Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 126 - Jessi Gabriel

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Join us for a conversation with Jessi Gabriel, director of marketing at Grand Slam Track. Grand Slam is ​​an elite track event series featuring the sport's biggest stars in head-to-head competition. Jessi talks about how Grand Slam is helping transform the track world, her experience in marketing in the track industry and more! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Follow Jessi: https://www.instagram.com/jgabriel16/  Learn more about Grand Slam Track: https://www.grandslamtrack.com/  Thank you to our sponsors: LMNT: Visit https://drinklmnt.com/cam for a free sample pack with any purchase Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Timestamps: 00:00:00  Grand Slam Track & The Sport of Track 00:06:51  Compensation in the Grand Slam 00:13:20  Jessi’s Knowledge in Marketing 00:20:43  Jessi’s Background, Traveling, & Minnesota 00:26:08  Track Athletes Regimens 00:32:51  Ad Break (LMNT & Ketone-IQ) 00:35:07  Rivalries in Track 00:41:27  The Relationship Between the Olympics & the Athletes 00:54:24  Marketing: Continually Learning About the Industry 00:57:31  Telling Athletes Stories 01:02:31  Finding Media Talent for Grand Slam 01:03:55  Sh*t Talk, Drama,  & Tension Between the Athletes 01:09:12  Eugene Track World Championships & the 2020 Olympic Games 01:14:29  Jessi’s Advice to Athletes from a Business Standpoint 01:19:28  Ben Blankenship: The Endless Mileage Project 01:30:35  QA: Will Track Start Hosting Big Guest Appearances? 01:33:58  QA: Will There be Qualifying for the Average Joe Runner? 01:39:12  QA: Resistance from Any Traditional Track Organizations? 01:43:04  QA: Your Opinion on Ultramarathons in the Olympics? 01:49:05  Outro

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. All right.

This is a Keep Hammering Collective. We're with Jess, Jessica, Jesse, J. Dog, Gabriel. You got it. Jesse Gabriel. Okay. Oh, so I was so focused on your first name. I screwed up the last name. Gabriel, okay. How are you doing?

I'm good. Yeah, it's been busy. Oh, man. Well, I mean, this is cool because I'm a huge track fan, which a lot of people from Eugene are, I think. But I remember, you know, my grandma lived on 24th an Emerald, which is just kind of a little tiny hill over from Hayward. And the track meets would be going on and I didn't have any money, but I'd go up there and just like be hanging on the cyclone fence, just watching all the athletes.

But so been immersed in track around here forever. And now you work for Grand Slam Track. And tell me about that. Yeah. I mean, so I've actually worked in track and field for a while. I used to work at Tracktown USA, which is a local nonprofit here in Eugene that puts on large scale track and field events,

including the Olympic trials. I know you've been to a couple of those. And then I was also, I was the communications director. at the World Championships when they were held here in Oregon. And so, yeah, been in the sport and been around the sport for a long time. I was a D-1 athlete at Minnesota. I coached Prince Jumps while I was there when I was in grad school

and had this opportunity to work for Grand Slam track. It came up pretty organically. I had been freelancing. I did a freelance project for them when they had basically just launched. And it went really well. and from there, it's like, come on board. And I was like, nope, I'm coming on board for sure. So, yeah, it's an amazing new startup league

that's really designed to elevate the sport of track and to position it to grow audiences and grow fans. Yeah, so I was going to see what the objective was because the way I look at it, and I don't know anything, but Europe has a diet. Diamond League series, which I guess is popular over there. I don't know. Is it similar to that for the US?

Or is it, because I know the athletes can make good money in the Diamond League, which it's hard. I mean, I guess the premier athletes can make pretty good money, but everybody passed that. It's tough to make money outside of the Olympics or if you're not sponsored or if you're not elite. So is it another opportunity for athletes or what? It's a great question.

So I'll start at the beginning, assuming maybe some of the listeners don't know too much about the sport of professional track, which is that it is a sport that it can be hard to make a meaningful living from it. And what contracts look like, even for some of the biggest stars, might not be comparable to what they are in other professional sports in the United States. The Diamond League, which you were just talking about, is a series, a circuit of meats that happen actually all across the globe, not just in Europe, but a lot of the meats are in Europe. There are some in Asia. The pre-classic is actually part of the Diamond League circuit. Oh, that's right. Okay. So it is across the globe, but it really is more a series of meets. It really isn't a league in how we think of a league in the U.S. with all of the major sports leagues.

And so what's different about Grand Slam Track is that we have contracted league racers. So we have 48 competitors who have signed on with a base contract to be a part of our league. They compete in four slams. We have four competitions that are going to be taking place this year. And yeah, the racers are the ones who take a risk. they sign on to do all four of those slams. And as a result, you know, we lean heavy on their promotion. We get super pumped and excited to do their storytelling, to have all the marketing elements associated with it. And in turn, we can create a fandom, right? Because part of what

is sometimes difficult in track is, how do I follow these people? How is their consistency and how I can tune in to an athlete and their schedule? Schedules often change a lot in the sport. injuries come up. People sometimes don't know that they're going to be competing in a meet until the day before the meet even. And so, yeah, Grand Slam Track is really an effort to sort of create a package for the sport that can become regular and that people can rely on and offers you consistency. Okay. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I feel like, I don't know, maybe how I look at it is different than everywhere else. It's because being here, it's so,

we're so track focused here in Eugene. And I know the rest of the country, there's not many just track stadiums, you know, like Hayward, that where you just, usually it's, you know, around a football field or something, you know? There's pretty much none. I mean, they're really, they're very, very,

I mean, certainly to this, obviously to the scale that Hayward Field at the University of Oregon is. But in general, yeah, it's not a sport that really has dedicated resource in the U.S., which is surprising, right? Because most people have had some type of contact with the sport of track, right?

They may be participated in it in high school. They know someone who runs, they know someone who did run. They probably tune into it at the Olympic Games. It's perhaps the most popular sport, you know, swimming, track and field and gymnastics are considered the big three at the Olympic Games. So yeah, I mean, most people have tuned in

and watched some element of tracking field. So they feel like they know something about it. But what Grand Slam Tracks mission is, is how do we get those people to think about, to care about, to learn, to get excited about the sport not just once every four years, but four times a year, which is through our four slams. So that's sort of the ethos behind why Michael Johnson, who's the founder, the commissioner of the league. That's why he started it. Yeah. And he's a legend. I mean, I remember watching him in the Olympics. He's just a stud. Did he run the 200, right?

200 and 400. Yeah. Just beast. But yeah, respect to him. What I like about this is being a track fan, I'm always, I don't know why, but hunting is like this too. I'm always like rooting for the little guy. You know what I mean? And sometimes like coming up through hunting, it was hard to earn opportunities and the big companies that have the money, the resources, they can just kind of like, ah, we'll give you an opportunity, I guess. You're working hard.

And with athletes in track, I feel like they have to work so hard and dedicate so much of their life. And as we talked about, it can be hard to make money. And so what I loved about this was like, man, they're offering, was it $75,000, I think, and then $100 if you win or something. But $75,000 or $100,000, it's good money for a track athlete. So the total prize purse, all of the prize money for the year across all four slams. is 12.6 million dollars.

Yeah. So if you win a slam in your event group, there's six men's event groups, six women's event groups, so 12 event groups at each slam, if you win your event group, you get $100,000. So that's first.

But we pay all the way down to eighth place and eighth, there are only eight competitors in each race. So even if you get dead last, you still get 10 grand. Oh, nice. Which at the time of our launch, 10 grand is what you would get

if you won a Diamond League. And so last place at ours, they've since upped their prize money. But for us, it was like we want depth. We want everyone who participates, who competes, who races for us to come away with prize money because this is what it's about, right? You're here to race. And it's not like there are infinite opportunities to race, right? There's a handful maybe to have really high profile, high stakes, high intensity matchups.

And Grand Samtrak is trying to fill. some of that void, right? And so, yeah, our company president always says track and field doesn't have a demand problem. It has a supply problem. And so Grandson track is trying to fill that supply problem. Yeah, because people, I mean, like I said, I might not be the perfect person to ask, but I watch, like, on YouTube, you know, going through clips, just watching old track meets. You know, like you look at the old Olympics or the old world championships or, you know,

And so, yeah, there is a demand. People love watching people compete, especially stars, like the stars you guys have. You guys have the biggest names in track and field. And so people will tune in and they'll love it. They just love the personalities, but then they love seeing them compete. I love seeing them compensated, so that's pretty cool.

Me too. Because I just know, man, it's, I don't know. When I think of, and then it goes all the way down to Ultra, too. Like, ultra is even worse as far as making money for an athlete. And they have to work, you know, because, you know, your partner's been Blankenship, who I guess I should have said that, but he's been a guest on the show. He's an Olympian, great, incredible runner, not just great, just an incredible runner. But now he's transitioned to Ultra a little bit. And there's hardly any money in Ultra compared to, if we're going to talk about NFL or NBA, it's like a whole different galaxy.

Yeah. So I like seeing this money part come in and, the compensation part and making it a big deal. And, you know, for the athletes, it's like that Olympic cycle is they get so much attention during the Olympics and then it's like gone. And there's nothing for four more years for, I think probably the general public. I mean, like I said, Eugene's different. But it's nice.

It's a great opportunity now for them to, yes, the Olympics, but now this is, you know, in off years, essentially. Yeah, I mean, really the vision is to shine a spotlight on the competitors that are going to be racing at Grand Slam Track. You mentioned, you know, we do have quite a few big stars, including Sydney, McLaughlin and Rivoni, Gabby Thomas, people who have won gold medals, Cole Hocker, who is another guest of the pod. Yeah, so, I mean, people who have performed at the highest level and come out on top, who have all signed on. to this new startup league, right? And I think that there's an appetite for it. There's an appetite for it, certainly from athletes themselves,

an opportunity to have one reliable income through this as a base contract if you're a racer. But we also have, as part of the league, in all of our competitions, there's going to be 48 challengers, right? So those are the athletes who come on board on a per slam basis. So they get like a smaller fee as like an appearance fee, and that's standard across the board for all of them. But they have the opportunity to win that big, huge prize money.

And so it's like even if you're like, I don't know if I want to sign on for all four, there's still that opportunity to be able to, yeah, come away with $100 grand if you win your event group. So you don't have to win all the meats to get the $100 grand. You win for every meet there's $100,000 for first? Yeah. Oh, okay. And every meet for every event group. Man, that's awesome.

