● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
It’s not hard to find out what track & field stars Noah Lyles and Rai Benjamin, who – at 27 – between them already own seven Olympic medals and 12 World Championships medals, are thinking. They tell you monthly on their Beyond The Records podcast.
Most recently, they sat with two-time Olympic relay gold medalist Vernon Norwood for a 1 February show that was released on 6 March. That’s actually too bad, since some of their comments were superseded by what happened in between. But they had a lot to say, much of it about the state of track & field and about the upcoming Grand Slam Track circuit.
Lyles and Benjamin both have serious reservations about Grand Slam Track, but both hope it succeeds. Said Lyles after nearly a half-hour of criticism:
“As my last, final comment on this. I would love to be proven wrong. 100%. All the way. … I would love nothing [more] than for this to be successful, because, if it does, the amount of benefits it would provide, this could be a way for athletes to not have to only rely on World Championships, because you could be potentially be making more money consistently throughout the year, this would be able to provide a home for sponsors in the U.S. to come to, it would be a consistent place for people to watch track & field. You can bank off of World Championships, you can bank off of the Olympics, hype, Sprint, all that stuff.”
Benjamin injected, “That would disrupt the whole sport … So World Championships would be, like, legit pointless.” And Lyles seized on that: “It would disrupt the sport. … We wouldn’t be amateur any more.” Said Norwood: “I think that’s the initial goal.”
During an ensuing discussion of what makes a “professional” track & field athlete, and it was agreed that Grand Slam Track is clearly open only to professionals, Lyles added:
“I don’t think we should be involved with USATF. I think USATF should handle everything amateur, and a new league should be created to handle everything professionally.”
Benjamin asked, then what about the Olympic Games, as USA Track & Field operates the only pathway to the Games, the Olympic Trials? Lyles shot back:
“Don’t get involved with the Olympics. The Olympic is amateur.”
Benjamin picked up on that but went in a different direction: “I swear, bro, they make so much money every fricking Olympics, I feel like every single Olympic champion should be going home with at least 5 Ms [$5 million], minimum.”
To that point, much earlier in the conversation, Norwood introduced the subject of Grand Slam Track, and while important, emphasized the central role of the World Athletics Championships, and the only way to get there, the U.S. national championships:
“We got to keep the main thing, the main thing, and that’s [U.S.] trials. And so everything is going to be a building step towards that.”
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Because the show was recorded on 1 February, Norwood – not selected as a contracted “Racer” for all four Slams – had not yet been signed as a “Challenger” for the first meet in Jamaica in April, and the television agreements with The CW and Peacock in the U.S., and EuroSport and Warner Bros. Discovery in Europe and Asia, had not yet been announced.
Lyles and Benjamin are not, at this point, participating in Grand Slam Track, but could be “Challengers” in one or more of the remaining Slams.
Norwood gave his view on the Grand Slam Track project:
“I want to see everyone having a good time. I want to see more fans engaging with the sport. I want to see that type of development where people are actually having a good time with that type of event, where more athletes want to get involved in it. And more fans want to be more engaged into the sport. That’s the biggest thing I want to see from it.
“It’s a big chunk of change you can make from competing [$10,000 to $100,000 per event group per meet], but we still have to enjoy ourselves in doing it, so if we can get more fans involved and athletes involved doing it and bigger stars like you guys more involved in it too, that will help it as well. But all that’s business side, so they have to get their business straight before we get more heavy hitters into that.
“Because they’re a lot of heavy hitters they missed. They missed you two, they missed Grant [Holloway], they missed Sha’Carri [Richardson], they missed a lot of big names that they didn’t get, but I’m probably pretty sure it came down to management, business side, about contract agreements. …
“So, hopefully, however it goes it goes in the right direction. I always want things to go in the right direction for our sport, always, so we’ll see how it play out though. But at the same time, it’s one of those things we’ve got to see.”
Norwood praised the Athlos NYC held last September: “They did a good job with that. So hopefully, he can continue building off that and maybe doing something like men and women.”
Benjamin, one of the most thoughtful and insight athletes on the circuit, explained why he is not involved:
● “I feel like me and Noah are on the same page with this, is the scheduling. I didn’t really like the scheduling and the back-to-back competitions [two races per athlete per meet] that early in the year. I think for us, it was like, hey, I asked, like, is it possible they can change the schedule, and there was just really, like, no budge. …
“If they consider changing the structure, then it makes sense, because if you want me to come out and run 44-low [400 m] and then come back the next day and run 46, 47 [400 m hurdles], like, ‘bro, what am I going to do for the rest of the week?’
“You never know what might happen. I might run 44 today and be sore tomorrow, and I got to go hurdle? And now I’m at risk to get hurt in April. I don’t get paid [today] to run Grand Slam, like you know what I mean? I get paid to win medals at major championships.”
● “Let’s just take the money out of it. Everybody’s main goal is to win a medal. No one’s going to remember, ‘oh, he won Grand Slam in 2025. But you know what everyone remember? You winning a gold medal, or medaling at World Championships in 2025. People remember that stuff.
