The countdown is on. We are just one month away from the launch of Grand Slam Track, a bold new league that promises to shake up the sport of track and field—and today, we’re talking to the man behind it all, Michael Johnson.

We’ve done multiple episodes with MJ as a four-time Olympic champion, world record holder and one of the most respected voices in the sport. If you haven’t listened to those, I suggest you go back and do so. Our 2022 CITIUS MAG Live at Worlds interview with him is one of the best big picture conversations we’ve done on the state of the sport.

Johnson has spent years analyzing what’s missing in professional track. His solution? A structured, high-stakes, athlete-driven competition that puts rivalries, personalities, and pure racing at the forefront.

With 48 signed Racers, a multi-platform media deal, and a $30 million investment, Grand Slam Track is designed to change how the sport operates, creating a true professional league that’s built to last.

Today, we dive into:

• How the league is strategically structuring itself to maximize the talent track
• What success really looks like in Year 1 from a business standpoint
• Inside the TV deal and how it came together
• The lessons from other sports (even WWE) that can help track engage more fans
• And more on what to expect when the first meet kicks off in Kingston

Michael Johnson isn’t here to wait for change—he’s making it happen. Let’s get into it.

Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest: Michael Johnson| @mjgold4 on Instagram

Episode Highlights:

The following excerpt has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full episode with Michael Johnson on the CITIUS MAG Podcast.

Overcoming challenges and measuring success in GST’s first year of competition:

We've completed year one already. I've been at this since the fall of 2023. That’s when I decided, ‘I'm going to launch a new league.’ The first thing I had to do was go and get money. That's not easy. I've raised money for startups before and it's never easy. You have to go out there and convince investors to part with their money to allow you to do this. They have to believe in the business model… I've started companies, made them successful and sold them. Not a single one of them was profitable in year one. No investor is going to invest in you if you tell them, ‘I'm going to be profitable in year one. They're going to run away as fast as possible because they know that's just not possible.

The first step was raising the funds, which I did. The next step once we did that was the biggest challenge that I always knew we were going to have. The two biggest challenges for this league were getting athletes on board to approach their sport in a different way. We think about track athletes as undervalued – and they are… But what is also true is that the athletes in this sport enjoy more freedom to compete and do whatever they want, whenever they want, than any other sport. They don't have to abide by any sort of schedule. They can sign up for a meet and decide, ‘I'm not going to run that meet anymore because it just doesn't work in my schedule, my training, or I just don't feel like going there anymore.’ There's very little, if any, penalty to that. So they enjoy a lot of freedom.

Convincing the athletes to sign up in advance to compete against [their] major rivals four times a year… They said yes, but that was always going to be a challenge. That was a huge hurdle to overcome and a huge measure of success there. It’s also what allowed me to clear the next big hurdle, which was going to television broadcasters and saying, one, ‘Put this on TV,’ and two, ‘Pay us.’ That's not easy to do, regardless of what people might think. It's very difficult to do and I'm very happy that we were able to [do that]. What I wanted were TV deal broadcast deals that would allow the avid fan who's been working really hard to find and support their sport and make it easier for them with consistent times to watch the sport, watch our races, and be able to find it easily and access it easily.

But I also [wanted it to be broadcasted] in places where the casual fan who watched Cole Hocker in Paris but doesn't know where to find him now. They're watching NASCAR from CW. As soon as NASCAR goes off, we're coming right up behind it – so they're going to be able to watch it. On peacock, which has the NBA and all these other sports, we're there [too]. Now we're on Eurosport and on TNT in the UK, where all these other sports are.

Reflections on indoor season for some of GST’s racers:

Grand Slam Track racers certainly haven't taken their foot off the gas. Grant [Fisher] and Cole [Hocker], they're out there mixing it up and having a good time with it, which is exactly what we want to see. Indoor season has been great for track. It's been great as a lead-in to what we're doing with Grand Slam Track coming up with Kingston.

As I've always said: The athletes are always doing their part. It's not the athletes. They are not the problem. The problem is that there's no platform to continue to put them out there and put them on that pedestal where not just avid track fans can see them, but also casual fans. There are a lot of people who didn't know Cole Hocker before the Paris Olympics. Now they do – and they like him and they want to see more of him. It's great to see him out there and it's great to have a platform for him to be able to continue to show people what he can do.”

Perspective on refocusing the sport on competing:

I think that it has gotten to a point where we've taken the racing out of racing. We've taken the sport and turned it into something else. Track is about racing. You have eight athletes on the track for a reason. You award a champion or award a winner of the race for a reason: because they outperformed everyone else. And that's not easy. That's one of my fears: that people will start to think that it's easy, because the winner is not really being highlighted for having won. They're being highlighted for having run a personal best.

Ultimately, if you're not careful, you end up with this deconstructed competition where it's not about the athletes in the race… That's not what sport is, not for fans. We're very excited about what we're bringing. In our first Slam – short distance – [we have] the podium from Paris in the 1500m and [we have] first, second, and fourth in the 800m. Those guys have to go run the 800m and 1500m and they have to score enough points across both of those events to win. That is going to be fire, fire, fire. No doubt about it…

I can't wait. That's what you want. One of the things that's funny to me is when I see people in the track world on social media talking about fantasy matchups. It’s like, ‘We have the real fantasy over here. It's real. It's not fantasy. It's actually happening.’

Listen to the full episode here.

Previous episodes with Michael Johnson:

— 12x Gold Medalist Michael Johnson On The State Of Track And Field In America, How To Improve Athlete Storytelling

— Michael Reveals Everything You Need To Know About Grand Slam Track

— Michael Johnson Gives Another Update On Building Grand Slam Track + Reaction To Signing More Athletes