Yeah, it's like 150 and 30 for first, second, third, and then it goes down to 10. That's legit. Yeah. Competition kind of drives everything, but did Diamond League ramp up what they're paying because of you guys, do you think? I don't know the answer to that question because I am not the one who made that decision, but I do know that we put out our compensation package, our prize purse, and then theirs came out after, but I don't know the order in which decisions were made.

Perfect. Well, however, the athletes win. Yeah. I mean, across the board, that's also part of the point, right? Like, we don't view ourselves in competition with other meets or other entities that are trying to put money in athletes' pockets. All of it serves the greater good, which is let's get athletes paid and let's get people excited about the sport.

Right? Like, let's get people like wanting to tune in. And however any entity is doing that, all about it. Yeah. And if the athletes win because these purses went up, great. That's awesome. I mean, just that is cool. Yeah.

So I like that. I was curious, too, I should have done this to start off, but you've had some incredible roles in marketing. It's like marketing is such a, you know, it's not like sales where there's a measurable. So how do you get to be like a, marketing, whatever, talent that people like Grand Slam Track want. Why are you good at it? You know, it's a funny question because I actually, I went to school for, like, my undergrad.

I did political science in English. I did minors in Spanish and journals. And I loved school. Like, pretty dorky. Pretty different from Ben. Ben, Ben wasn't a fan of school. I remember that, yeah. But I loved school. Like, I just wanted to just, learn everything that I could. And then I got my master's in public policy. So again, not really connected to marketing. But the through line on everything is that I, like you have said, like I've always loved track.

I've always loved the sport. It's always been like a big part of my family, a part of my personal identity. And so at every point throughout my life, it still was a factor. And so, yeah, when I had the opportunity to move out here, and started working at Tracktown, I have all this knowledge of the sport, right? I've lived in it for a long time.

And now, you know, over a decade, 15 years of working in the sport, I think that that element is something that I just have like a long, like, brain knowledge of all of the stuff that I've been able to experience and have had the fortune to be able to experience. And I think that that just sort of deep-seated knowledge of what has come before, what has worked, what has failed in an event space has really helped me position myself to be a resource. And so the on road for Grand Sime Track was I was working at the Olympic trials as a freelancer, this most recent Olympic trials, and went to an event that Grand Slam Track hosted and got into a conversation with a couple of the people who were on staff.

And they were like, hmm, that's an interesting point. We just got into good conversations. And I was like, oh, if you guys thought about this? And then it turned into, I produced this show, Michael Johnson, on track that MJ did during the Paris Olympics, which was offsite, not at the stadium. But it was sort of Grand Slam track's way of, yeah, starting to tell the story of MJ as the commissioner of Grand Slam track. He's a very knowledgeable man. He's been a commentator on the BBC for track for them for many, many years. he's very good at what he does.

And so he has all this nuance. He has all this information. And so that show was all about, you know, showcasing his personality now as the commissioner of this league to a broader audience. And so I produced that show for Grand Sime track in Paris. And yeah, it just turned into this. They were like, oh, we love you. It's like, I love you.

So you just have to love what you're doing and be smart. Is that the two things? I think, I guess, I get this question a lot. I do a lot of, like, you know, I do a lot of classes and, like, speeches at the University of Oregon to grad classes and stuff. And often people say, like, what advice would you give to a student like me in this position? And I kind of always say the same thing, which is say yes to stuff, which is maybe a bit of a cheesy answer. But I have found that it has served me really well, which isn't like, you know, get used and abused in every position that you're in. But it is like, be a person who gets things done,

be a person who says yes to things, be a person that people can rely on and can count on. And, I mean, I don't know if you've ever worked events. Events are sort of a stressful environment, right? It tests people because there's just very high expectations all in a really tight amount of time. You spend a long time building up to it and then it's there and you have to deliver. And so in those moments, like, you just have to be a person who can solve problems. And so I think more than anything, it's that. It's like, be a problem solver. You can't take yourself too seriously.

Like, everyone is just trying to get to problem solving mode, resolution. And I think that's even beyond just a marketer. Like, I think in general, that's sort of my advice in career. I'm still, you know, perhaps young in my career, but at least that has served me well. Be useful. Yeah, totally. Yeah, be useful. You'd be able to solve problems.

I think solve problems is a big one. But this opportunity that you mentioned, it was, you said at an event or a party, but you were just kind of networking, I guess is what people would call it. But it's a, but yeah, that knowledge of track, probably have some good ideas. So that's where people,

that's not always easy to interject yourself into a conversation. And then also in that short little window of a conversation, be able to catch their attention to where they're like going, man, this person seems pretty dialed in on this stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I know there's no perfect recipe for it, but whatever you've done has given you, you've earned a lot of incredible opportunities. And it's, I mean, it's cool to see, I think.

It's like, I'm a little, I told these guys, I've never actually talked to like a real professional, like, woman. I'm like, I don't even know if I know how to do this. So it's, you're, I don't know, you're a, you're a pro. That's how I would say. I feel like, okay, if we turned it around and I asked you this question, do you think your answer would be very different than mine? If I said, you know, what advice would you give or, you know, how have you become successful

in your path? My advice, I think Ben has said my advice, or not my advice, but he said he's a big, dumb animal. That's what I think of. So I don't really have very much advice. But no, yeah, I know. It's like, yeah, I think when I talk about what I love, which is bow hunting, the mountains, adventure, running,

it's that comes out. I mean, people can tell like, oh, this guy cares about this stuff. So you can't fake passion. You can't fake caring about something. You can't fake wanting to make a difference. Yeah. Right? So if you don't, if you're not authentic about that, it's going to be tough.

I think, I think you're very authentic and then also being smart. You said you're a student, but it's like goes beyond, there's a lot of people who take all the classes you've taken who aren't whatever, but you have like this charisma or something that's given you these, these opportunities. And it's awesome. That's nice. No, no, no. It's awesome.

Thanks. I love it. I just like, yeah, I don't know. I've been, I don't know, I talk about this a lot on here about how I'm always on the athlete's side for opportunities and for money and for just being compensated for all the sacrifice. So that's why this is, you know, having you here and talking about this is pretty cool. Another thing that I wanted to, so you said you're from Minnesota.

So, right? I mean, I. Or is that where you went to school? That's where I went to school. It's kind of like I always feel bad. Like I almost feel like I have to apologize when people ask where I'm from. And like people kind of like, oh, what's this story coming? But no, I'm actually, I'm half Greek, half American.

My dad is born raised in Greece. It's actually in Cyprus right now. But anyways. But I grew up abroad. I didn't grow up in the U.S. My parents are international school teachers. And so I was born in Kuwait, lived there for eight years. I was in the Philippines for six years.

And then I graduated high school in the United Arab Emirates. So I was there for three years. So I hadn't really lived in the U.S. much before coming to college. But my mom's side of the family is from Minnesota. So that's why there's definitely 100% a Minnesota connection. That's where I went to my undergrad and grad school. You've been around to, I mean, I went to the Oregon Coast once. So that's kind of cool.

But, man, you've been a lot of places. That's, I mean, that gives you so much perspective too, doesn't it? Just, and that's very lucky that your parents gave you that up, or I don't know, didn't give you the opportunity, but that was their job. So you were able to capitalize on different culture and we were really lucky. I mean, I think just my siblings and I always talk about that, just the ability to have grown up and seen so much when we were so young. Just, I mean, obviously, wherever you grew up shapes you, right, and adds to your defining characteristics, whether, you know, it was an upbringing that was wonderful or not so wonderful and everything in between,

that is sort of, that sets the stage for who you become, right? And I definitely feel like that was the case with how, yeah, my parents raised us. Certainly. I mean, even just,

I mean, my dad is part of the reason why track is such a big part of my life. He himself was a professional athlete, hurdler, decathlete. And, yeah, it was really,

important to him. I mean, he was very good. He was a national caliber athlete in Greece. And all of that really shaped what he was passionate about. He was a, he's a PE teacher, was a PE teacher. He's retired now. But just this sort of focus on how that, I mean, he, he grew up very, very, very, very poor. And his family, that was like his way to like get an education, his way to, yeah, make a living. And so it really was a defining part of his life. And I think he just sort of passed that passion onto me. Yeah.

No, that's, I mean, all the places that you lived all those places? Yeah. Man, that is, and born in Kuwait, right? Wow. It's pretty, I was just talking, who is I talking to? Is Alexi Pappas, did she compete for Greece in the Olympics? Yep, she did. She's going to come on the podcast.

Same Olympics as Ben. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, 2016. Yeah. So I didn't, I was just, that was another, I was watching clips last night of her because she's, she's going to come on here, says she wants to hunt, which is kind of cool. Cool. But yeah, I liked what she has done too, but you mentioned Greece and it made me think of her.

But yeah, so now that's two professional, smart, badasses that I'm going to be nervous around. Great. You and Alexi. Yeah, so I was thinking of Minnesota because I know Ben was, was he from there? Yeah. He wasn't born in some crazy place. No, no. So he's more standard.

Yeah. But then Courtney's from, Courtney DeWalter's from Minnesota. I actually didn't know that. Yeah, I think she went to Hopkins high school. Oh my gosh. I had no idea. Which is where I think if I get, if I got this right, Paige Bukers or whatever, she placed for Connecticut, I think she went to that high school too.

So I was like, oh, there's a bunch of people from Minnesota. of, but yeah. It's a good state. Yeah. It's a cool place. Produces badasses, apparently. I mean, there's something about, I mean, I was there. I lived there for a while, right?

Four years in undergrad, year in between, and then two years in grad school. And then my mom's extended family all lives there. I mean, it really, it is a very, very special place. Everyone always talks about the winter and that the winter is, you know, so cold. And it is. I mean, I grew up in the desert in the tropics when I was young. So it was 100% an overwhelming experience to feel a Minnesota winter as your first winter. But also it also doesn't really matter that much.

People are still really outdoorsy. People are still really active. People, it does shape your sort of day-to-day life. But also, it's another place. And it's a beautiful place with a lot going on. I know I really love Minnesota. Yeah. I'm trying to think.

I think I've been there. But there's another guy who follows, names Mark Daldol or something like that. But he is from there and he did the Arrowhead 135. Have you ever heard of that? I have. That's a pretty intense rate, like 135 miles like towing a sled, right? No, thanks.

