After what seemed like months of local exhibitions, NCAA home meets, and training videos posted from altitude camp, the pro racing season is finally getting underway in a BIG way. “Not enough pro track regular season racing” is a take so recycled it feels like we bring it up every week, but not this one!

We have multiple major elite competitions all over the world, often happening at the same time. No one meet is ever perfect, but hey – they all featured pro athletes showing up and doing their thing outside of one week in Paris. Hello! Let’s celebrate that.

The other benefit of having the LA Grand Prix, the Marrakech Diamond League, the Atlanta City Games, and the Night of 10K PBs all happening over the same few days is that we can compare and contrast. And highlight the best and worst of each event to offer our unsolicited feedback to meet organizers and race broadcasters in hopes of one day turning on our TVs and seeing that one perfect track meet, the one that will turn every single casual sports fan into a diehard track and field stan.

We could write a couple hundred words on each one of these events, but there’s a limit to how far our pro-bono event consulting goes before we have to start charging. So without further ado, here’s a short and dirty best and worst of this weekend in pro track and field.

LA Grand Prix 🌴

Best: Almost everybody showed up.

When was the last time you watched a meet where Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Michael Norman, Grant Fisher, and Elle St. Pierre all competed that wasn’t a U.S. or global championship? The best of the best across virtually every discipline made the trip to LA (almost like hosting events in major cities near large international airports is a good idea!) and gave it their all. Even with the American-centric tilt of a USATF-hosted event, we also saw Olympic and World champions from all around the world like Marileidy Paulino, Selemon Barega, and Jasmine Camacho-Quinn competing in their primary events. The last-minute withdrawal of Athing Mu from the 400m was a slight letdown, but on the whole, it was great to see a regular-season meet outside the Diamond League circuit that drew some seriously big names.

Worst: Long distance gets the short end of the stick.

While the two-day competition allowed for a stacked card of competitors, it was still disappointing to see two of the best races of the whole weekend held in the middle of the night (on the East Coast) and hidden behind a paywall. If 11 men break 13 minutes in the 5000m and no one is online to watch it, did the race really happen? The men’s 5000m was as stacked as an Olympic final and Elle St. Pierre is one of the most exciting athletes in the country to watch these days – they deserved a spot in the main program.

Atlanta City Games 🅰️

Best: Easy to watch for fans online.

The 2024 Atlanta City Games, a “street meet” style competition primarily designed as an Adidas showcase, only featured short sprints and a few select jumping events, but in order to bring in more eyeballs the meet streamed for free on both the Adidas and Noah Lyles YouTube channels. Free, accessible streams aren’t going to be the right choice for every track and field event, but if you have corporate dollars aplenty and the event is a glorified commercial for your star athletes, why not make it as easy as possible for everyone to watch?

Worst: A quiet in-person affair.

It was a bit hard to tell from the stream, but whether it was lack of interest, the physical setup of the track, or Atlantans just all had something better to do with their Saturday afternoon, the Games didn’t appear to draw much of an in-person crowd. With no bleacher-style seating and half the 200-meter straightaway blocked off, the gathering seemed a bit sparse and the atmosphere felt somewhat subdued. Street meets are a promising, unorthodox model but you need to work hard to recreate the feeling of being surrounded on all sides by screaming fans to bring the magic of professional sports to life on TV.

Night of 10k PBs 🇬🇧

Best: Getting marathoners back on track.

For domestic fans, the thrill of the U.K.-based Night of 10k PBs came from putting the British 10,000m titles and Olympic spots on the line in a one-event showcase, complete with pyrotechnics and trackside beers. But the main draw for Americans to tune in was that many big names from the Olympic Marathon Trials headed across the pond to compete, including Keira D’Amato and Trials champ Fiona O’Keeffe on the women’s side and Zach Panning and Sam Chelanga on the men’s.

Worst: Nine LONG heats of 10,000ms.

There’s no polite way to say this: 25 laps of racing is always going to be a hard sell. With the right fields, atmosphere, stakes, and narrative-building, a 10,000m on the track can be an enjoyable – dare we say thrilling? – half hour of television. But a one-trick pony event with nine full heats of 10,000ms is always going to cater to the tastes of only the most diehard fans.

Rabat/Marrakech Diamond League 🇲🇦