When the sun set on the 2024 Olympics last August, Team USA left Paris with 34 medals in track and field, including 14 golds, and a renewed sense of dominance over the rest of the world. Stars like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Noah Lyles and Gabby Thomas were crowned and celebrated, minted as representatives of the next great generation for a nation with a rich history in the sport.

But when the closing ceremonies came to a close and the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower went dark, back into relative obscurity they went. Devout followings aside, there was little clarity as to when the next time all of track’s most famous figures would compete together and against one another, apart from the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

That is until four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson thinks he might have found the answer. 

Keeping track at the forefront of a crowded sports calendar is the goal of Grand Slam Track, a league founded by Johnson that’s set to begin its inaugural season this weekend in Kingston, Jamaica. The event will be the first of four this year with meets also scheduled in Miami (May 3–5), Philadelphia (May 30–June 1) and Los Angeles (June 27–29).  

Grand Slam Track will feature the sport’s top stars: McLaughlin-Levrone, Thomas, Masai Russell and Cole Hocker, among others, headline the group of “Racers,” the athletes given a base compensation and guaranteed a spot at all four events in 2025. The Racers make up half of the six different race groups—short sprints, short hurdles, short distance, long sprints, long hurdles and long distance—with the remaining four slots in each group going to “Challengers,” competitors who are paid per appearance at a single event and given a chance to earn their spot as a Racer in the next season.

Each race group runs two events at each meet (i.e. the long sprints group will run the 200-meter and the 400-meter across each event’s three days), allowing for up to eight head-to-head competitions between the best of the best across the Grand Slam season. 

“The structure of the sport, traditionally, has been that the best of the best, the true professionals are sort of lumped in with the elites and the developing athletes. And so they don’t have a home of their own,” says Johnson, who will serve as the league’s commissioner. “If you say, I’m a basketball player, [someone] will go ‘Where do you play?’ Oh, I play in the NBA. You know that person’s one of the best. [Grand Slam] just provides this sort of brand that immediately makes you recognizable as one of the best as opposed to having to go and try to explain to people.”

Building around the sport’s most elite was always the plan for Johnson, who credits the dynamism of the current crop of track athletes as the reason behind the 2025 launch. The league recruited the breakout stars—and the most compelling personalities—of the Paris Games shortly after the closing ceremony, creating a star-studded competitor list.

Cole Hocker (USA) celebrates after winning the men’s 1500m final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games
Hocker was a surprise winner of the men’s 1500m final during the Paris Games. | John David Mercer-Imagn Images

“I want to be a part of something where I have the opportunity to become the best in the world,” says distance runner Grant Fisher, who won two bronze medals in Paris. “I’m really close to that, but to really prove to myself and prove to everybody else that I’m the best in the world, I need to beat the best people in the world consistently. And the league creates a great structure for that.”

Fisher wasn’t the only athlete sold on Grand Slam’s emphasis on pre-existing or burgeoning rivalries, but one of the other primary draws for the Olympians was the league’s eye-popping prize pool. Backed by a $30 million investment, led by funding from Winners Alliance, Grand Slam offers a total of $12.6 million across the four-event season. The winner of each race group could earn as much as $100,000 at a single Slam and each finisher is guaranteed a payday of at least $10,000 per meet. 

And the care given to the competitors expands well beyond the prize money. Athletes cited flights in business class, guaranteed tickets for friends and family and the ability to bring their own videographers and training staff as some of the perks that gave the league an added air of professionalism.

“We’re flying first class. The prize money is aligned with our talents and [Michael Johnson’s] just really, really making it a point to do what’s right for us,” says Russell, the defending Olympic champion in 100-meter hurdles. “I think when you see these numbers and see this event, see how we get treated, it’s gonna change the game for us as track athletes for sure.”

“The way Grand Slam’s approached the signed athletes is that they want to be a support system,” adds Hocker, the 1,500-meter Paris gold medalist. “I think that’s pretty hard to come by in track and field… Yes, they want to showcase us, but they also want to help us showcase ourselves.”

It comes as little surprise that the desires of the Grand Slam runners are being met with Johnson at the helm. During his own run of dominance, which led to four gold medals across three Olympic Games and eight world titles in the 1990s, the now-57-year-old recalls exactly what he would’ve wanted in an event back when he was competing. He also remains a rabid fan of track, engaging with fans online and serving as a television commentator since his retirement.

Still, he took the time to listen and have conversations with the sport’s top athletes in the current day to ensure the needs and wants of the racers were met.

“I owe everything I have to this sport. It’s given me so much, as an athlete having the opportunity to make a great living, to do something I love, to travel the world, to compete and represent my country,” Johnson said. “... I’ve seen generations of athletes since I retired, other athletes who have done great things and we know who they are in the track world but nobody outside really knows because they only got a chance to do it once every four years. 

“We’ve been talking about [a league like Grand Slam] for a long time and I knew that I sat in the position to actually do it if it’s even gonna be done. And so I have to.”

The narrative around track—and the vast majority of Olympics sports, for that matter—is that it’s not possible to stay in the public’s eye during the four years in between Summer Games. Athlos, another startup event backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, burst onto the scene last September following the Paris Games, offering a one-night, women’s only showcase in New York City that similarly featured hefty prize packages—and is scheduled to return in 2025. The Diamond League, which has long served as the main source of competition for track’s best outside of national and international competitions, responded to the creation of both leagues by overhauling its prize money structure, increasing the total pot to $9.24 million—the highest in series’ history.

Outside of traditional meets, 1-vs.-1 competitions have captivated the passionate fan bases of various athletes, providing a somewhat gimmicky spectacle to a sport. The latest example features a matchup between 100-meter Olympic champion Noah Lyles and Miami Dolphins speedster Tyreek Hill.

Grand Slam is the latest first-of-its-kind event, but Johnson doesn’t view the rest of the track ecosystem as competition. Instead, he suggests the league, which will stream all of its events live on Peacock, is a format that fills a void for the best of the best. That mentality has spread among racers like Russell, Hocker and Fisher, who have attributed significance to all four events, prioritizing them at the outset of a busy outdoor season that culminates in world championships in Tokyo in September.

However, it’s the prospect of making history, of seeing Grand Slam Track grow into something more that entices a number of competitors. 

“I probably won’t even feel like I actually did something huge until it’s like way down the road,” says 10,000-meter bronze medalist Yared Nuguse. “But hopefully that is the case and hopefully it is something that is able to transform our sport in a lot of ways.” 

Widespread transformation may ultimately be the goal for Johnson and Grand Slam organizers, but success will have to be measured in small increments during the league’s inaugural season. Each event provides an opportunity to iterate, to improve and ideally to engage both existing track fans and those curious about following the sport outside of the Olympics.

Johnson is keenly aware of the chatter Grand Slam Track has generated—but he hopes that’s just the beginning.

“There’s been a thing in track on social media for a very long time of people sort of talking about fantasy races. We’re bringing that whole fantasy to life,” Johnson says. “So we’re providing fans exactly what they want. That in itself is a win… But the most important thing we want to do is continue to grow from one race to the next.”


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Michael Johnson’s New Grand Slam Track League Promises Speed, Star Power and a Big Payday.

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