Yeah, and I don't know how cold it was, but it looked pretty brutal. So there's another person from Minnesota I know. Well, we're knocking them off the list. I mean, I was a short sprinter and a high jumper. I was not a distance runner, though it's. like somehow that's very surprising just because of Ben, I think. But yeah, I'm definitely not someone who is super excited about running long distances, though I can appreciate, certainly with my partner.

I mean, I crewed his hundred when he did rabid raccoon, and that was sort of my first foray into Ultra. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. This is a very different universe than the one that I know. It is. It's a cool universe, though. Yeah.

It's very, very, it's just really different. I love it all. It's like, yeah, it's so different. But like the track people, because I, you know, I've run with some track people, they're so like, I don't want to, I'm making it sound like there's some weird version of humans, but this track, they're so regimented and so like, because track is so scheduled. I mean, you said you got your event coming up in two weeks, so it's like these deadlines and these times and it's like, you know, the 1500 is at whatever, 326 p.m., right?

You've got to be in the car, all this stuff. So regimented, we're ultra. I mean, it does start at a certain time, but that's about it. I mean, it's like, it's so opposite, even though it is running and endurance racing, but it might as well be a different sport. I think what's so what was very unique, like as I was experiencing it, right? And certainly I was experiencing it as crew. I can't imagine what would be like to experience it as the athlete who's,

doing it, right, is it is such, it's so different, right, race to race to race. It's not like you can really compare one ultra to another. And so like that experience of seeing Ben compete at Rabid Raccoon was like my singular experience with Ultra, but you can't really compare how someone does in that event to how someone might do another event. All of the courses are so different. And so, I mean, track is very, you know, you say regimented by, I think it's also, there's just like a consistency across it, right? Like, it's 400 meter track. Yeah. Right.

There's eight lanes, maybe sometimes nine lanes. And they're all the same distance, really, a little bit of variation. All the times are pretty comparable. You have like a baseline understanding. And certainly if you're a big fan of track, probably not a more general fan who tunes into just the Olympics. But you know what a good time is. you know what a good, I mean, what you just know, you understand it. And I think that that sort of continuity isn't there.

And that's kind of nice. Like that's kind of cool. That's kind of refreshing. I feel like it enables somebody to go into an environment and just really see what can I do without really having expectations. I think if you were to do obviously the same ultra time and time again and the course stays the same, then you start to have that, oh, I know that section or that lap. I know how I do on that.

And here's where I can improve or that crossing or. whatever. But I think that that's a pretty fundamental difference between the two. Yeah, there's no real point of reference. Like if you say, you run a 10 second 100 meter, people know that, oh, that's pretty good. It wasn't in the nines, but pretty good. But there's no real point or reference for a fan. So I was wondering if maybe that causes people to do a little more research on it. And maybe that's like, could be a positive because they're like, well, man, why were they so slow on this one? And then they look and it's like, oh, this 100 mile race had 30,000. on feet of gain.

Yeah. And this one, you know, they have some Desert Solstice type stuff that's flat and fast. So you could have a hundred mile or that people win at Western States. They win in 14 hours. And then there's other ones, 100 miles, that it's double that almost. Yeah, exactly. So it's, yeah, I don't know. I think there could be positives and negatives to both because the point of reference is good

because you don't have to be that invested in track to be like, oh, man, they crushed, you know, 9, 8. That's a great 100. But if you want to know more about it, there's not a lot more. That's about it. It's really funny you say this because one of my co-workers, Kyle Murber, he's like our director of racing. So he's the one who's putting all the fields together.

He's the one who's contracting. He's a former professional athlete also. He was a 1,500 meter runner. And he has this experiment that he talks about where actually if you were to ask an average person, like if you were to go up into the. didn't ask someone what a fast or what even the world record was in the 100 or in the 200, they would have no idea. And often not even close. He had told us this story of, I think it was even his dad. And he was like, do you know what the world record is in the 200 meter? And it was like

many, many, many seconds off, like dramatically off. And he's like, this is my dad who knows track. Right. And he was talking about how, in fact, times aren't really what matters in track, which is sort of one of the like the baseline premise that we have at Grand Sime Track, which is actually what matters is the racing. It's the ability to watch athletes compete against each other. And so we have these competitors who are taking the track. And instead of every single time you're, you know, you're hoping for a world record or you're hoping for this fast time

and setting people up for maybe disappointment if they don't hit those times, instead the focus has to be around competitors going against each other, rivalries, trash talk, just like two entities clashing together, that's what can get people excited because that's always going to happen. If you can bring them to the table and create the forum for these races to happen, that inevitably is going to happen. Someone is going to win and someone's going to lose. You know that.

And so you don't have to build a framework that's just dedicated to breaking records. You're still talking about people running fast. And they are going to run fast. But yeah, it's just a little bit of a different mentality. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was thinking about that too. If you ask somebody, like, what a good 100-mile race time? They'd be like, their answer would be, I don't even like to drive 100 miles.

Oh, my gosh. How many times has someone said that to you? About a million. Ben gets it all the time. But it's true. So it's like, so they might be way off on the 100 or 200, but they have no idea on the 100 mile. They're like, well, four-minute miles of fast. mile so if I times that by a hundred. Yeah. And then you're like, well, no, so 24 hours is 15 minute

miles. And if you break 24 hours, that's pretty good. And they're just like, what? I could walk 15 minute miles. You could, but for 24 hours. Yeah, you're like, but will you? In the mountains? Yeah, it's a, yeah, it's a whole different world. I was thinking about that too. And you mentioned the rivalries in the, in the Olympics, the medal matters. But the rivalries, even there, that's where you're going to get all the best athletes going for that medal. And it's like, I know I hear some, or I've heard some, I don't know, commentary on like Inger Britson, racing Kerr, racing Hawker, racing, is it, Noghous, right? And it's like just getting all those guys on the same track is hard.

You know what I mean? Because I think I saw Ingerbritson or maybe Kerr saying somebody's ducking something. somebody. So that's what people want to see. To your point, they want to see these guys race. Yeah. And if you don't know, and if your audience doesn't know, we have Josh Kerr, Colehawker, and Yard Naguze all signed on as contracted racers. So they're going to be going head to head at every single slam. But not only that, we also have in our first slam, which is in Kingston, Jamaica coming up here April 4th through 6th. We also have the Olympic podium from the 800 meters. because the way that the events work are event groups, everyone over the course of a weekend races twice.

And so that group as an example, Cole, Josh Yardt are part of the men's short distance group. And so over the course of the weekend, they're going to run an 800 and they're going to run a 1500. Yeah. And so it'll be like this, I mean, that's also part of the intrigue and the drama, right? It's maybe you're really great at one event, but are you really great at two? And so the people who are able to be dynamic enough to come back and to compete across both races are the ones who are going to be successful, right? If you can get first in one but you're last and the other, well, you're not going to win because you need to perform well across both to be able to win the group. Is it so that's those aren't two separate races?

I mean, they're two separate races, but could you win 100,000 in each event or is it, it's grouped? Exactly. Okay, got you. Yep. Yep, yep. And so, you know, you'll run the first race. You'll have a leader in the points. You get points allocated depending on your placing in the first race. And then the next day or, you know, if you're running on Friday, you might be competing again on Sunday. But over that course of the weekend, then you'll run a second race. And then you add the point totals across those. And the winner is the one of both of those races is the one who walks away with 100 grand. Yeah. Okay. That, I mean, that's, that's cool. Because I was just, there as you were talking thinking about, well, Cole's got a good kick. I think his 800 should probably be, you know, some guys, some guys don't have that kick. They just have, they got to push that pace.

Strength base. Yeah, to kind of take away the kick from the fast finishers. But, but Cole's been known for his kick. So I don't even know what, does he run an 800 very? Yeah, he's quick. He's run a quick 800. Has he? Okay. But yeah, yeah, the other component to it is, so the fourth racer in that group. So we have, in every race across the board, four racers, which are those contracted athletes that run in all of the slams for the season, and then four challengers who are just coming in for one slam, like on a per slam basis. So of those three racers that I just mentioned, so Cole, Josh, and Yardt. Then the fourth racer is Marco Arop, who was a silver medalist in the 800 in Paris, right? And so it's probably going be pretty good in the 800, right? Yeah, that's his gem. And then we have, you know, the other two

podium finishers from the Olympic games that are going to be competing also as challengers. And so you just have this dynamic of just mega talent, all of these people who are really, really, really, really good at what they do. And now they have to all race together. Like, have you, Emmanuel Wenioni is going to be a challenger for us in Jamaica, Olympic champion from Paris in the 800, going against Cole, the Olympic champion in the 1500, in both races. Yeah. And like, has anyone seen those? Yeah, you know, so you're going to see these matchups that are kind of fantasy

matchups, right? Where, you know, you're sitting on a couch with your friends and like, what do you think would happen of so-and-so race so-and-so, right? It's like what makes you excited about any sport when you just sort of like are able to think through what's my dream team, what's my fantasy league, right? And part of that vision is for grandstand, I'm. track that you get to see some of those things. You get to see people line up that you might not have ever had the opportunity to see them line up together. Yeah. So yeah, it should be pretty fun.

Yeah, that will be good because then also that creates this dialogue for not only your future meets, but also when you're thinking about, you know, oh, I remember Cole ran a smoking fast 800. And then you're like, in this situation, could he finish in whatever and set the world record in the 15 based on this because you have now you have this frame of reference you saw how we performed in two laps against the fastest guys and it just changes whatever just discussion it's like what i like about it is people are thinking about it talking about it track is on people's minds and that's what we need you know as a sport just to more awareness means more money and the athletes win basically um yeah that's it's like our it's like our tagline aren't you sure you're not a marketer

What is the tagline? I mean, our tagline is only the fastest, but I feel like you just distilled it very well. I mean, that's exactly what we're trying to do. Yeah, no, I'm not a marketer, but I do love track. And on that note, so it's like when you think of, I was curious about this, when you think at the Olympics, so have you worked for the Olympic Committee before? So you said you're freelanced. Yeah, so, no, I haven't worked for the International Olympic Committee.

But when I worked at Trackdown, I did help put on the Olympic trials. So that's a U.S. Olympic Committee, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee now event. So through them, we were the local organizing committee that put on the Olympic trials. So not for the International Olympic Committee, but the U.S. governing body for that. Yeah, I'm curious, I don't know, I see different things. I don't know anything. But what I do know is this Steve Prefontein was from here. He was like this big amateur athlete.

