Track and field has a problem.
Its problem is, for one week every four years, it’s the biggest show in town.
Track and field ,as we witnessed once again at Paris 2024, is the lynchpin of the Olympic Games.
But, for the other 207 weeks of the Olympic cycle, these athletes become almost anonymous, outwith athletics circles anyway.
Track and field, to its credit, recognises this issue, and there’s several initiatives afoot to try to address the problem of the sport dropping off the radar almost the minute the Olympic Games end.
Money is being pumped in from several different directions in an attempt to consistently maintain athletics’ profile.
One of the all-time greats of the sport, Michael Johnson, has launched a lucrative new athletics league called Grand Slam Track. Beginning in 2025, the league will stage four races a year and offer a total annual prize pot of over $12 million, with $100,000 going to top finishers.
The sport’s governing body, World Athletics, announced the first Ultimate Championships, which will be hosted in Budapest in 2026 and will showcase the best of the best in the sport.
And the Diamond League, track and field’s premier annual series, plans to increase its gender-equal prize money next season, with the total prize money per discipline reaching up to $50,000 and at the final up to $100,000.
All are interesting initiatives.
But for me, the most intriguing launched this week.
On Thursday evening in New York, Athlos debuted.
It’s a female-only athletics event that was the brain-child of Alexis Ohanian, who is the tech entrepreneur and husband of 23-times grand slam tennis winner, Serena Williams.
The meet featured some of the world’s very best athletes such as triple Olympic sprint champion, Gabby Thomas, and the world’s best-ever female 1500m runner, Faith Kipyegon, and the prize pot is considerable, with each race winner pocketing $60,000.
There’s one notable difference to almost all other track and field meets; it’s exclusively female athletes.
Ohanian’s decision to make this a female-only meet is an interesting one.
Often, my instinct is that separating male and female athletes into different events, particularly in a sport such as track and field which, almost without exception, typically has men and women competing alongside each other, isn’t the best idea.
For me, the best way to sell a sport is to sell it holistically, rather than separately.
But sometimes, doing it differently, as Ohanian is with Athlos, is exactly what’s needed.
Athletics’ problem of attracting attention is multiplied ten-fold when it comes to female athletes.
The perfect example of this is that I’d put money on it that anyone reading this who isn’t immersed in the athletics bubble barely knows who the aforementioned Gabby Thomas is, despite the fact she has every quality needed to become a superstar.
Thomas departed Paris 2024 with three gold medals – in the 200m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay – making her the most successful track and field athlete at this summer’s Olympics, is Harvard educated and is an absolute delight in interviews.
Yet she’s almost entirely anonymous outwith the athletics bubble.
And it’s examples like this that led Ohanian to develop Athlos.
Clearly, being married to one of the world’s most successful ever sportswomen helps open one’s eyes to female sport.
But Ohanian is not in the business of investing in lost causes, rather, when asked why he’s launched Athlos, it’s because he sees a massive opportunity in it.
We’re all told that women’s sport isn’t as popular as men’s sport. At this moment in time, that’s true – women’s sport attracts less media attention and less investment than men’s sport currently does but is that because women’s sport inherently isn’t as interesting, or is it because women’s sport has never been given the platform it needs to grow?
Certainly Ohanian is convinced the reason is the latter, and I’m inclined to agree with him.
That he’s looking at women’s sport through the prism of his wife, Serena Williams, certainly helps – it’s likely much easier to imagine the potential success of women’s sport when you’re married to one of the most recognised, successful and popular female athletes of all time.
But Williams is, although an extreme case, a pertinent example in that if everything falls into place for female athletes and women’s sport, the individuals and the sport can absolutely compete with male athletes and men’s sport.
Ohanian has to be admired in that he’s putting his money where his mouth is, in more than just this athletics venture.
In 2020, the American became a founding investor in the Los Angeles NWSL team Angel City FC, which is already valued at $250 million.
In April of this year, Ohanian invested in the Oregon women’s sports bar The Sports Bra and during the Paris Olympics, he and rapper Flavor Flav helped American discus thrower Veronica Fraley cover her rent.
Athlos is Ohanian’s next move supporting women’s sport.
The meet featured only six events - the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1500m and 100m hurdles – but it wasn’t just an athletics meet, it was a show.
Grammy Award winning artist Megan Thee Stallion headlined during the evening, D-Nice DJ’d and each athlete got their own walk-on song.
Megan Thee Stallion headlined the musical entertainment at Athlos This angle is not just important, it’s vital.
As much as I believe in the value of women’s sport, I also don’t believe anything is deserving of attention just for the sake it; attention must be earned (although admittedly there’s plenty of men’s sport that gets undeserved attention).
Women’s sport and female athletes can’t just moan about the lack of spotlight they get – they do have to try to do something about it.
And this is where Ohanian deserves enormous credit – he’s not just putting on a run-of the mill athletics meet and hoping it does well, rather, he’s doing something that demands the spotlight, other than merely hoping for it.
The inaugural Athlos earlier this week was, unquestionably, a success so what will be interesting, then, will be to see how it develops, and if it’s able to make a lasting impact when it comes to increasing the spotlight on female athletes.
If it does move the dial, the impact will stretch far wider than just track and field – it definitively proves that if you give female athletes the platform and the investment, the appreciation will follow.
