From ‘faster, higher stronger’ to ‘bolder, shorter, louder’ – athletics takes a great leap

The black cat analogy wittily describes the differences between religion and science.

Philosophy, thus, is like being in a dark room looking for a black cat. Metaphysics is being in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there, while theology is being in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there and shouting, “I’ve found it”.

Sport, as a modern religion, has this week joined the analogous spectrum, coming in after metaphysicians. Sports administrators are blind people in a dark room looking for a black cat that might or might not be there but figure if they make themselves smaller and use TikTok the cat will come to them.

This week against the backdrop of the NFL – America’s biggest, brashest sport – liberating a new foreign land, other sports were wondering how they got bigger, brasher and brassier? But mainly bigger. It can’t be all Tay Tay and Travis Kelce.

New national tennis honcho Andrew Abdo floated the idea of cutting early matches at the Australian Open back to three sets, an idea quickly put back in the bottle by Tennis Australia. Abdo is a former NRL guy. The organisation he now leads runs the Australian Open, which these days has so many people queuing to get in they’ve stretched it out over even more days. Abdo wouldn’t be the first administrator to suggest more event, less sport.

New AFL chairman Craig Drummond has leafed through the same sport marketing playbook. Footy with a new Tassie team coming in will mean a longer season. They could have a shorter one (as if) and play each other once. That would satisfy integrity concerns over a compromised fixture. But they won’t do that. They’ll schedule more games but make them shorter.

Then Cricket Australia this week decided its shortest version T20, introduced as the panacea for Test cricket’s shortcomings, or longcomings as it turns out, was so good they would invite private owners to spend their millions on Big Bash League teams.

England cricket, meanwhile, had previously decided that making cricket shorter was such an effective ploy they would double down and make it shorter still. They introduced The Hundred. It goes for 100 balls. If they could distil it to an over and run it as an ad break they might. T20 was soooo long and boring. This in a country where Great Rail Journeys vies with Midsomer Murders for entertainment.

Which brings us to this weekend in Hungary. Athletics, a sport that has to scream to be heard outside of the Olympics every four years and, at a pinch, during the bi-annual World Championships, has sallied forth into this brave new world of reinvention.

On Friday in Budapest, the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship was launched. It’s a title that sounds like it’s aimed at the professional wrestling market.

The event is a drastically cut-back, invitation-only all-stars version of the World Championships.

Essentially, it’s an abridged major competition to fill a hole in the calendar in the off-years when there are no World Championships. But it looks nothing like a regular championship.

Firstly, it goes for three night sessions of three hours each, instead of nine days of morning and night sessions. So that means a heap of events miss out, some mercifully so, but each night has at least one throwing event and one jumping. There are no heats and fewer rounds. There are 28 finals, with straight finals held in all field events as well as the 800m, 1500m and the 5000m. The shorter distance races will have no heats and only two semi-finals.

“The Ultimate will not follow a conventional timetable but rather a show script in which every second is accounted for. Scenario-planning between broadcast and event presentation ensures that moments of surprise and delight are captured and that no storyline will be missed,” World Athletics said.

“The championship programme was developed with a television audience at its heart, allowing for more storytelling around the athletes, while also engaging fans more effectively through digital platforms.”

It sounds like it will have the curated reality of an episode of Alone.

The infield is black to literally block out distracting action when events are not on and athletes are not competing, meaning each event is spotlighted.

Not just that: “A bespoke sound identity will reflect the vibe and energy of the Ultimate brand, with pole vault world record-holder Mondo Duplantis in charge of delivering the Ultimate Anthem.”

If you have any idea what that word salad means you might win a medal. Well, you might … if The Ultimate issued them. The athletes at this event will not compete for medals, they’ll vie for a share of the $US10 million in prizemoney – each winner will get $150k and a quirky, as yet unrevealed, trophy.

For the record, the Ultimate Anthem is the song Duplantis wrote and sang for the event. You read that right.

This is part of the unashamed attempt to engage and use the biggest names in the sport to decide what the event should look like how to make the sport better. It is arguably a smarter approach than asking only marketeers, broadcasters or influencers.

So Usain Bolt, still the biggest figure in the sport, years after retiring as the greatest athlete ever, is helping curate the event. Noah Lyles, the current sprint champion and showman, has been consulting on how to crank the in-stadium, on-TV, hype and excitement. Sadly, consulting will be as close as he gets because he injured himself last month and had to pull out of competition.

Tennis-style on-court interviews are being held with athletes in the stadium. The push, post the success of TV’s Drive to Survive, is to leverage the personality of the athletes, not the athletics, to engage new audiences. So all athletes will immediately be given access to footage and photos of themselves competing to push on their digital channels and social media. It will create a circular marketing tool for sport and athlete.

The danger some sports have found showcasing the “real person” is discovering the athlete is as interesting as hydronic heating.

Fortunately, athletics has some with spunk, hence, despite not automatically qualifying, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr will both race the mile. Really, they couldn’t not be there. They are the hottest head-to-head race in the world right now.

Ingebrigtsen, the Norwegian punk with a boy-band hairstyle, tatts and good looks, is not only imperiously quick and one of the best the world has ever seen, he is also one of the most cavalier and indiscreet interviewees in sport. It is not just Scandinavian bluntness, he simply could not give fewer f—s.

Like Lyles, Sha Carri Richardson and Mondo Du Plantis, Ingebrigtsen is box office. He had to be there.

The reigning Olympic champions are all automatically invited, as are the reigning world champions and the Diamond League winners and the organisers retain discretion in the invitation-only event to make sure the athletes people actually want to see are featured.

In Australia we have seen this sort of concept before with Nitro. Remember that? Well, this is a kind of Nitro Two. Ultimate Nitro? It looks like it could be a bit like Nitro … only better and sustainable.

A black cat might even be seen walking onto the black track to find an athlete.

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