This was like a huge thing back in the day where the US used amateur athletes, so it means they couldn't be pros, they couldn't be paid. Like even our NBA players couldn't play in the Olympics because they were pros. Yeah. Well, Prefontein was always fighting for the athlete, right? And then it's changed.

changed a little. I mean, obviously athletes are being compensated, but not by the Olympic committee that I know of as far as like you look at some countries. I don't know if it's China or some Asian country, but I saw their gold medal winner gets, I don't know, a bunch of money, a car, like money for the whole rest of their life. And from their country, U.S. about as opposite of that as you could, from my perspective, I don't know, what do you, What do you think of when you look at like the athletes and the Olympic, because I know the Olympics make billions? Yeah. How do you see that the Olympics and the athletes type of relationship?

It's a really good question. I actually think it's a really great question that people sometimes don't know. They assume when they see athletes at the Olympics, especially athletes who are performing really well at the Olympics, that they are making a lot of money. And they may be making money from endorsement deals or from, you know, personal sponsorships that they might have. But from a U.S. sense, they don't. And the U.S. OPC did pay medalists in these last Olympic games. But, you know, it's in the tens of thousands that you would get for a gold medal on down to bronze. For the first time, World Athletics, which is the governing body for track and field, they did put up

at the last games, 50 grand per gold medalist. They only paid gold medalists. That was the first time that they had done that in attachment to the Olympic Games. So that was a pretty big deal. So, you know, if you're a U.S. athlete, you know, you get 50 from World Athletics for winning a gold medal. You get, I think it's like 37,000. You guys may need a fact check me on that one.

It's something like that. We don't fact check. We just say whatever we want here. I know. Ben was like, he's like, they just keep talking. I was like, okay, I'm a good talker, so I can do that. Yeah. But it's like somehow, you know, the combined total is like 87 for an Olympic gold medal that you get from both the international governing body for track and the U.S. Olympic Committee,

which like, I don't know. Is that what people think people get when you get a gold medal at the Olympics? No, you think you'd be a millionaire. Right? Especially from, especially when we're, I mean, that's what we're talking about, you know, track gold medalists. Yeah, it's a big deal. Pretty high profile, you know, placement that most people tune into.

Which, again, like, it's amazing that that money is there. I'm not, I'm not knocking on that money. I'm glad that it exists. It certainly didn't always exist. And so the fact that it does is a big deal. And I think, you know, certainly the athletes appreciate it. But it should be more, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that that mentality of, you know, even when, from my understanding, because I obviously wasn't with Grand Sam, track from the beginning. And I know that Michael has been thinking about this for a really long time, this league. But it was like we don't, we're not talking about doubling prize money. We're talking about 10 times prize money. We're talking about big. We're talking about money that you can't blink at, right?

Like this is money that is real. And this is for a slam, right? It's not for an Olympic final. It's for one of our four events. Yeah. And so you could win all four and you could make 400 grand in the year. Like if you were a dominant athlete across the two events that you'll be competing in at each slam, you can come out as a competitor with $400,000.

I mean, that's a big payday. Yeah, no, I love to see that. And as we talked about earlier, if that drives up everywhere else as far as what they compensate the athletes for with appearance fees or winnings or whatever, then that's great. That's what it takes sometimes is the new guy coming in going, you know what, we're going to shake up this. This model has been okay, but we can make it better. Yeah, I love that. I love that the athletes get these opportunities, but it seems like it should, yeah, it should be more.

When I think of the Olympics, it's like, man, I look at the commercials, I look at their making the athletes wear all the stuff that they're making money from because they got the sponsors for the Olympics. So the personal endorsements from the athletes are secondary, and that's how the athletes make money generally. but they have to wear the Olympic kit.

And I'm always like looking at it that way going, how do we help these athletes out? So that's why like when I first heard of Grand Slam track, I didn't know you were involved at all, but I just saw that, oh man, cool, the athletes can make some money. And, you know, it's, I was talking to, oh, I've had Centrelitz on here too,

who's a gold medalist. And it's like, for making money as an athlete, It's like if you win the gold, that's when you make the money, right? But that's once every four years. And it's like on the come up before you win, probably not making much. Like maybe, I mean, I think even like a Nike might pay a regular guy, 40 grand a year. I don't know, unless you're a superstar. Then maybe if you win the gold, then yeah, you got four years making probably good money.

And then somebody else wins a gold and then it's over. Yeah. That's rough. I mean, and you also think, think about. about like the years of earning potential of an athlete too, right? Like that's that's also part of it. As as you know, you're saying like a career person, right? Like a career person builds their career and makes money year after year into. Usually more, more and more and more. Yeah. I mean, hopefully. Yeah. And then, you know, they work through, you know, all of that processes. But for an athlete who's performing at the highest level, that that earning potential time is finite. Right. And so how much

you can make in that time before then, you know, your body begins to age and you break down and you leave or maybe you leave at the top of your game because you're ready to be done and you've done everything you want to do in the sport, whatever the outcome. Now you have to transition, right? And you're starting over in, you know, maybe in something related to sport, maybe something not. But your ability to earn money in that timeline is small. Yeah. And so you have to maximize it. And if a system is set up that sort of only honors that type of performance, performance once every four years. I mean, that's a hard formula to make work. Yeah. I mean, essentially like a good career, so you'd have eight years to make a lifetime

of money. I mean, if, you know, it's your top of your game and you're competing, say you've made two Olympic cycles, that's just for a small number of athletes, but eight years and that's got to get you, I mean, people will do other things and that's great, just like Michael's starting this, You know, so smart people figure out ways. But when your whole life has been dedicated to performance and running and athletics, you haven't probably focused on a bunch of other businesses or things like that because you've been so focused on your craft. And then all of a sudden you said, because you've aged out, it's over.

It's just like, man, now what, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, I always think about that. It's like nowadays, I do like these opportunities, like a podcast has really open, indoors for athletes and it's great but it shouldn't be like they have to hustle a hundred different side jobs you know to make to make decent money yeah i mean i agree with you i think there is a component that we're seeing even in in our racers right like that for some of them it's exactly as you described right like their their focus is pretty singular and this is what you know they view This is my finite time to become the best in the world at what I am, what I want to be. I think that there are also other competitors who are like, I do have other interests.

I do have other things that I care about. That's where like for us, the storytelling components come in because both of those are interesting, right? Someone who is just very singularly focused on achieving this thing. This is my life. This is what I care about. Like, I want to watch that. I care about that. I want to learn more.

And then there's also other people who are like, oh, I'm. very into whatever, X, Y, Z. And this is something that's like a big passion of mine, that, you know, maybe that becomes the thing that they do when they're done being an athlete. But that is also interesting to audience. It's especially interesting. It's a story. Right.

I mean, I think it's interesting to people to know more about who these competitors are, right? Like, that's the core, right? And you need to be able to have a platform that enables them to tell those stories. And that can be hard when things are all over the calendar and nobody's, really necessarily knows how to follow. You have to be like an informed fan to be able to know how to watch things that are happening in the sport. And so, yeah, that's also part of why Grand Stam Track was founded. It was like, how can we provide a platform so that whatever is important to the athletes can become something that people care about? Because now, I mean,

it's like in any sport, right? If you know something about a person who is participating or competing in that sport, suddenly you have buy in. You're more invested, yeah. Of course. I mean, it's very, very simple, right? And it can be at like the most, you know, dinky kids thing where it's like, oh, if that's your nephew or something, then suddenly you have, it's less, it's less lame. Right? Like, you know, you're like, oh, okay, like there's something to cheer for. There's something that I care about. And sometimes it's not even, it's not even that, right? Like, when people are betting on sports, sometimes it has to do with what's the point total outcome of something, right? It's not even necessarily about story time. But there's something that

pulls you in. And I think that that element is something that Grand Samtrak is pretty excited to provide. Yeah, I guess, you know, hearing you explain that, then I was like kind of reflecting going, yeah, I mean, like when Jordan was so popular, best in the world, there was no other outlet to find out any more about him. Yeah. So what we knew is what we saw on the court. And we loved it. That's all we got. But now when you were saying that, I was thinking, yeah, because Alexi mentioned And when she was running at Oregon, she was working on the movie. You know, she did a couple movies. So she liked having where she could dedicate, she was talking about this on the rich roll

podcast, but she could dedicate, get her miles in, do the track workouts, whatever. And then she could just turn it off instead of thinking about, like obsessing about running because she was working on the script or whatever. So it is, athletes are still humans. Yeah, exactly. And they're not going to have, just be like, maybe I was just like kind of kind of. and distilling it down. So too simple.

I'm just saying, okay, you're focused on this one thing for these eight years and that's it. But that's not real. I mean, I don't think you're wrong.

I think that there are athletes who are like that. I think that we have racers who are assigned on our, on our roster who I think are like that, who the main thing that they care about day in and day out,

the main thing that they focus on, the main thing that they shape everything about their life around is this. So I don't think you're wrong. I just don't, I don't think that that's probably

everybody, right? I think that there's shades to it. Yeah. And I do, because like I follow, or I mean, I watch all these videos, but there's another runner, Allie Ostrander, I think. She does a great job with her videos. And like kind of, it's running yes, that's whatever, but you have to, you know, the podcast and the videos and the, just just putting out more media. Because people do care. So she has, I like listening to her. I like listening to her. like she's like real and I like her videos and I nowadays they can athletes can do that and that's cool and hopefully they're she's making money from that and it's it's great but yeah I think I think to

your point about we get so invested in these athletes we want to know more you know and that's kind of how media works nowadays is like people will take all they can get if they care about you they want it all they want to know everything So I think that, yeah, you got the stars. People, you give them a story. They're going to follow along. And it's going to be exciting. It's going to be awesome.

I was curious too. So when you go to these track meets or like you've been to the ultras now, do you look at it like as a marketer and just be like, see all these opportunities or how could, man, I got some idea. We could grow this. Do you do that when you go to like a little. Ultra race. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, all the time. I mean, I think there's so much out there, right? Stuff, things to learn in every single space. And even more, I mean, I would say even more, it's things to learn from a space, right? In the way that all these different entities build their product, right? If the race is their product, right? How they build that product and how they position it.

I mean, even if you think, like, I didn't know anything about hard rock. But, you know, I know you had Emily on too. And, like, learning about hard rock from her made me care about hard rock. Right. I don't know anything about the race. I'm not, like I said, I'm not an ultra runner. It's not like anything. Anytime I'm going on a run and there's like a slight incline, I'm like, well, this is the worst part of my day.

