Olympians revamp the sport of track with new professional league

MIRAMAR, Fla. — The homestretch of a track is a familiar place for American sprint legend Michael Johnson. That’s where he broke nine world records. And at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, it was where he pulled away from the competition for two of his four Olympic golds.

Now, near Miami, he can reflect on his new mission: creating a first-of-its-kind professional league for Olympic track stars.

“I’m able to, every now and then, just step back and go, ‘Yeah, this looks really good. This is exactly what we wanted and how I envisioned it,’” Johnson said as he admired the venue for the U.S. debut of Grand Slam Track, the new league he founded last year. 

“In track as a sport, you have the fastest people in the world who don’t have an opportunity to prove it, but every four years,” he told NBC News. “So Grand Slam Track provides that opportunity for the best, the fastest people on the planet to compete and race against one another, and fans are the beneficiaries of that.”

Grand Slam Track is headlined by household names such as two-time reigning Olympic 400-meter hurdles gold medalist and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and three-time Paris Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas.

“I wasn’t in their position. I had the benefit of having had an Olympics in the U.S. and was able to establish a brand and have my moment in that Olympics,” Johnson explained.

Unlike other professional track and field competitions, Grand Slam Track is contracting athletes to compete in the league for a full season: eight races across four meets every year. The first took place in Kingston, Jamaica, last month. Two others are scheduled in Philadelphia and Los Angeles after this weekend’s competition.

“Now you have the opportunity in between those Games to establish yourself and prove that I am one of the best in the world, because I am part of a league of the best in the world,” Johnson said.

Following the pandemic and a condensed Olympic cycle, running is in a boom. The 2024 NYC Marathon broke the record for finishers: 55,646. The next two largest were also last year in Berlin and Paris. 

Grand Slam Track and the investors behind it are betting on that momentum. The league says it’s secured more than $30 million in financing from investors and strategic partners. More than $12 million of that funding is going toward athlete prize money, with $100,000 up for grabs for the winners of each event — that’s on top of guaranteed contract pay

The stars are following the money. 

The league’s inaugural season features more than 30 medalists from the Paris Games who are expected to compete at each meet. 

Thomas told NBC News that for athletes like her, the prize money represents “the first time you can go compete in the regular season and just make what we’re worth.”

While some track stars are guaranteed a paycheck and slot at each meet, other athletes are invited to specific meets.

Dylan Beard, a hurdler who qualified for the Olympic trials while working at Walmart last year, got the biggest payday of his career at the premier event in Jamaica by placing second in his event group.

“It means a lot to the athletes who don’t have the contracts and sponsorship that can bring in that kind of money throughout the years, which requires us to work a part-time job or part-time jobs,” Beard said. 

For Johnson, it’s about paying racers to race.

“No one has ever put Gabby Thomas or any other track athlete under contract to be a racer,” he said. “Like basketball players are put under contract to play basketball. Football players are put under contract to footballers.”

To keep audiences engaged, Johnson’s league prioritizes head-to-head competition, with athletes competing across six event groups, each group racing twice at each slam with the winner determined by their combined finishes. 

Not every Olympic event is represented. That didn’t keep away U.S. heptathlon champion Anna Hall, who stepped into the 400-meter hurdles at the latest slam.

“Honestly, I just had FOMO like, fear of missing out,” she told NBC News ahead of her races. “I know there’s no multi here, but I want to find something I can race and line up in, so I’m excited to be included.”

The sport’s rising star called it “an opportunity that track’s needed and earned for a long time.”

Key to Johnson’s approach is celebrating the athletes like the elite performers they are. Racers lined up for a red-carpet style “drip check” — named for Drip Water, one of the league’s sponsors — ahead of the first day of the meet.

Some of the stars then sat for panels with their competitors, throwing down the gauntlet before they set foot on the track, building storylines and raising the stakes.

“It’s so good for the sport. Just to have this type of attention,” Thomas said. “Coverage is something that we need, and we’re celebrating athletes and showing our personalities, and that’s huge.”

Still, not every star from Team USA is on board with the league yet. Gold medalists, including Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, are among the holdouts.

Johnson’s confident it’s only a matter of time before the holdouts sign up.

“This is what’s going to grow this sport,” he said. “And so, you know, we’ll be here and we’re not going anywhere.”