● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
There were all kinds of good, bad and odd promotions going on along “Media Row” during the week-long build-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, and lots of talk about things other than the game.
One of those was on British-based talkSPORT.com, where Grand Slam Track founder and Commissioner Michael Johnson – a long-time track & field analyst for the BBC – was interviewed alongside hurdles star Devon Allen – a signed “Racer” – about the inaugural season that will start in April in Jamaica.
Asked about the absence of Paris 100 m Olympic champ Noah Lyles, Johnson was ready to promote his signed stars:
“We’ve already signed our 48 Racers. We have 48 Challengers that we now will assign for each individual Slam; they can come in if they want. So yeah, we’ll continue talking to Noah.
“To me, it’s always an insult to our 48 Olympic Champions, World Champions, fastest people in the world that we’ve signed to this league; they’re all accomplished in their own right.
“So, that’s enough, if we have nobody else but those athletes, this is the first time we’ve ever had the fastest together.”
Johnson ran through a list of the signed stars, such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Yared Nuguse and more and added:
“We don’t need anyone else. We will take all of the fastest people, but we don’t have to have them. Ultimately, we will get everyone, because this is year one, this is where you want to be if you’re a premier track and field athlete.
“We have the highest prize money ever paid in the sport, we have the most accessible [meets].
And he emphasized the availability of every session of his four meets on television:
“One of the things that Noah was rightly complaining about, is the fact that outside the Olympics, it’s hard for people to find this product, to find this sport, because it’s not on network television.
“Not only are we on free-to-air network television on The CW, we are simultaneously streaming on Peacock, right. So there is no track meet – there may not be any sport – is existence right now that is more accessible than Grand Slam Track.”
Johnson was also asked about Lyles and his continuing trash-talk with Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill, and the possibility of some not-so-serious races as part of the program:
“We’re going to incorporate the fun stuff into our events … we just talked to Tyreek a minute ago!
“I was talking to Kevin Hart on his show just before the Paris Olympics, when we were talking about Grand Slam Track, and he’s like, ‘All right, I see what you’re trying to do, you want me to race, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘yes, I do want you to race, and who would you like to race against, right?’ And he says, ‘OK, I’m there, right.’
“So, we will do those sorts of things, fun things as sort of our ‘halftime,’ so to speak, of celebrities and content creators and athletes from other sports, because – remember – this is the most important sport inside of every other sport.”
Johnson emphasized that Lyles vs. Hill is just one possibility to bring more entertainment into the Slams:
“Everybody wants to be fast in their sport. Everybody gets track; because it’s just racing.
“People think they’re fast. If you think you’re fast, we’re going to give you the opportunity to come out there and show it; we can create these races where it’s fun and it’s exciting, and it’s part of the show of the true professionals like Devon [Allen] and these guys.”
But the Atlanta 1996 double gold medalist also put his foot down on any real racing between Lyles and Hill:
“I’m not putting somebody coming out there like Tyreek against world class athletes. ‘Cause you’re not.
“Now, the Tyreek-Noah thing has become a thing, so we would create something for them that’s really cool. But if it’s a track event, that’s not a race. Noah is killing him.
“There’s track speed, then there’s football speed.”
~ Rich Perelman
Be the first to comment