Like, just not something that I'm passionate about. Right. But, you know, hearing her being passionate about that course and what, you know, what that course has meant to her and what that race means to her, I'm like, oh, that's freaking cool. And that race has really cultivated this idea, right, where people think of hard rock and they think a certain thing, right? And being able to have that identity in a somewhat crowded space, I mean, there's a lot of races that people can do a lot of different distances, a lot of different courses, but being able to carve out that identity and have people associated. you know, certain things with you, with your race. Oh, it's really tough. It's really steep.

It's really hard. It's a place where people go to like, you know, meet, meet the challenges both in themselves and outside of themselves, which I feel like is some of the stuff people say about that race. Yeah, I mean, more than anything, I feel like you can learn from that rather than, oh, what could I do better here in that space? I mean, in general, there's always stuff, especially in track. I mean, there's a lot that can be improved on.

But I'm also just sort of a, I love track, you know. So I'm not someone who's sitting here like, oh, track is so crappy. Like there's a lot of people who are naysayers, but like I love this sport. I've worked in this sport a long time. So you're not critiquing everything you see. I mean, I think that there's always stuff that can be improved, right? But at the baseline, I get excited to watch meets. I think it's fun.

I think if you have even a tiny little bit of investment in a single person, in it, you begin to get obsessed with it, right? You begin to do exactly what you're describing, right? You're clicking through videos and suddenly your 50 videos deep on some Thursday night. You're like, oh, wow, what am I even watching anymore, right? And I think that there are a lot of people out there who do that. So yeah, I think more than anything, it's, yeah, what can I learn from other spaces rather than how can I fix other spaces? I mean, I think about both, but. How are you telling these athlete stories? Are you guys doing your, um, own videos and interviews and things like that to give people a glimpse in because you mentioned

Emily Hanlon and she's incredible and it does make you when you listen to somebody who care I mean I was just thinking about I watch freaking ski I don't even ski I watch skiing videos like coming down create a content consumer yeah or yeah or uh I mean I don't even rock climbing yep Because you just like, oh, I wonder if that person could make it. So you just walked in. But it's all about the story in like, you know, the Golden Trail series does a good job. Solomon does a good job on videos and sharing. I've never run one of those races, but it's fun to watch.

And then you're like, you see these athletes who are kicking ass. I ran with one, Anna Gibson. And she's competed there. She competed in Olympic trials too. But you start following these people because you, you learn of their story and their personality and then you're watching everything. So what are you guys doing to shine the slide on the athletes? Yeah. So I mean, so part of it is even in the structure itself, right, and having those 48 racers that are signed with us because it means we can

tell a continuous story, right? If you're going to have a single meet, well, you'll tell stories about the people that you think are going to show up, but they might not show up. And also, then it's done. And then the meat's over. someone won and maybe it was the person that you talked about before the meet and maybe it wasn't. And then next year you have the meet again. There's not the ability to have a continuous thread, right? But with us, because we have a season, because we have those same racers competing slam after slam after slam, you're able to then have a thread to have continuity.

And so that's part of what we're going to be building into our broadcast. So, you know, we've been filming features with all of these racers that are going to be a part of our broadcast. But we've also had a pretty intentional push on our social media where we, first of all, last year in October, it was like my second or third week on the job. We had a big, we called it a race or summit, but it was essentially a media day where it was let's get everyone who signed so far. We didn't have our full roster at that point. I think it was like 25 or 27 of our racers were on board. And we brought them out to L.A. We had them in this big hangar.

And we had all of these stations, right? It was like in front of LEDs so that we could get super cool graphics that can go on the big screens in stadiums. It was headshots. It was social media walls. It was, you know, we had a glam bot, you know, that thing that they have at the Oscars. We had interviews. We had, they did these confessionals in a photo, like a little photo booth. That's cool.

We had a promo video that we could have a commercial with. And it was just this like big production. But all of it was, okay, it's October. our first event isn't until April, and we need to churn. We need to have stuff that gets people excited about what's coming up. I mean, the only way that you can really do that in any meaningful way is if you focus on the competitors themselves. And so we had these racers. We have the ability to talk to them, to learn from them, to hear more about their stories.

And yeah, so we invested a lot in having that opportunity for all of them to come out and have, I think, like nine different stations, which, I mean, we pull content from that every single. single day. What do you mean nine different stations? Yeah. So I mean, that's what I was saying. Like there's like a social media wall. There's like a photo, they got their portraits taken, then they had head shots taken. And so, you know, it's also like the simple things, right?

Like if you were to look at like even like a world athletics, like they have all these athlete profiles, they actually do an incredible job of keeping track of everybody's personal bests and results and seasons best. It's a really very dynamic repository of information. But oftentimes what they do is they pull photos from credentials, right? So like your little accreditation that you get at every meet. And I can promise you that if someone had to pull a photo of my credential and put it up on my profile page, you'd be like, whoa, that's a rough picture. Yeah, I'm never sharing that.

Right. Like, I mean, it's like if someone had to put a passport photo up of you and that was like, exactly, right? You don't want every single person associating that picture with you for the rest of your life next to all of your performances. And so I was like, let's do high end, like portrait shots. Let's do head shots that can be utilized dynamically

high-res on broadcast graphics. There's a really, I mean, I'm very excited for people to tune into the broadcast because it's been a very, very cool and thoughtful and innovative approach that that team has had building out what that's going to look like. I'm very excited for people to be able to tune into it

and see how, grand slam track is positioning the sport and how people can consume that content on a broadcast. How did, is it employees of Grand Slam track that did these packages or did you guys hire an outside production company like a Hollywood high end? How did you get, I can't wait to see it. So I'm assuming it's like incredible, but how did you find talent for that? Yeah, I mean, I think we're doing the full gamut, right? I mean, we have, you know, we have a permanent full-time team, and then we have, you know, external partners and teams that we've hired on to help deliver on.

I mean, it is a very big thing to be putting on for massive meets that are all brand new in places that, you know, the team who's putting on hasn't done it before, meaning us, we're a brand new league. You know, as an example, this first one that we have coming up is in Jamaica, right? And so it's, have anyone on our personal team ever put on a meet in Jamaica? No. Yeah. Right. And so it's all of the things that come along with launching something in a new place, in a new stadium, which, you know, there's complications there.

So certainly there are lots of external people that are helping us. But in terms of the vision and in terms of like that core, what are we trying to achieve and how can we bring this to new audiences and also retain audiences that care about track? that is a very, like, core pulse that comes straight from our leadership all the way on down. How do you get the, yeah, that's interesting. How do you get the racers to talk shit about each other? They want to. Really?

Oh, yeah. Because that's what people love. And I think the thing is, right, you almost feel like you need permission, right, to say something like, like, oh, this guy or something like that, right? And I think honestly, track tends to be a bit formal, weirdly, right? It's kind of like a low stakes environment often. Like it's not uber glamorous like an F1 with, you know, all of this shiny stuff. Yeah.

But I think it still does have sort of a traditional kind of formal feel to it. And I think that people are very generally, very polite to each other and very respectful. And you probably have met a lot of track. athletes who are just like, oh, those are really nice people. Those are good people. But I think that also they're really highly competitive people. Yeah, very much. They want to win.

There's a reason that, like you said, they're devoting so much of their time across all of their days and all of their months and all of their years of their life to this purpose. It's because they want to be the best. And they want to beat the person next to them who also wants to be the best. And when you have all of those people in a line together, that's the point, right? That's what racing is. So yeah, it honestly, it's not like you have to really work very, very hard to pull out. Even people who are more focused on themselves, right?

Because I'm sure you're used to hearing that answer on a broadcast, right? Like, oh, I'm just focused on my own race, right? Yeah. But even people who really do believe that, they still want to kick the other person's ass, right? Like they want to run their own race. And that race means they win. And you can't win if you don't beat somebody else. You have to beat everybody else to win.

And so I think that that thread is like is very, very present in everyone. And it's just how it manifests and how you can pull it out. And oftentimes you pull it out by putting those people, again, in those lanes next to each other. Yeah. To make those fireworks happen. When I think of like my favorite storylines,

it's always the outspoken athletes. It's always like Central West was really good at, you know, he, one time he crawled his throw or whatever he did, cross the line. One other times of, and I think of, I like that Sprint series that was on.

That was cool. It showed a lot of the rivalry parts. So I do know they are very competitive. That comes with the territory when you want to be the best in the world. But it is pretty buttoned up sometimes with track about, and I just like when it's like,

gets a little more. I love villains. Yeah. I want villains. I mean, that's what you have to look at it, right? Like you, It is an entertainment product.

Yeah. And I think the people who truly understand that, the athletes who understand that across the board in any sport, who understand, like, I am delivering an entertainment product is, those are the people who, that's how you create fandom, right? And that's how you create truly crazy fandom, people who become obsessed, right? It's they understand the position that they have and they use it as a lever to, yeah, to show people that. Right. And that's a, I mean, I'm going to have Shelby Hulahan on here. And I like, you know, you can say whatever you want. I just like she's adding a different element.

And like people are talking about her and track and the 1,500 and the 3,000. And whether she should be running or shouldn't or making the world, I just love it. People are talking about it. Yeah. And I'm like, cool. If she has to be the villain, I don't know if she likes it. I'm probably not. I don't know.

Some people, I don't know, maybe some people do like it. But I like that, the storyline. It just adds another layer to it, you know? And I don't know, it's make people care, right? Yeah, I mean, and also like, if everyone is the nice guy, it gets pretty boring, right? Yeah. And so you need to have that tension. Tension is what makes things interesting.

Right. Like, if there isn't tension, whether that's like internal tension, right? I mean, I think in the podcast that I've listened to you, it's like, it's where, where are those moments of just like you met resistance within yourself, right? Like pushing past something. And that's where anything is interesting. Otherwise, why would you tune in at all? If it's a foregone conclusion, it's boring, right?

I mean, we're talking about Max Verstappen, Ben and I about F1 just the other day. And it was like, it's like very dynamic this last season of just there were lots of different race winners and there were lots of people. And there was like, people were mad at each other. And there was like people leaving teams and drama. And that's what makes something interesting. If it's just sort of, okay, the same, same stuff over and over.

