By now everyone is aware of what’s been going on with Grand Slam. Ended early. Owes millions to athletes and others. I’ve hesitated to write about what’s happened, because I don’t want to appear negative. Unfortunately however, there are many negative things taking place in our sport that need to be addressed if we hope to fix them, and I was hoping that Grand Slam would be a fix, not a problem.
For what it’s worth, I hope that Grand Slam gets it’s issues fixed, because there were good things taking place. Chief among them, it was dragging prime time track and field out of the small confines of Eugene and putting it back in areas where professional sports go to thrive. Major league sports choose cities in medium to large media markets to showcase their events. Cities with sizeable populations; with at least 7500 hotel rooms and serveral five star hotels to accommodate athletes,. coaches, fans, family and others. Great hospitality experiences including restaurants and entertainment. Easy access with international airports and good local transportation options. Also convention centers to host various associated activities. This is why cities like Los Angeles, Miami, and Philadelphia were selected as host cities for Grand Slam. This is how you broaden your fan base, by making the stars of the sport more accessible to the public! Grand Slam did very well here.
The key word in that penultimate sentence was, stars. This is where Grand Slam missed the mark. They collected a very good group of athletes, however what they promised was to have, “the best”. In order to make that promise, they should have reached out to secure the athletes BEFORE making that statement/announcement, because in the end they were missing far too many top level athletes. No Noah Lyles, no Rai Benjamin, no Sha’Carri Richardson, no Grant Holloway. I can create a huge list of who was missing from the ranks of the best of the elite. That’s a problem when that’s your selling point. Don’t get me wrong, the competition was top rate. Some of the years best marks were set during Grand Slam meets, but the selling point was competition among the world’s best athletes, and they weren’t there!
Ironically the goal of Grand Slam was what I think the goal should be, focusing on head to head competition among the world’s elite. That should be the selling point of track and field. The sport is the ultimate in terms of individuals in competition directly against each other! To literally determine who is fastest, can jump the highest, or throw the farthest on a given day. Not just putting people together to chase records, which is how it’s been sold for a few decades now. When your goal is chasing records, your success rate is low. Often zero in any given competition. When your goal is finding out who is best today, your success rate is 100%! Where Grand Slam missed, was in finding out who was best among the best. An Olympic level goal, and the reason that the Olympics are as popular as they are, they are a competition of the best against the best. Proving that the concept does indeed sell. You just have to get THOSE athletes together. Grand Slam didn’t do that. They only got a few of them on board. Then proceeded to publicly proclaim that they didn’t need the rest! A mistake in my opinion. Don’t tell the public you’re going to give them “the best”, then say that “it’s ok that we don’t have them, because who we have is good enough”, which is essentially what was done. Over promised and under delivered. That’s a failure in business every time. The hype was too big for the delivery.
That said, the results on the track were spectacular. Demonstrating what athletes will do in pursuit of a good payday! A big carrot that’s within reach will spur competition. So while Grand Slam didn’t have all of the top tier athletes on board, the athletes they had were hungry! That however, while being a great motivator and selling point, “biggest prizes in the sport”, is what ended grand Slam – the lack of said money!
This is where I’m very confused. I’m confused, because we were told that Grand Slam was starting because it had secured the money to do so, supposedly thirty million dollars. The word, secured, being key for me. That means that you have the money. You have the money for the “racers” that you say are committed for every meet. That means that you have the money to pay everyone that competes in every meet. That means that you have the money to pay for the broadcasts, marketing, facilities, and operational costs of all four meets. That means, in my eyes and knowledge of business operations, that you’re ready to do this thing from start to finish – but you didn’t! You didn’t run the final meet, because you couldn’t. None of the athletes have been paid, even though every event winner each meet held up a golden check saying they were being paid! And now, after folding early, and still telling everyone how great Grand Slam was for the athletes, there’s a trail of people saying that they want their money!
What I don’t understand is that, if you’d secured investors, why either an account for Grand Slam wasn’t established with the funds placed into it, an escrow account if you will. Or a line of credit wasn’t established to basically accomplish the same. Backed of course by the same investors. I don’t understand how you do this not having the money, or legitimate guarantee of money taken care of. My thought was that any money made during the season would be going towards sustainability. To begin to off set next year’s costs. That would have been my plan anyway. Though I would’ve done the whole thing differently. Regardless, in any business, you don’t start if you can’t pay staff! They’re the first to get paid, because you have nothing without them.
At any rate, unlike many, I wanted Grand Slam to succeed. The sport needs more elite track and field here in the United States. We’re the world’s best team on the field, but Americans have almost zero access to the athletes and great competition. Something that Europe has tremendous access to with only a handful of stars as it’s residents. It would be the equivalent of having the world’s best basketball team at the Olympics and World Championships , but all of our players play for European professional teams! It sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what currently happens. Americans have to go run in Europe and Asia to get paid, and we only get to watch on TV. In truth, we need about a dozen such meets here, and we have the markets to support them. It’s just a matter of getting started, and Grand Slam seemed to be that start. Hopefully it gets fixed and what’s happened doesn’t discourage others from starting their own meets.
My final thought. Grand Slam completely ignored the field events. Another mistake, though my belief at this point is that it didn’t have enough money to include them – since it didn’t have enough money for what it attempted. This sport is about running, jumping, and throwing. Many of our biggest stars are field event competitors. That’s another selling point for viewership in my opinion, something for everyone. When you get the best in any event in track AND field together, the competition is exciting! THAT is the sell, THAT is what we should be striving for!
I hope that everyone gets paid, fences are mended, and the product gets cleaned up and presented again next year. Grand Slam could be a great thing. It just needs tweaking, and cash!