“And I’ll even go so far as to say no one will probably remember that. People will remember you winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games. But for me personally, it was the scheduling, one, I don’t anything about a TV deal, that’s two [since announced], because you want to push stories and get, like, the audience involved. Like where’s the audience, where’re they going to watch this stuff at. Three, I was also, I wouldn’t say skeptical, because that’s a bit negative, but how is this going to make money? And one of the big, kind of red flags to me was having that [second] meet in Miramar [Florida].
“Because it’s a very small place. And unless you’re selling those tickets for $1,500 a head, which no one in track & field will buy, you’re not making any money from that.”
● “You think about all that type of stuff and like, we have a product that works, the Diamond League works. People complain about it all they want, but it actually works, it’s a structure that works.
“I understand it [Grand Slam Track] drives competition and it made prize money went up – shout-out to all involved parties – but if we invested that money in the Diamond League and you guys came together, I mean I get it, it’s a business, people have egos, whatever, if you put it aside and you think, this is for the advancement of the sport, we invest that money into the Diamond League and make it more glamorous, then we have something like, that already has a structure, we have the structure, we have the infrastructure, we have more appearance fees, we have people who will actually come to the track meets, because here in America, it’s very, track & field is not as big. Yet you want to tap that American market, but we have a [European] market that works right now.”
Lyles was dubious about any combination of Grand Slam Track and the Diamond League, but saw other issues:
● “The reason I don’t believe that that can work is, the Diamond League meets are actually individual entities. The Grand Slam is under one umbrella, it’s all owned by Grand Slam. It’s a business model … which is why I do like having a league that is all under one umbrella.
● “The biggest issues is, yes, the scheduling is very odd, in my opinion, especially from a marketing standpoint. If I go on [The Tonight Show starring] Jimmy Fallon, and I say, I’m the 100-200 Grand Slam champion, the crowd is going to be like, ‘oh, nice, nice.’ And then Grant comes on the next day, and it’s like, ‘I’m the 100-110 hurdles Grand Slam champion,’ wait, ‘Noah just said he was the 100 meter Grand Slam champion, and you’re also the 100 meter Grand Slam champion? How does that work?’
“It’s like, from a marketing standpoint, how are you going to market things that two people own? There has to be a winner. And, obviously, the times are going to be completely different, so, again, we’re doing track & field extra steps. We don’t need to reinvent track & field in my opinion, we just need to market it better.”
● “And then that goes to the second thing, like Rai said, it needs a home. Track & field needs a home. It needs to be watched. Everybody’s coming off the Olympics, everybody’s coming off [Netflix’s] ‘Sprint.’
“The amount of people who stop me in the street, ‘Oh, Sprint was amazing, where can I watch your next meet?’ ‘Oh, I’m racing next week.’ ‘Where?’
“It [no TV deal at the time] definitely hurts my involvement. … It hurts everybody’s involvement. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s around to see it, did that tree fall?”
Benjamin was also worried about joining a project which does not have an obvious path beyond its first year:
“I look at it as a business. At the end of the day, if there’s no ROI [return on investment], then you have a failed business model. And it’s like, how long could you be sustainable?
“They’re not going to make any money this year, they’re not going to make any money next year.”
Lyles followed up on that, asking about what he sees as missing indicia of future success he wants to see:
“Money is not the thing that’s going to drive me every time. Truthfully, even now, looking at it, OK, we’re two months out, and I’m looking, who are your outside sponsors, who are your non-track & field sponsors. I haven’t even heard a blocks sponsor. I want to hear, is there a watch deal? I want to hear, you know, if there a betting company which is getting involved. Where are these other things that being in the U.S. provides you with?
“Because I believe that America is the best marketing factory. So I want to see those companies getting involved, and I haven’t heard anything, like I said, I haven’t seen a commercial, I haven’t seen promos and the promos I have seen are just athletes pointing at the camera, which is nice when they’re going to come onto the track, but I’ve seen enough of those. I’ve seen the last five, where’s the one that gives me the storylines, what’s going to be the driving factor to get people to show up for three days straight?”
Added Benjamin, “Who is going to skip three days of work to go to a track meet?”
And Lyles, always looking to the future, suggested:
“You know what I actually think they should do? I think they should allow one more year. I think they should build one stadium in the U.S., in one central city.
“I’m tell you, you think it’s expensive, until you realize – and you’re talking about all these sponsors he has coming in to sponsor this event – you get in touch with Mondo, you get in touch with a city organization and you create this stadium that’s going to be used year-round and it’s going to host four Grand Slams each year. One place.”
Benjamin was unconvinced: “That’s too expensive, bro.” And Norwood shot back, “But we got a stadium, though. Eugene, Oregon,” which drew a laugh from Lyles, who has been critical of centering the sport in a minor U.S. market.
Benjamin, though, added a sad perspective about any new venue:
“Just for track & field, bro? We’re really a non-revenue sport, bro. Which is unfortunate.”
That’s what Grand Slam Track is trying to change. Although not part of the program so far, it’s clear both Lyles and Benjamin will be watching, and probably calling Norwood to find out how his experience was in Jamaica. The first Slam is 4-6 April, in Kingston.
~ Rich Perelman
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