Events such as the 100 meters receive some of the highest levels of media coverage of any Olympic sporting event.
The Paris 2024 Olympics had 48 different track and field events.
Track Events included:
- 100m (Men + Women)
- 200m (Men + Women)
- 400m (Men + Women)
- 800m (Men + Women)
- 1500m (Men + Women)
- 5000m (Men + Women)
- 10,000m (Men + Women)
- 100m Hurdles (Women)
- 110m Hurdles (Men)
- 400m Hurdles (Men + Women)
- 3000m Steeplechase (Men + Women)
- 4x100m Relay (Men + Women)
- 4x400m Relay (Men, Women, Mixed)
As Track developed, athletes’ amateur status was a major issue, as athletes could not accept training money or cash prizes.
And this was despite continuous improvement of the athletes…
2024 was the first year that Track gold medalists received cash for winning their races — and it will make more sense why in a minute.
Olympics Viewership Data
Running is one of the world’s largest participation sports (in the United States alone, almost 50 million people participated in running/jogging last year).
Track is the world’s most-watched Olympic sport.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris saw record-breaking viewership numbers across NBCUniversal platforms, including:
- Overall viewership: 30.6 million viewers across the 17-day event, which was an 82% increase from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
- Streaming: 23.5 billion minutes of Olympic content was streamed, which was a 40% increase from all previous Summer and Winter Olympics combined
State of Play
Track has been the centerpiece of the Summer Olympic Games since its revival in 1896.
However, international professional running, initiated in the 1970s, has had limited success to date.
For example, the U.S.-based International Track Association (ITA) organized a professional track circuit.
Some of the problems right now:
- Meets span full or multiple days.
- Too many different sporting events.
- Broadcasters struggle to build storylines.
- Too many meets and races of similar distances.
- Fans struggle to tune in due to overlapping events.
And it’s now coming full circle as sports media rights are a hot commodity, athletes become creators, and more capital is seeking to disrupt the traditional models.
The Emerging Leagues
I will start by briefly explaining all the new leagues, events, competitions, meets, IP projects, or whatever you want to call them…
And then I’ll return to the chart above which had all the major track organizations.
Diamond League
The Diamond League is run by the global governing body, the World Athletics.
The league conducts ~15 competitions/season and allows athletes to earn points and win a season-long title.
Following a recent decision by the Diamond League General Assembly, the prize money paid throughout the season will increase to $9,240,000 in 2025 (equal between male and female athletes).
The increase will also apply to all 32 Diamond Disciplines, benefitting athletes across the full diversity of Track & Field.
World Athletics Ultimate Championship
Debuting in 2026, the event will be held every two years with a $10 million total prize pool and gold medalists receiving $150,000.
Around 400 athletes from about 70 countries will compete. Each event will have 8–16 of the world’s top-ranked athletes.
Who is this put on by? The global governing body, The World Athletics.
Grand Slam Track
Founded by famous Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson, the league aims to assemble nearly 100 of the sport’s top performers four times a year to compete for $12.6 million in prize money over its first season.
The league has reportedly secured more than $30 million in financial commitments.
Athlete’s right group, Winners Alliance, is the lead investor and operating partner.
Athlos by 776 Capital
The event was founded by Alexis Ohanian (Serena Williams’ husband & founder of Reddit) to create the largest purse prizes in women’s track history.
Athlos will have four Olympic champions from Paris at its women’s-only meet that will pay out $60,000 to each event winner (100m, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 100 hurdles).
DJ D-Nice will be spinning sets between races and at the end of the meet, rapper Megan Thee Stallion will perform on stage.
Duael
Aiming to do head-to-head competitions with the biggest stars battling it out — like March Madness, but for Track.
The league was founded by Barry Kahn, who sold his last company to Endeavor.
It’s still in the early stages, with plans to launch in March 2025 with commitments from American track stars Noah Lyles and Gabby Thomas.
Enhanced Games
The Enhanced Games aims to provide an alternative to the Olympics, where performance-enhancing supplements are allowed.
It was founded by Dr. Aron De Souza and backed by Peter Thiel and Christian Angermayer.
They plan to focus on a few events, with the 100m Track race being the marquee one.
Full Track Landscape
Now that you understand everything — let me go behind the scenes a bit.
World Athletics is the global governing body — they sanction the Olympics and run both the Diamond League and soon the Ultimate Championship.
With increased options…money is “all of a sudden” available to pay Olympic winners and to host two separate competitions with payouts of roughly $20m pooled between them (Diamond & Ultimate Champ).
Their biggest potential macro competitor beyond even Track…is the Enhanced Games.
Performance enhancers are allowed, they have big names involved like Peter Thiel, and are reportedly raising hundreds of millions with big payouts available to winners.
And there’s some viability behind this…
In 2015, a whistleblower leaked World Athletics’ blood test records revealing that between 2001 and 2012, athletes with suspicious drug test results won 33% of the medals in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships—a total of 146 medals including 55 golds.
But imagine this…
The World Athletics caught none of them…with reported suspicious Russian payments flowing to key personnel.
Next, we have a handful of new emerging leagues being orchestrated.
All of them have big names and capital behind them — with the intention of paying athletes better (Alexis Ohanian, Michael Johnson, Winners Alliance, Barry Kahn, and star track participants).
And to cap it off…
There’s the likelihood the NCAA dissolves (or looks completely different) with a potential breakaway of the revenue-generating sports creating a big hole in the talent pipeline to the Olympics.
Wild times ahead!
Takeaways
The risk is this…*️⃣
- Will sustainable interest in Track carry over from the Olympics to yearly events?
- How many of these entities will survive more than a few years?
And the opportunity…📈
- It’s much bigger than just Track — there’s a hospitality and entertainment element that can be built around these races.
- Someone will win the “Track League” race, and it will be a large (and valuable) IP entity outside of the Olympics…if that doesn’t get transformed as well.
I have my assumptions on which entities will win based on dozens of convos and hours of research — but will keep that private (as I already give a lot away for free).
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