MY FOND WISH as memory keeps alive the buzz of the first (so they say) World Ultimate Championship is that World Athletics can build upon its new big show. The 3-evening spectacle in Budapest made for a rollicking electric wrap to a delightful season even though I dressed too lightly for 50-degree weather and a light off-the-Danube breeze the first night.
WA asserted all along the up-tempo show was first and foremost a broadcast/streaming/social media-targeted effort as befits the market and fans’ consumption patterns globally.
Kudos to WA for taking a bright neon whack at meeting the audience on the screens and in the formats where they engage.
(By the way, do not miss in this issue the lively Ultimate Championship media analysis of correspondent Bill Cochran, an ad man by trade.)
Still athletes make their magic, the straw that ultimately (ark-ark) stirs the drink, in real stadiums in front of living, breathing, fans. To get it right, you’d better get them oohing, awing, hooting, hollering and applauding throughout.
The Ultimate Championship succeeded in that. It spun itself out in a tight, timely format with an athlete runway walk the day before, a dramatically black infield to spotlight field events in turn, the debut of a new World Athletics phone app and sharing of media clips with athletes so they could whip up and post their own audience-building spin on the event.
Mondo Duplantis even composed and performed an Ultimate Championship anthem. For real; if you caught the Peacock stream, you know that. Reportedly just 702,000 U.S. home viewers managed to for Sunday’s final session. That’s a pity.
Budapest was a blast. The compact formatting was mostly welcome. The opposite trend over decades at too many U.S. meets has driven away all but the nuttiest track nuts among us.
However, the UC’s 4-attempt horizontal jumps and throws (there were only three events in each category) played out as unreasonably cutthroat to my taste with fields pared to 6 after 2 rounds and then to 4 after the third round. The men’s hammer throwers got the worst of it as black paint from the grass, per reports, slickened the circle even more than precipitation already had. Local hero Bence Halász managed just one fair throw. World and Olympic champion Ethan Katzberg fouled out in the second round.
The $10-million in prize money ($150K to winners, $75K for 2nd, $40K for 3rd , $80K shared among winning relay teams) was record-breaking in our once “amateur” sport. For comparison, the DL Final prize pot in Brussels 5 days earlier totaled $2.4 million.
A lot to like, for sure. A lot to build upon. My big beef: there has got to be a way to do this with more than 28 events. Not all. I’m OK with this meet leaving out road, walks, multis, 10Ks and single-sex relays. We have the Olympics and World Championships for those.
Sure, money — and not insignificantly pulling together enough prize cash — had to factor into WA’s thinking on event inclusion.
But I’m not fully buying the “tight and entertaining package” rationale along with the declaration, “It’s important to keep the sessions to 3 hours.” Why am I calling a foul here?
The 2023 Diamond League Final in Eugene. What a meet! Of course, in doubling as that year’s Pre Classic, that Hayward Field affair must have benefited financially from Nike’s deep, T&F-loving pockets.
Nonetheless, insiders I spoke with on the scene in Budapest — TV commentators, retired top-tier Olympians and athlete managers among them — shared my delight. “Greatest-ever 2-day invitational meeting” was the praise phrase of the moment.
That’s right. 2-day. DL Final23 took place over two roughly 3-hour afternoons. Sure, some luck broke right. Or rather, athletes made luck. Two World Records, four American Records, greatest-ever men’s mile to that date, a wicked-fast Ingebrigtsen double, a Benjamin-Warholm war, Kipyegon in peak Kipyegon form. Dream comps rapid-stacked upon dream comps.
And 32 events, as opposed to 28 at the UC: all the jumps, all the throws except hammers.
If that can happen over two days, WA must make it happen over 9 hours and 3 days at the next Ultimate Championship.
The UC was WA’s first swing at taking the production and marketing of a major extravaganza in-house. The federation could do that because, as a new fixture, the UC lived outside WA’s long-time marketing contract with advertising and PR behemoth Dentsu. That contract will expire in 3 years.
Hmmm. Seb Coe, termed out as President next fall, will be available. Perfect new role? I’m about the last person you should ask how the politics might play out. Politics is perennial within WA. Creative vision should be too. ◻︎
