Huge matchups and greater bucks: Michael Johnson pledges Grand Slam Monitor will carry ‘fantasy to life’ | Athletics

Michael Johnson is without doubt one of the few true legends of observe and discipline. Now, although, he’s chasing the holy grail. Each 4 years, athletics is the largest sport on the Olympics. In between, for many informal followers, it tumbles off a cliff. However Johnson, a four-time gold medallist throughout the Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney Video games, believes he can change all that with a brand new big-money skilled observe league, Grand Slam Monitor, which launches on Friday in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Grand Slam Monitor is the equal of UFC and Components One,” he tells the Guardian. “The analysis tells us that individuals watched observe throughout the Olympics due to the stakes, the celebrities, and the tales. So that’s the recipe. And on the absolute coronary heart of it’s the head-to-head competitors between the most effective athletes. As a result of that’s what folks wish to see.”

There can be 4 “slams” from April to June, with lots of the largest names within the sport chasing $12.5m (£9.5m) in prize cash. However there may be additionally an intriguing twist: at each three-day meet athletes won’t solely compete of their primary speciality however towards the world’s greatest in a second occasion.

“We’ve obtained the rostrum from the Olympic 1500m all competing,” says Johnson. “Josh Kerr, Yared Nuguse, and Cole Hocker. And in Kingston we’ve additionally obtained the Olympic 800m gold medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi and the world 800m champion Marco Arop. They are going to be mixing it up towards one another in each the 800m and 1500m, with no pacemakers. And we’ve obtained 10 extra teams similar to that.”

“So the athletes don’t simply win one race and they’re grand slam observe champion, they’ve to win sufficient factors throughout two races: considered one of which is their dominant race, and considered one of which isn’t.”

The prizes are to not be sniffed at both: every winner this weekend will stroll away with $100,000 (£75,800), with second taking $50,000 and even final place choosing up $10,000.

It’s tempting to think about Grand Slam Monitor being round within the period of Seb Coe, Steve Cram and Steve Ovett – and the joy if they’d repeatedly raced one another. “For years, observe followers have been placing matchups collectively, saying this can be my fantasy race,” Johnson says. “We have now introduced the fantasy to life.”

Final 12 months, the 57-year-old was quoted as saying that he thought he might save observe, which – to place it mildly – divided opinion. However he insists there was extra context to that assertion than reported.

“Monitor doesn’t want saving,” he says. “Each 4 years on the Olympics, it’s nice. Each 4 years it’s the preferred sport on the planet. Then it drops off, however even in between, over 155 million folks yearly watch at the least two observe meets, and 325 million folks watch one. We all know there may be pleasure on the market. It’s simply been so fragmented. So the pitch is that when you watched the Olympics and loved it, you’ll completely get pleasure from this.”

Johnson rattles off extra of the 48 star names which have signed up for all 4 meets, together with the 400m hurdles world record-holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and the Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas. One other 48 athletes may also be parachuted in as “challengers” for a number of of the slams, together with Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, who’s racing over 200m and 400m this weekend.

All these names are nice, I inform Johnson, however don’t the athletes additionally need to do extra themselves to push rivalries and inform us what they actually assume? Maybe surprisingly, Johnson doesn’t totally agree.

“We on this sport have requested far an excessive amount of of the athletes,” he says. “We’ve requested them to principally do it alone. As a result of there hasn’t been an expert unique league for them, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. The media does it too. ‘You want to present extra character. You want to be extra like Bolt. You want to do that. You want to do this.’

“However by creating an expert league and a platform for them, the athletes simply have to indicate up, race, discuss from the center and be authentically themselves. They don’t need to attempt to manufacture some form of character, as a result of that persona is just not actual.”

There’s clearly a variety of goodwill in the direction of Johnson. However not everyone seems to be a believer. Sceptics level to the truth that the 2 largest stars of the Netflix sequence Dash, the Olympic 100m champion, Noah Lyles, and the ladies’s 100m world champion, Sha’Carri Richardson, haven’t signed up – which might have definitely helped appeal to extra eyeballs within the essential US market. There are additionally no discipline occasions. And filling stadiums in Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles throughout three successive days of competitors may also be a hefty problem.

Nevertheless it’s one which Johnson clearly relishes. “We’re doing what each athlete and fan, together with Sebastian Coe, the pinnacle of World Athletics, has stated the game wants,” he says. “We have to develop the game. We want athletes to earn more money. We want higher broadcast offers. We wish head-to-head competitors. So I’m not going to over-focus on the few people who have stated it’s not for me.”

So what does success within the first 12 months appear to be? “It’s about rising the model, rising our fanbase, rising our attendance at our reside occasions, and rising engagement,” says Johnson. “However we’ve already executed two of essentially the most tough elements of all this: getting 48 of the most effective on the planet signed as much as the league, and having broadcast distribution in 189 nations.”

That features the UK, the place each spherical of the Grand Slam Monitor can be proven reside on TNT Sports activities and Discovery+, with the Kingston occasion beginning at 11.30pm on Friday.

And Johnson additionally has a message to those that worry the $30m of funding in Grand Slam Monitor might run out earlier than he is ready to change the game he loves for the higher. “We’re on this for the lengthy haul,” he says. “Startups aren’t worthwhile in 12 months one. You realize if anyone involves you with a startup, saying: ‘Hey, we’re going to be worthwhile in 12 months one,’ run away as quick as you possibly can. However we are going to proceed to develop.”

In his guide, Slaying the Dragon, Johnson talks about studying to like stress. So how is he feeling on the eve of the large occasion? “There’s stress, however there’s pleasure proper alongside it,” he insists, smiling. “We’re able to lastly get this factor began.”