Some of the most elite runners and jumpers on the planet will converge on New York City this week. Athlos, the Lollapalooza-inspired women’s track competition founded by Alexis Ohanian last year, returns for its second annual meet on October 9 and 10—this time with more events, more athletes owners, and more competition from another upstart track league.
The women-only meet will feature more than three dozen athletes competing in six races at Icahn Stadium, the city’s premiere track on Randall’s Island: the 100 meter, 100 meter hurdles, 200 meter, 400 meter, 800 meter, and 1,500 meter. It will also include one field event, long jump, the qualifiers of which will take place in the middle of Times Square.
The expanded two-day event is the brainchild of the Reddit co-founder and key part of his ever- expanding women’s sports portfolio.
Inspired by the performance of the American women’s track team at the Paris Olympics last year, Ohanian set out to inject innovation into sport to keep casual fans like himself tuned in more than once every four years. The serial entrepreneur and investor took also cues from the atmosphere of the U.S. Open night matches in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the domain of his wife Serena Williams.
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Filled with strobe lights, pyrotechnics, DJ sets, celebrity-filled VIP sections, and Tiffany & Co-designed sterling silver crowns in lieu of trophies, Athlos has grown into equal parts music festival and spectacle. This year, the musical artist Ciara will be performing after the races conclude.
As Ohanian told Inc. ahead of the inaugural meet last year, hyping up the entertainment factor is the business plan—one that helped Athlos attract 3 million viewers last year. It’s also committed to fostering a sense of equity for the athletes: 10 percent of all revenue generated from the meet, including ticket sales, sponsorship, and broadcast revenue, was split among all the competitors. On top of that, the competition haded out a record $663,000 pot of prize money. Each winner earned $60,000, double the amount awarded in track and field’s most prestigious Diamond League meets. Second- and third-place finishers took home $25,000 and $10,000.
This year, more athletes stepped into ownership roles alongside Ohanian. Sha’Carri Richardson and Tara Davis-Woodhall have joined Gabby Thomas as founding adviser-owners as Athlos prepares to expand into a team-based track and field league next year. It’s a feat retired American sprinter Michael Johnson pulled off this year with his Grand Slam Track series, but the upstart league, which raised $30 million from investors and pledged to hand out $12.6 million in prize money in its debut season, reportedly still owes about $19 million to athletes and vendors, a shortfall that some investors are reportedly trying to cover in part with an injection of emergency funding, according to Front Office Sports.
For Athlos, Thomas wants the roster of athlete owners to keep growing. It’s all part of what the five-time Olympic medalist sees as an opportunity to shake things up in track and field.
One of models she is looking toward is Unrivaled, the three-on-three basketball league co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. The upstart league, which raised $34 million from investors, held its inaugural eight-week season in Miami earlier this year and created six new teams, all without any geographic allegiances.
“I was such an Unrivaled fan last season,” Thomas tells Inc. “It was really about creating those fan bases, and that’s what we want to capture in track and field.”
Thomas sees that fandom, the big personalities on the track, and the sport’s easy-to-follow format as tailor made for social media growth. “The rules are very obvious. You have clear winners, clear losers, and it’s something that is very palatable online,” she says. “All of these races that are so easily consumable as people are just scrolling.”