Yeah, it becomes hard. Yeah, if it's just a forum chart and that's just what it was, you didn't have to race, pretty boring. Yeah, it's why people like March Madness, right? Because there's there's trauma. There's upsets, right? And you have teams that people just hate. And then the people who love those teams are like, yeah, well, I hate you. It just like is what creates something that people will care of.

about. Yeah, that's the point. What in your long career doing all these amazing things, what stands out to you? What's a moment where you're like, you'll never forget? Because you've done a lot of epic things, been involved in a lot of incredible things. What is something that you're just like, that's what I was exactly what I was hoping would happen and where I'd be and able to experience this. Do you have anything like that?

Yeah, I mean, I hope this is, it will be one of those things. I think the first thing that kind of comes to my mind is, well, I guess there's two things that come to my mind. And it's funny because as you're living through challenges, right, you're like, this sucks. Yeah, always. I hate this. I don't want to do this anymore. And then when you're on the other side of it and you look back on it multiple years later, you're like, that was great. I survived that and it was really, really cool.

I think of, yeah, for the world championships, right? I mean, it was a very large scale event that we put on here in Eugene. And Eugene is a small place with its own unique challenges. Obviously, it's an incredible place. I live here. I love Eugene. But there are things that make it not conducive to a huge, huge scale event. And so figuring out how to overcome those challenges and turn them into opportunities,

which is just, you know, a little bit of corporate speak. But it's true, right? Like how can you make things that make putting on an event hard, actually a bonus to people who might be coming and coming and attending the event? And so there were just a lot of things that made that process arduous. But on the other side of it, it was like a lot of pride to have been able to make sure that, you know, the city, the state of Oregon and the U.S. was reflected in those championships. It was the first world championships in track and field that have ever taken place in the U.S. outdoor champs. And yeah, I was very proud to have helped deliver that.

And I remember, I mean, there were lots of sleepless nights of just long, long hours. And, you know, on pretty much the last day, I just remember standing on top of the stadium and being like, Yeah, I bet. We did it. That was huge, though. I mean, from a fan, it went off seamlessly. I mean, I know the city gets busy. We're not a big 150,000 in Eugene and 50 in Springfield,

so you're not going to have a lot of hotels and things like that. And you had so, you know, the stadium holds whatever. I don't know, is it not 20,000. How many does it hold? 12,000, 650. Oh, okay. Yeah, but those people have to stay somewhere, right? Yeah.

And it's, yeah, I could see that could be a challenge. But, yeah, that meat went off. seemed like, I think it was 10, was it 10 days? Something like that? It's a long event. Yeah, it's a long time. But, well, whatever part you played in it, good job. Thank you.

So I'm, well, you said there's two things. Oh, well, the other part was, man, we had to put on the Olympic trials. The 2020 Olympic trials became the 2021 Olympic trials. And, you know, we had to navigate, trying to put on a giant, large scale event. like that in a pandemic with constantly changing guidelines and expectations and rules and, you know, how you shift from you can't have fans and actually you can have some fans. But they need to be the way about how are you going to sell tickets? The tickets that had already been sold.

How do you refund them? Like just all of those processes. Extra layer of challenge or 10 extra layers, really. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was, it was definitely a challenge. And, you know, at the core of it, it's still like, We want a need to select a team for the Olympic Games. We need to provide an experience for the athletes that is as good as we can make it.

We want people to enjoy in whatever way that they can interact with this event. We want them to enjoy it. But yeah, I mean, it was definitely hard. Like the thing that I had to do was I basically led all of our comms and media operations for that event, which for that we had to have, we couldn't have media on site. And so we had to set up and develop and deploy a virtual mix zone. And so we had all of these like tech and having, you know, computers and the athletes were sitting down here like you and I are talking to each other. And then we would have moderators that would be getting questions over the internet from reporters all around the world.

I mean, it was a very, very, yeah, it was a complex project that had to be delivered. And it was difficult. Yeah. But in the end, it was really good. still got incredible interviews and content out of, out of the athletes who were there, which again is the point, like if you can give a platform and if you can create a platform, the athletes will make pretty special moments happen. Yeah, well, that worked out too.

And I went to the meet and it was, yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy. What a mess of a time. So then I guess one other thing, with all your experience, And you're smart, professional, so you should have all the good answers, I think. What advice do you have to athletes that, for just capitalizing on their opportunities, like whether it's on the track or off the track or looking out for the athlete, what advice would you have people coming through?

Yeah. From a business standpoint, I guess. Well, it's interesting. Like I, so, you know, I went to. to high school in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. That's where I went to high school. I was a very, very good track athlete in Abu Dhabi because my school had 57 people in my graduating class. And I was very good there. And then I came to the States and I was a walk-on at Minnesota. And I remember sitting down on the first day as I was joining this new team. I obviously didn't know anybody there.

I had like basically cold emailed the coach and been like, can I come on the team? And I was sitting there and I heard, you know, one of, one of the athletes who was, it was like their beginning of the year awards, right, where they, like, honor what had happened the year before. And they had recognized one of the athletes who had, who was very incredible. She had, like, gotten second in the multi, at the NCAA championships, the D1 championships. She was very good. And they, like, awarded her for her performance in a high jump. She was a very good high jumper. And I was in the high jump and like her what she had done the previous season was like freaking 30 centimeters higher or something than what I had done and I was like yeah oh my god I suck like I'm really

bad actually and it was just me how high did you yeah what did I hear that right what was that height please um and I just like I remember thinking oh I'm over my head oh yeah like I'm I'm not going to be able to do this. Like just the reality check of like, you know, what I had thought I was or how good I was. Small fish, big, big pot, whatever. Right. And I, I don't think that that's probably a rare story. I'm sure lots of people experience it. But yeah, then it was like adjusting mentally to, I mean, I still love doing what I do. I still want to get better. But I, I mean, I was never going to be, you know, I mean, Ben, Ben is an Olympic finalist, my partner. I was never going to be an Olympic finalist. I I don't have the talent.

And adapting expectations and figuring out, okay, well, that's not going to happen. Okay. But I still really like doing this thing. And it still does bring me a lot of joy. And I still want to be the best that I can be at it. All to say, like, you can still find pathways in sport or in whatever, even if you're not the best at it. Right. And so, you know, Ben has made his whole life and his whole career out of track.

in field. He, you know, he was very, very, very good as a 1,500 meter runner. He's an ultra runner now. And I also found, like, a way in sport, and it's not as an athlete, but I really love track, and I have managed to find a spot within it. And I think that's super possible. Even if it's not as an athlete, it can still happen in a lot of different ways, right? And I mean, like, I mean, even like right, even you, right, you've made your career also in sport. And I think there's there's just a reality that there are a lot of different paths. And I think it doesn't have to be this one path. Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a very long winded way of saying essentially, I think that there are different ways that you can approach goals. And if you can sort of stick with whatever your core is, the thing that makes you really happy or makes you passionate, you can figure out ways to sort of serve that passion. Yeah. Yeah, that's good advice because I could hear people, or not here, but like people say, well, my dream was this and I just couldn't make it happen. It's like, well, yeah, that happens to a lot of people. Because if your dream was to make the Olympics, but you realize you weren't going to, what are you supposed to do, give up? No, you just was like, well, let's just see where this goes.

And you went down that path and here you are. So it wasn't, yeah, I like that. It's like I like not giving up on just because the dream wasn't like maybe late in bed at night thinking about. Maybe you could still turn out pretty damn good. And that's what I heard there. And you mentioned Ben too. It's like, now I see him.

You know, he's got his endless miles project. So there's more to just be. an athlete on the track, you know, I know he cares very much about and I know you're part of this also, but helping underprivileged youth with shoes and gear and planting the trees. I don't know how many trees you guys are going to need now for every run that goes under four minute miles. Like now 15 year olds are doing it apparently. Yeah. So I don't know how much land you got over there at Pistol, but you need some more. But it's a cool thing. Every runner that runs under four or that runs under four minute mile has a tree,

and that's part of this project you guys are doing, and every woman that runs under 4.30 for the mile. And that's a legacy type thing where the runner did this and here's the result and here's giving back to the community and habitat and things like that. But I just love that it's more than just being the athlete. There's more to life, obviously, than that.

Yeah, I mean, I think it even goes back to what we're talking about earlier, right, is like what is at the core of what, you know, you care about and what are your passions. And sometimes that's solely maybe sport. Sometimes that's this one thing, but also people grow and people are dynamic. I mean, the idea for the endless mileage project, which is the nonprofit that been founded. And he'd been thinking about it for a long time. I mean, he had just been kicking this idea around in his head of just like different elements. And it was like, man, I have all this gear. I get so much gear. And I'm very lucky to get all this gear. appreciate my sponsor who provides it for me. But like, I'm not going to use all this stuff. And what

happens with all this stuff? Okay, well, you know, people are just like one day they get sick and tired of looking at a closet that's overstuffed and then they just put it into a bag and then they take it to Goodwill or something. And it was like, well, this is like really nice stuff. Like, this is stuff that like could change a young athlete's life. Right. And so he'd just been thinking about it for a long time. And obviously, as a Myler himself, he'd been thinking about the barrier of breaking four minutes and there's a lot of, you know, discussion and debate of like, does that barrier? Is that still valid? Does it still matter? And thinking through, you know, what's the comparable barrier for women for four minutes? And all of those thoughts had kind of

been just knocking around in his head and he would talk about it all the time. I was like, bro, you just got to just do it. Just do it. Like, just do it. And so he did. He just started it. And so, yeah, together I like help out on all the operations and stuff. But Yeah, I think that that entity, the Endless Mileage Project, is just a very, very cool example of somebody just seeing a pretty simple thing that can happen. And oftentimes we just don't actually do those things because it feels really hard, right? Like starting a nonprofit. Like Ben was like, how man, start a nonprofit? I don't want to do that.

Like, I don't want to do paperwork. What do I have to do? Do I have to hire a lawyer? Oh, how much do I have to pay? All of just like those little things that make it seem sort of hard. But it's actually just like really simple. He just started it. And then started collecting gear, able to distribute gear.

He actually just got back from a trip where he went all the way up to northern Washington right at the border. And then came all the way down. And he did this huge loop of some of those rural schools in central Washington dropping off gear. Right. And he said he was talking to one of the coaches and the coach was like, how did you hear about us? Like how did you know we existed? And he was like, we talked to this coach. He talked to this coach.

But I think all of it was just like seeing something simple that could be done, right? We can collect gear from people who have an abundance of it and we can redeploy that gear to people who have use of it, who can use it. And that can sort of transform their journey as a young athlete. I mean, and we've experienced that. I mean, we've had people come tell us like, you gave me a rain jacket when I was, you know, younger because we've been operating now for a few years. And I've, you know, I've worn it for the last four years. And now I'm in this run club and running is a huge part of my life. And it started with that rain jacket.

