Noah Lyles of the U.S. stands a good chance at being invited to Duæl or Winners Alliance events
The organizers of two new track events offer a similar diagnosis of what ails the sport: Not enough exposure outside of the Olympic cycle; a disconnect between its widespread popularity at the scholastic level and its general fandom; and, perhaps most notably, prize money that lags behind other pro sports as well as what it could offer just a few years ago.
Both Michael Johnson and Barry Kahn believe their separate events will address those issues.
An announcement late last month from Johnson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, that he’d formed a partnership with Winners Alliance to create a series of events starting in 2025 generated buzz in the sport, though details of that plan are still being worked out. Meanwhile, Duæl [a mashup of the words “dual” and “duel”] Track founder Kahn plans to launch his single-race event after the Paris Olympics.
“In an ideal world, they’re complementary,” said Kahn. “Both of us look at the sport and see the same problems. The difference lies in the solution.”
With the Paris Games less than four months away, both Johnson and Kahn are hoping to take advantage of the heightened interest in the sport with their new made-for-TV events. Neither event has a television partner yet, and both are still seeking sponsorship commitments and specific locations.
Both plan to offer prize money at a level above any event in the sport currently. Kahn said Duæl is planning a $1 million pool for the inaugural event, split between the competing men and women with half the purse going to the two winners. Johnson declined to give specific prize amounts for future events but said for some female athletes, it could put them among the 10 highest paid athletes in the world.
By comparison, a win at the biennial world championships comes with a $70,000 prize. The Diamond League, the top annual track and field series run by World Athletics — the global federation that runs track and field and was formerly known as IAAF — offers $10,000 to winners at each event in the series and $30,000 for a victory at the year-end final. Both figures have declined in the past decade, according to agents in the sport.
Among the issues to get the new events out of the gate: a TV deal and sponsorship agreements.getty images
“The fans are not getting what they want and the athletes are not being compensated. They’re struggling,” said Johnson, who won gold in the 200 and 400 meters at the 1996 Atlanta Games. “They’re not being recognized for their greatness at a scale that other professional athletes are.
“Track has a problem, for sure, but it’s not a demand problem. The demand is there. The supply is the problem.”
Both seek to add to the supply. Duæl Track is the furthest along in doing that.
Kahn, a former distance runner at Cornell (and a member of SBJ’s Forty Under 40 Class of 2011), turned his attention back to the sport after he founded dynamic ticket pricing software firm Qcue and sold it to On Location in 2021. He launched the new venture with Ben Schragger, a former Rice baseball player and now a consultant at BS30 Sports.
Duæl Track will hold head-to-head matchups in the 100 meters and, ultimately, the mile as well. It will launch with Duæl 100 in September in Jamaica, though the exact date and location have not been finalized. The three-day event will feature 10 men and 10 women, racing head-to-head in heats of two until a winner stands atop the bracket.
Duæl Track is working to secure a broadcast partner and sponsors, critical steps as the event won’t be open to spectators. “We’re not trying to cater to a local crowd,” Kahn said. “We’re not trying to fill up a stadium. We’re building this for TV.”
While the races will run around 10 seconds each, Duæl Track is planning 10 hours of content across the three days.
“You’re going to get that element that right now doesn’t exist,” Kahn said. “It’s the Cinderella story in the NCAA Tournament. Or watching the favorite walk their way through methodically like they should.”
While it’s launching this year with 10 athletes, Duæl plans to expand to 40 athletes for the event in 2025. A similar event for the mile will launch in 2026 after the Winter Olympics, also starting with 10 men and 10 women before expanding.
Barry Kahn and Michael Johnson (below) are building separate events to ensure there is supply to meet the demand of track fans.getty images
The athletes will be chosen by invitation only, with the headliners in Paris as top contenders to score one; among those likely to be asked is U.S. star Noah Lyles. Kahn said the event also could pull from other distances as well; for instance, 110-meter hurdlers or 5,000-meter runners could find themselves in future Duæl races.
Kahn said the event will focus heavily on the backstories of the invited athletes, who could find themselves in the broadcast booth when they are not on the track.
“The hypothesis we have here is that the media ecosystem has changed in terms of live sports, and the product needs to evolve to match that,” he said. “When you take these marquee pieces and simplify it, you can create something that can get a broader appeal.”
That’s something Johnson and Winners Alliance are banking on as well.
They plan to launch a series of events in 2025 during the usual track season, which is April to September. While they’re still working out what the events look like, Johnson said they do plan to limit the number of events and athletes.
Johnson, who worked as a television commentator and agent after his running career ended, said the partnership brought more than just capital. Winners Alliance, the for-profit arm of the Professional Tennis Players Association, came in focused on helping athletes “recognize more value from their talent,” Johnson said.
Johnson didn’t disclose terms of the partnership. Winners Alliance President Eric Winston said it was seven figures and “not the low seven-figure type, either.”
“We’re not doing this to throw on an event or two and see what happens,” he added. “We’re in this for the long haul. It’s really a platform to allow the athletes to show the world what they have. For so long, they’ve been able to do it once every four years.”
While the Olympics have for decades been the sport’s top event, and the biennial world championships are popular, a dearth of other premier events is what Kahn and Johnson hope to target.
Unlike during Johnson’s career two decades ago, track and field faces a crowded marketplace where the competition for potential fans’ attention and time isn’t just from other major sports, but from technology and social media.
But track and field’s popularity during the Olympics — coupled with nearly 1.1 million participants at the high school level, ranking it first (girls) or second (boys) nationally — have Kahn and Johnson convinced of the unmet demand.
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USA Track & Field CEO Max Siegel agrees.
“There’s a lot of interest, but I find our industry to be so fragmented that I think what needs to happen for our athletes to have a sustainable presence is we need to develop a property that people know,” he said. “When you look at things that we compete against, there’s usually a defined season, there’s a consistent presence on TV, and you stretch and build the brands.”
Siegel and several agents welcomed the new events, eager for anything that can draw interest to track and field.
The prize money, in particular, will help.
Several agents who spoke to SBJ expressed interest in their athletes competing in either event and hope for what they could bring to the sport.
“The sport has the participants. It has the quality,” said Paul Doyle, an agent and the founder and operator of the American Track League. “It just doesn’t have the exposure. I don’t feel that anybody has really taken the sport and properly presented it yet.”
Part of the appeal is the push for content that can share athlete stories, with several agents comparing that approach to combat sports that have capitalized on compelling storylines. Track and field has them and can do the same.
“We just have to develop a sustainable model that can tap into that interest and make it sustainable,” said agent Hawi Keflezighi. “This is exciting to see that there are passionate people and visionaries that see enough value and have enough passion and resources to invest in these ventures. I think that’s only great for the sport and the industry as a whole.”
While the events hope to draft off the popularity of Paris, organizers specifically and the sport more broadly have the 2028 Games in Los Angeles as a key driver and motivator. In the interim, they hope to offer the sport something that can create sustained interest outside of those peaks once every four years.
