Airing on the CW in real time and on NBC’s Peacock for streaming, the launch of Grand Slam Track in Kingston, Jamaica wasn’t without its issues, but for fans of track and field it was a welcomed presentation for a sport that isn’t typically given airtime outside of an Olympic year.
Without sprint names like Noah Lyles, ShaCarri Richardson or Kishane Thompson, the event was supported by Olympians Grant Fisher, Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone; but it wasn’t carried by those athletes. The scoring structure and the race for victory filled the void of strong headwinds disrupting potential track setting records.
With $100,000 for the victor in each discipline on the line, the competition heated up in a major way. At one point in the Men’s 5000m race, although first and second was easily decided, the race for third was more entertaining than the overall race itself. It was a unique situation because of how the point system worked.
By the end of the event, it didn’t matter that the boisterous Noah Lyles or flashy Richardson weren’t there, but I can guarantee they wish they were and here is one reason why.
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The Miramar Invitational 2025 was this weekend. The event featured the return of Shericka Jackson vs the Paris Olympics superstar Julien Alfred. The livestream garnered 19,000 views. That’s not a bad number, but the recognition and coverage of Grand Slam easily outpaced this number and gave each athlete fun, quirky interludes to introduce them to a viewer who may not have known anything about the athletes. GST improves athlete branding.
What does a sport need to increase revenue? Athlete recognition. Casual viewers were given a Gabby Thomas foodie ranking of Jamaican snacks. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden took the cameras on a tour around the hotel where the athletes stayed. Daniel Roberts and Freddie Crittendon had what was basically a short podcast where we could learn a bit about each of the hurdlers.
Could the commentating and inserted moments between races have been utilized for field events (yep and that’s just me finding a complaint), but learning more about the athletes was smart.
In contrast, the Miramar Invitational 2025 was streamed on FloTrack and that’s it. It felt small, even as one of the most important races of the year took place.
Now, drop the Alfred vs Jackson race into Grand Slam and it could have been explosive. Instead, here is the data from the readily available viewership on YouTube from breakout digital (Grand Slam Data pulled from NBC Sports and Grand Slam on YouTube. Miramar Invitational 2025 data pulled from Total Running Productions, FloTrack and Sprint Factory.) It should be noted that TRP livestreamed Grand Slam and Miramar (Miramar had 60,000 impressive livestream views) but that won’t be included in this graphic comparison:
Grand Slam’s ability to make every race important as opposed to having heats might be just the tool needed to change the sport into a household viewership event. The issue is there are only 4 events and it would be great to see another Slam in two weeks. Did you watch? What did you think?