And it sounds super cheesy because it is kind of cheesy, but it's also really cool. Like the fact that it doesn't take very much, right? And that's what's so beautiful about running. It doesn't actually take very much to do. But you need to have a pair of shoes, right? And the places that we go to sometimes and you see people in there, they are, they're running in a pair of, you know, knock off crocs. actually they're running in a pair of of converse because that's what they have yeah and so yeah being able to to sort of collect all that stuff redistribute it to people who can use it and then

with the trees again it was like it is a big deal to break four break 4 30 but there's not really any monument to it it's not like there's not that many people in the world and certainly you know the fast forest which is what we're talking about recognizing is the U.S. athletes who have done it. And so it's not, I mean, through 2033, I think we were at like 840. No, through 224, we were at 840 some total in the fast forest. And you guys have... In history, right?

And you guys have the tree in their name. Correct. By the tree and it's like, they can watch it grow. Exactly. And like the, you know, there's this thing that was planted in your honor. because you did this achievement, right? And that's it. It doesn't need to be more than that.

It's just something simple that honors a pretty impressive performance that otherwise doesn't have any kind of testament to it. Like, that's tangible. Yeah, it's a cool thing. And it's right here. I just think about like years down the road, say, you know, 30 years down the road, that person who broke four minutes could bring their family or their grandkids or their kids or whatever.

And like, here's the tree. And here's because I did this. That would be a pretty amazing experience. It's even happened already. I mean, I was at the Eugene Marathon last year. And a guy came up to me, the head of marketing there is one of my good friends. And she introduced me to him. And she had told him because he had broken for years ago, I mean, decades ago, I think.

And she had said, he had emailed them and said, oh, like, what can I do when I'm in town when I'm in Eugene? And she had mentioned, oh, you should go to the fast forest, which is at Doris Ranch in Springfield. And so he had gone and then had been very moved and he had brought his family to like see his tree. He didn't know what it had existed. He had got the opportunity to do it. He was there with his family. And she she introduced me to him at the like the expo at the Eugene Marathon. And like it was, I mean, I'm a pretty emotional person.

I'm half Greek. So like it's a little bit of part of me. But like I was very emotional. And he was emotional too. He had like tears in his eyes. And he was like, it's just so cool like this thing that I did that like was a big part of my life. but it was, you know, a part of my past, like being able to bring my family and, like, show them just this simple thing. I mean, they are like, they're little trees right now.

It's not like they're these, you know, people have a vision of what that might look like. And it's like, it's kind of twig-like, you know, it's not a robust tree that has had many years of growth. It will, though. It will, though, exactly. And he was just like, just seeing it made him, made him pretty, just pretty moved, which I felt pretty special. Yeah, that is neat. I mean, I mentioned, I thought, I mentioned Piscuit, but I meant Doris. Ranch. So it is in Springfield here. So shout out to Springfield. Springfield's the place.

Do you guys live in Eugene? We live in Eugene. Oh, yeah. I know you're a townie. Ben says you're a townie. But yeah, I mean, that I did want to just give a shout out to Ben with doing that with the shoes and the gear because if you could, if you've ever run a mile fast and like you had to wear Walmart high tops compared to actual running shoes, a whole different experience. So those people that didn't have the right stuff that were forced to run a mile like because if that's, That's what PE class did in the wrong stuff. You'd never want to do it again. But if you had something good and you actually felt good, yeah, it could change your trajectory.

And yeah, I mean, that's awesome. I love it. I mean, think about being a kid who goes for a run because you have to do it in PE and you don't have a rain jacket in a Pacific Northwest, you know, winter or spring. Like, it's not that fun. Not awesome, right? Like, you're soaked and, like, we. We have that sort of damp cold here that just like makes you just feel it more, even though it's not, it's not a Minnesota winter.

No, it's deep. That's dry cold. Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a different cold. Yeah, no, but this, this wet, like if it's 38 degrees in raining, it doesn't get any worse. No, it's miserable. But yeah, so if you don't have the right stuff, yeah, a whole different experience. But that's, I mean, I did, I'm glad I remembered that. I don't take notes.

I think I'm Joe Rogan and I can just like have this great conversation with no notes. But I'm like, God, I'm glad I remembered that one. That's good. Because Ben does a good job. Or in YouTube. No, no. That's, Ben takes all the credit for that. It was definitely his passion project.

I just helped out. He's so unassuming, but like people love Ben Blankenship. Like his Eugene Marathon or whatever. No, it's big timber running, right? Yeah. He told me the other day that like 80 people show up. And I think he charges like a dollar a year or something like that. I'm like, dude, 80, what do you do with 80 people over there at the track?

It's like, man, that's a lot. But people just love like, oh, this guy was an Olympian. He's such a nice guy and he's helping me. So, I don't know, a lot of excitement. You would embarrass him. He hates people talking about him. Really? Yeah, he'll like listen to this.

I can imagine him. He's just going to be like, ugh. No, he's such a stuff. I'm like the biggest fan. and he's such a good runner. And like when he was getting ready for that for his hundred, whatever he was doing, the 10,000 feet a day. And I don't know how many miles.

It's like, God, just a machine. Such a stud. Blech. I know. It's a lot of work. That's why I'm like, I'm always like, how can these athletes be compensated fairly for this stuff? It's like ultra runner.

It's back to the main point. It always is, right? Yeah. The degree of difficulty is. high and what it takes to be excellent what it takes to be sacrifice that highest level is is tremendous and so how can we set up a system that yeah pays for that that that honors that yeah I'm always like i'm always like i'm always like i'm a i'm a big cordonie de walter fan so i see solomon and i'm like why don't they have a Courtney de walter shoe kit shorts with her name on it it's like

would you celebrate the goat please? Are you kidding me? He's like, oh, we gave her her color away. And maybe that's what she wants. So it's like, who am I to say anything? Maybe she's like, no, I don't want my name on it. But I'm like, I want these incredible athletes just to be elevated. And I want them to be household names.

So I'm always interested in that. Well, normally, once I get done rambling, these dipshits over here have some questions. So this is Connor, but we call them Larry. and this is what is James, what we call him Gideon. Why? I don't know.

Gideon's my middle name. And Lawrence is his, and we've known each other since first grade, so we've always gotten by Gid and Larry. Gid and Larry, that's like, I feel like those are the names of the Muppets that are like in the theater.

They're like in the balcony in the theater. That's what I imagine right now. That's what it looks like. We are Muppets. I can kind of see that about you guys. And here we are with the Muppets. What's a question from the Muppets today for Jesse? One thing, as you were talking about broadcasting,

something of mine that's kind of a favorite is on college game day. They have like guest appearances in the broadcasts. Like Shane Gillis did one. And, you know, I feel it brings in some outside interest to, you know, watch either the pregame or maybe it's post. He's been in a couple of those two. Do you see any chance? for that with the with the league or what a great question yeah you teed me up perfectly uh we do so

you know we have a we're going to be on c w and peacock in the u.s peacock Friday Saturday Sunday all live all events uh CW the Saturdays and Sundays of slams because all all four of the slams are Friday Saturday Sunday um so yeah you can watch both um on a streamer and you can watch on a on TV on free to air um and so So those deals are a three-hour window of which the first half-hour is a pre-show. Then you have two hours of competition and then a half-hour post-show. And so all designed to kind of give you that time and window to hype up the races that are about to happen, to talk to people, to have dynamic analysis, to, yeah, I mean, joke around

and just like get people excited or, you know, whatever, anxious, pumped up about everything that's about to come and then to like have true time. You're not going to the exact last minute of when the broadcast window has to sort of, yeah, talk about what happened and really take the time to let something unfold. I mean, there are a lot of people who, who I think rightfully acknowledge that there's room to grow in announcing in the sport of track. And I think part of it is, you know, sometimes you do need a little bit of bandwidth, a little bit of space to tell a full story. And so, yeah, part of that exact vision is to be able to have that time to do that, to really explore what happened, why different opinions on what that means and what that might mean for the next slam because we have a next slam. So you can sort of position it as like, what does this mean for the rest of the season?

Which, you know, otherwise you can't really do too much in a standard track meet. So yeah. So we need Tony Hinchcliff up there roasting the runners. I think a roast would be good. That would be good. I'm excited for people to see the pre and poe show. We've assembled a, we haven't announced it yet, but we've assembled a really great team of broadcast talent

that I think will be pretty exciting for people. Good. Okay, next question. Go Muppets. Something that I like that the PGA tour does is with like the U.S. Open, they have a qualifying series where your average Joe could get get in basically by a series of qualifying events. If they win and they place themselves,

there's a couple open spots for the US Open for your local course legend to make it. And then also the PGA tour has Monday qualifying events where anyone can go and qualify for the tournament on the coming weekend. They might be a little bit into the future, but do you foresee that for this as well? And how would you kind of navigate that? Allcomers meet. Qualification? I mean, I think it's a super interesting question. question, right? Because I think what I will say is there are a lot of very creative minds

who are sitting down thinking about how can we package this. And I think part of it, first of all, is we want everyone's focus at all time to be on one thing, right? Which is, I mean, honestly, the core of why it is just racing, right? It is just track races. There aren't field events. And it's not because, you know, Michael Johnson doesn't like field events. It's because he knows track races. He was a 200 and 400 meter runner. And, you know, part of that core is we can't tell people that the thing that you're watching is the most important thing and then have something else happening at the same time telling you that you need to pay attention to that too. Yeah. Right. The thing that's in front of you has to be the most important. Otherwise, why would somebody

tune in and why would somebody sit in a seat and concentrate on something? Because sometimes they cut to other things. Yeah. And even inside a stadium, right? Like, I love track and I was a high jumper. So like I love the high jump. It's one of my favorite events to watch. But you're either watching the high jump or you're watching what's happening on the track. And telling an audience to do both and saying both are equally important is a hard thing for a general fan. Right. For a track fan, that's not a problem.

But for someone who's flipping channels, right, and maybe doesn't really know the context of what they're watching, you're saying like, well, what am I, what are you telling me is important, right? And so in any case, I think that the model is designed to drive focus and attention, right? And so there's people who are involved. I mean, there are people who are part of Grand Slamtrak who are coming from a lot of different areas. Like my boss, my VP of Marketing and Partnerships, she spent 10 years at Red Bull, right? And so she has a mentality from that background. We have people who come from the NFL.

