Track and field’s brave new world begins in Budapest on Friday night. The action will be fast-paced and slick, with augmented reality showing athletes’ win percentages and javelins and hammers that glow, making them easier to see on a black infield. In the space of 48 hours, a top sprinter could earn $337,500 (£250,000) for just over a minute’s work.
It is all part of the new World Athletics Ultimate Championship, a three-day event with a prize fund of $10m which is designed to pit the best against the best, and kick off a minor revolution in the sport.
When Usain Bolt, who is a global ambassador for the event, was told that anyone who wins the 100m, 200m and mixed 4x100m relay here will walk away £250,000 richer, he smiled – and recalled a conversation he had just recently had with another legendary Jamaican sprinter, Asafa Powell.
“I was chatting to Asafa before I came here and we were like: ‘Jeez, we missed out on a big cash prize,’” he said. “I won a fair few championships and it still doesn’t add up to all that cash. I am sad I missed out on it, but I’m happy for the athletes.”
For years, the World Athletics president, Seb Coe, and chief executive, Jon Ridgeon, have wanted top athletes to earn money. But this is just the start of plans to make the sport richer – and more popular.
“We will deliver magnetic indelible moments that will travel around all four corners of the globe, and I think we will see a compelling glimpse into the future and the potential of this sport, which at its best is untouchable,” said Coe.
“We also want this championship to be an incubator for change. As a proud Sheffielder, I would describe it as a blast furnace, ultimately shaping what our sport will look like going forward. And we want to take some of these innovations into the world championships and Olympic Games.”
So what could be next? The Guardian can reveal there is growing clamour for Coe to stay on at World Athletics in some capacity when his presidency ends in September 2027. One plan being discussed is for Coe to lead a new commercial arm, which aims to sell World Athletics’ own rights for the first time and add substantial external investment and revenues.
Such a move could come about because at the end of 2029, World Athletics’ commercial contract with the sports marketing agency Dentsu, which is worth around £14m a year, will end.
While it has been a happy relationship, the current deal means that even if World Athletics wants to use footage from its own world championships at its own awards ceremony it has to pay Dentsu.
But in three years’ time World Athletics will have control of its commercial and broadcast rights for the first time in three decades, allowing it to explore fresh options on how best to fund the sport.
It is understood that Coe, who has transformed the governance and fortunes of World Athletics since taking over from the corrupt Lamine Diack regime in 2015, is undecided as to whether he would take on such a role.
In a statement to the Guardian, World Athletics said: “At the end of 2029, most of World Athletics’ commercial contracts and broadcast relationships will come to an end, as will our current contract with Dentsu, who has owned our commercial rights since 2014, and we will be in a position to sell our own rights from 2030 onwards.
“With that in mind, our executive board has spent the last 18 months looking at the commercial structures we need to create and determining the best way to increase revenue so we can accelerate growth in our sport over the coming years.
“We are making consequential progress in an area that obviously requires detailed consultation throughout our organisation and across our sport.”
Another sign of athletics’ strength is that the BBC has significantly scaled up its operation here because the viewing figures were so strong at the European championships, with more than four million watching at peak times.
In total 381 top athletes from 65 federations will compete in Budapest, with the winner of each race getting $150,000 and even the eighth-place finisher walking away with $10,000.
Another change is that athletes have been involved in the planning and presentation of the event, with the Olympic 100m champion, Noah Lyles, even acting as a DJ. It started with a red carpet introduction on Thursday with several athletes, including the pole vault star Mondo Duplantis and 800m Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson, wearing jackets and dresses that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Oscars.
One sign of the relaxed atmosphere came when Hodgkinson was asked by a member of the press whether she was 100% fit after a minor hamstring niggle at the European championships in Birmingham. “None of your business,” she replied, smiling.
