Athletics intent on joining sportâ€s Goliaths but knows it has long way to go | Athletics

It really is quite the scene. Midnight in Tokyo, Usain Bolt is DJing and the launch party for the World Athletics Ultimate Championships is in full swing. And then the World Athletics chief executive, Jon Ridgeon, walks up to me and says: “I read your recent Guardian column, and I thought it was very unfair.â€

Imagine Gary Lineker going in two-footed, having never picked up a yellow card in his career. This is the track and field equivalent. Ridgeon, a former world silver medallist over the 110m hurdles, is one of the smartest and most reasonable people in sport. He is saying, in a polite way, that he is really rather annoyed.

Itâ€s not that Ridgeon wildly disagrees with my premise that athletics needs to do more to attract gen Z and stay relevant. But he maintains my column is overly negative, skewed towards one side, and doesnâ€t reflect how much World Athletics has transformed the sport.

I enjoy a good debate. So we begin to tease out the arguments and find common ground. At one point Ridgeon graciously admits that some of his friends agree with me more than him. I respond by saying I should have acknowledged World Athletics†achievements, including the Athletics Integrity Unit to tackle doping.

But there is still plenty of meat on the bone when Usain pushes the bass to tinnitus-inducing levels and we have to push our discussion down the road. Last weekend, though, we finally got the chance to thrash things out. Think of it as Ridgeon v Ingle II: this time we can actually hear each other.

If I was writing for a 1980s tabloid, a snapper would probably have photographed him planting a boxing glove on my jaw. Instead, after some initial sparring, we get on to why the future is brighter than I suggested a couple of months ago.

First, though, Ridgeon wants to get something off his chest. “In your column you quoted a US-based coach and he implied that the sport was slightly asleep and in decline. But on any metric – global television audience, media audience, social media audience, income – it is growing.†Warming to his theme, he says: “Our incomeâ€s grown by 25% in the last three or four years. Global cities ring me up to say we want your world championships. And the biggest sporting event in the world in 2025 was our event in Tokyo. I donâ€t say this complacently, but it says growth, right?â€

Heâ€s not finished. “And weâ€re not just sitting passively back going: ‘Gen Z is tough – letâ€s rely on our middle-aged audience!â€â€

But there is a glint in his eye when Ridgeon talks and explains that World Athletics had 700 million video views on its social media channels at the world championships in September – double that of Budapest two years ago.

It is impressive stuff. But my central argument is that, while athletics is certainly incredible at the Olympics and world championships, it needs to do more to attract casual fans the rest of the time.

Mondo Duplantis, for instance, can vault over a double‑decker bus with nearly 2 metres to spare. Sabastian Sawe, the London marathon winner, can run 26.2 miles at an average pace of about 4min 40sec a mile. Unless you are up close, it is impossible to envisage how impressive such feats are.

The American sprinter Noah Lyles is one of his sportâ€s most eye-catching personalities. Photograph: Marcel ter Bals/MTB-Photo/Shutterstock

Ridgeon agrees and he promises World Athletics will do more to capture the extraordinary. “Television often sanitises those incredible superhuman performances and we need to do more to bring that to life,†he says. “Drone footage, particularly, can unlock new ways of filming things.â€

Ridgeon, though, insists that World Athletics†data and research unit, which examines behaviour inside stadiums and when people watch the sport on television, has already led to subtle improvements.

They have even wired spectators up to sensors to track their emotional responses when they watch sport. “So do people get sweaty palms when the 100m or when the shot put starts?†Ridgeon asks. “You can probably guess the answer, but it shows we are doing all sorts of stuff. But sometimes itâ€s a challenging sport to reform. We are a 150-year-old sport.â€

But the changes are continuing. There will soon be a World Treadmill Championships, designed to make the elite level appeal to more gym-goers. While at next yearâ€s Ultimate Championships, athletes will be allowed to bring their own social media teams to create for their platforms.

The idea is to allow athletes to further amplify their personalities to a younger audience – and hopefully also create the rivalries that every sport needs.

Ridgeon, however, also acknowledges that more athletes need to realise their competition isnâ€t just who they line up against. It is also every sport, TV show and activity that competes for eyeballs. Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua is nonsense on multiple levels. But it will sell.

Ridgeon remains optimistic, however, despite Grand Slam Track crashing in its first season in the US. And he also cites Nielsen data that suggests one in seven people across the globe like athletics, to suggest its potential is limitless. “But one thing we havenâ€t been able to do is take that billion people that run round the block to keep fit and to move them across to becoming athletics fans.â€

So could athletics one day make the quantum leap like Formula One? “We have two groups of sports out there in the world,†he replies. “Football, F1 and those Goliaths that are sucking up more and more of the dollars and the eyeballs. Then you have a lot of traditional, often Olympic sports, that are finding it tough. Athletics is in the middle.â€

Ridgeon pauses, then decides on a more optimistic tone. “Our foundations are incredible and so we should be able to break into the bottom of that group of Goliaths. Weâ€ve just got to keep the pressure and energy up, and continue that trajectory.†And on that, at least, we firmly agree.

Source link