We have people who come from WWE who are just coming from a lot of different areas within sports and events. broader marketing society. I mean, also people who have worked on, you know, award shows in Hollywood, people who have worked on large-scale film productions. And so, like, across the board, there's just a lot of different ideas and a lot of different information. And how all of that feeds into what are the things that we can do to sort of create a compelling narrative that centers our competitors and the races that are happening and doesn't necessarily make those things a sideshow, but also elevates other elements that, that, you know, make people want to tune in because you have to. You have to do those things. And so I would say, you know,

in a sort of roundabout, very roundabout way of answering your question is I think there's a lot of different ideas that are on the table and part of the long-term vision for what Grand Samtrak will be and whether that's exhibition races, whether that's, you know, unique matchups and completely off events for different competitors who are coming from a very high end of the spectrum and distance to low end of the spectrum of distance and meeting in the middle. And I think there's a lot of different ideas for how it can happen. You know, people from the outside coming in and participating in a race, absolutely that's something that, you know, I've heard talked about around a table. I do think that for us, for year one, we have some education to do. We need to explain our

product to people. And because of that, I think we have to be somewhat focused on saying like, This is what you should care about. It's the best competitors in the world. This is head-to-head rivalries, matchups, and they're really freaking fast. Yeah. Right. And so we have to focus on that to create buy-in and to have people care about those elements. And then I think through that, then we can expand.

Yeah, I think when you're talking about the track fans are used to, okay, we're going to run the 400, but now you've got this triple jumper out there. And he's like trying to get the crowd to clap for him. You know, so we're used to like, oh, wait, they're going to do this, but let me focus on this jump real quick. Whereas a viewer flipping through, yeah, it doesn't get that part of it. And then I was thinking about when you're talking about different events, like, I can't even remember what his name is, but the pole Volter, he ran that, I think, 100 meter. Yeah, Mando. Yeah. And actually fast as hell. Both of them were pretty fast. But that's not their event. And it was, I think a lot of people paid attention. So, yeah, I could see that happening down the road, you know, to your point. But what else you got? What kind of resistance have you guys gotten from the traditional governing bodies or organizations in track? And how have you navigated that to kind of maybe appease them, but also push the success of Grand Slam track forward? Yeah.

I mean, I think that this is a question that is kind of like a lot in the sense. social media sphere and a lot of, and in press and in media too. And I would say, I mean, and it really is true that we sort of think that, you know, a rising tide raise, like, raises all ships or whatever the expression is. And I think, I do think that the governing bodies also, also think that because we don't really, we don't view Grand Slam track as like an alternative to world athletics. I mean, our, our events are sanctioned by world athletics. They still exist within the sphere of, you know, all of the governing structures that governs sport. You know, we need a USATF sanction for our U.S. slams as an example.

So I don't necessarily know that I would frame it that way, that it's resistant. I think it is actually pretty cooperative. But I think that what our goals are as a league are different kind of necessarily than what the goals are of like a USA track and field, for example. Because at the core, if you even think about it, and this is like pretty pretty in the weeds track stuff. So I apologize for viewers who might not care too much about track. But USATF is our national governing body. And really what their core ethos is on a professional senior track event side is really to serve to select Team USA. And that's their purpose.

And so you think about it like right with the NBA versus like with USA basketball. Like people aren't looking at USA basketball to like change the course of history and market everything for basketball. People look to the NBA to do that. Right. And so sort of the vision is that Grand Sime track comes in and serves that purpose, right? It serves as a marketing unit, a league that can do those things, right? And it takes money, right? There's a pretty significant fundraising effort and first initial investment round that happened

to enable that to happen because a lot of it does come down to money, right? It's expensive. It's $12.6 million across the course of the entire season in prize money. That's a lot of money. You need to raise that money. Let alone the stadiums you're renting and the production Exactly, the staff that it takes to do all of those things. So, I mean, I don't think that there's any realistic way that anybody can think that one entity is going to just come in and just, you know, completely take over and change anything in this, like, combative type of thing.

I don't, at least I don't view it that way. I really do think it's about, you know, there was, there is a packaging problem and how can we better package something that people. something that people care a lot about so that it can reach a broader audience, certainly in the United States. I mean, there's definitely different, I mean, peaks and valleys across the world about how interest of track is.

I mean, in the UK, it's a very, very popular sport with tons of public media attention and all of those athletes are household names. Definitely, the ones who are getting medals at an Olympic Games are celebrities and stars. It isn't really like that in the U.S. And so, yeah, sort of thinking through how we can position ourselves as a league to fill that need, I think is more how we frame it. Yeah, that's good.

That's a win. We talked about this a couple different times on the podcast, but I want to hear your opinion on having ultra in the Olympics. I mean, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, you say that in my mind as like a person who puts on events immediately goes to, the broadcasting of that, the sheer, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the reason for, we're, we're, we're watching, um, and I, and I, and I mean, the ability to, uh, when you think about the logistics that are involved in covering a race of that duration, right? And that physical distance, it's really hard. I mean, if you look at marathon coverage, uh, like, if you watch a New York City marathon and like how they've done it a lot and the reality is it's just like sometimes it's really

hard to have a live feed go through really tall buildings right it's just hard you're like how can it still be hard like we've been doing it so long how can this feed still cut out but that stuff's really hard um and so my immediate mind when you talk about ultra going into the olympics i'm like oh think about the challenge of the broadcast that that would bring but i think it would be a really cool challenge and i definitely think that it should happen people talk a lot about um cross country going into the winter Olympics. That would be so cool. It would.

I would tune into that. Yeah, it's, you know, Ultra has, you've heard, have you heard a backyard ultras? Yep. So it could be just a four, basically it's a four mile track and you do it every hour for as long as you can do it every hour. So the coverage, it wouldn't be like a Coca-Dona 250 miles to cover. It'd just be a four-mile course. But you'd have to think that, I mean, right now, Harvey,

I think Lewis is his last name, but he's went for 450 miles. Every hour, so it's like four days, no sleep because you got to line up every hour. Could you imagine when a gold medal's on the line? That was for, probably didn't get anything for going 40 to 50 miles. Maybe got like a coin or a packet of trail mix. Something, yeah. A fruit leather. Right.

So when you have an Olympic gold medal on the line, what could people do? I think about that all the time because I think that there's so much growth that we're about to see in Ultra. I mean, I think in general it has continued to professionalize over the last probably two decades or so. And I think it's, I feel like we're on the cusp of like this pretty big explosion. And it's probably already happening. And again, I'm not an expert in the ultra running field. So maybe I'm talking out of my butt. But I am around people who talk about it, so maybe I'm just like a parrot right now.

But no, I think that there's a tremendous interest in it. There's the capacity where if you have informed people who are talking about it, like the commentary can be really cool. And that's what, like, when I was watching that Kokodona stuff, I was like, so sucked in. And like, I, again, like, I don't know the people who are running. I don't know much about any of it. But they do a really good job.

of that broadcast and you're just like what now what next yeah what's going on who's there what's that camera oh i think i see someone in the background of that camera what are they doing oh my gosh they don't look great and you just sort of get sucked in so yeah yeah it's uh i could see where there's so much potential there because on a race like that it's always about you can talk about how the person trains because it's always like like i was saying ben's training how many miles a week did they prepare how much vert were they getting every week in the race how much are they getting every week in the race how much are they fueling? Like, you know, what are their carbs per hour?

That's always a thing. Or nowadays is a thing. It's like there's so many different layers to it because to navigate for two or three or four days over the course of a race, you have to, it's up and down. Did this guy sleep? How long is there's a sleep cam, you know, keeping track. So good. Yeah, it's like, because on the track, you just don't have those challenges.

It's over. You know, even long races are over quick. But, yeah, I mean, I could, I was just thinking about all. the things you could like on a high in production man and eryipa does a good job that's who puts on the coca donna and they do a great job but it's like man the the potential is insane i mean so much of that right comes down to the information that an audience is able to get out of what they're watching right and it's and it is why the olympics are are very good to watch right because that you have the experts in those fields who are talking about the things that you're watching and

like, you know, I don't know much about diving, but I get sucked into diving when I watch the Olympics. Like, I, I'm sure I would, you know, maybe be able to make it into the pool in some kind of like pointed angle if I were to try, but I would probably be pretty scared to do it on like the really high one. And like, that's about my understanding of diving, you know, and like synchronized diving. Like, oh my gosh. But you get so sucked in, right? It's like that whole thing where you're just like, pshy, I can do that as you're like sitting with your bag of potato chips. the couch. Like the big splash. You're like, oh, freaking terrible. But you get so, you suck. You do, right? Like you get so, you're like, oh my God, they just, their chances are done.

Under rotated. The Canadians, idiots, right? Like, you just kind of become a consumer of that sport. And then, like, drives you forward. And the Olympics do a really good job of that. And I think that exactly what you're describing, like, I can easily imagine it, right, where they're talking about, you know, their voices get quiet. And they're like, oh, is he going to take the second gel now or is it going to happen on the next one? He needs those calories. You know, and like this like the close up of the athlete sweating and like wiping the sweat out of his eyes. Oh, he didn't take a gel. What an idiot. I know. And then and then you'll see it, right? You'll see the devastation. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. I would watch that. I know. That's, that's kind of cool.

That's all from the Muppets. That's all the Muppets got. Well, I'm so excited. I hope that this becomes a thing. Now you can call them the Muppets. We're going to. I call them Dumb-Ficks Muppets, Peanut Gallery. Peanut Gallery. See, exactly. You are. That's what that's like the vision is exactly like that. The setup makes me feel like that. It is a peanut gallery. I like not being able to see them. We're going to have to wear Muppet costumes. Well, thanks, guys. That was a, I'm not going to say it was a good addition, but you guys have done worse.

So we're going in the right direction. Well, Jesse, I don't know. I mean, I had a great discussion. I loved learning more about your journey. and also Grand Slam track. And it's awesome to have you here. And I just want you to kick ass and can't wait to watch this stuff. So I appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. I hope everybody tunes in.

We're really excited for slams, four cities, Kingston, Miami, Philadelphia, L.A., all coming up between April and June of this year. First one's April 4th, the 6th. Tune in. Yeah, get it going. You got to meet coming up quick, so get ready. Got to go. Got to go.

Write some emails. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Keep hammering, guys.