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Good Thursday Morning. Here’s the rundown of this week’s Sports Business Playbook:

• 📰 This Week’s Topic: Two upstarts — the Snow League and Grand Slam Track — are attempting to create traditional leagues out of two sports only popular during Olympic years. Will it work?

• 🍸️ Impress Your Friends at Cocktail Party: Want to show off your sports knowledge in a public setting but don’t have time to read the deep dive? Hit the “Impress Your Friends at Cocktail Party” section at the bottom for a CliffsNotes of this week’s topic

• 🤯 “Whoa of the Week”: Miami’s F1 race is locked up and had a great marketing activation, and some concerning data on consumer spending

• 💪 Weekly Reminders that Sports are Awesome: Pop gives an A+ farewell to coaching

Hey team,

Like most sports fans, I religiously tune into the Olympics every two years.

My viewing ranges from niche guilty pleasures — team handball is the greatest sport no one in the U.S. has ever heard of — to must-see programming that gets even the most busy, non-sports minded individuals (i.e., Mrs. SBP) to sit down and be enthralled by the best in the world competing on the biggest stage.

Two of the sports that garner the most attention during the Games are snowboarding in the Winter Olympics and Track and Field during the Summer Olympics.

They often drive the highest ratings of the two week-long Games, and they also often have the most marketable stars. The best the sports have to offer — think Shaun White, Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt — become legends, household names, and media darlings, and they do it over the course of just a few days once every four years.

Once the Olympics are over, though, these greats often fade in the background for most sports fans, popping up only on commercials or in the periodic highlight from esoteric events during their three-and-a-half-year hiatus from the spotlight.

But, what if someone gave these stars a year-round league format to compete in that capitalized on the momentum of the Olympics?

Two startup organizations, led by two legends, are posing that fundamental question and challenging the traditional Olympic-driven model. In this week’s SBP, we’re looking at the Snow League and Grand Slam Track and their quest to turn two of the biggest Olympic events into a viable league product.

The Tomato’s Vision: the F1 of Winter Sports

Let’s look at each league’s setup and angle. First up is the Snow League.

Founded by snowboarding GOAT Shaun White (“the Flying Tomato”), the Snow League pitches itself as the first professional winter sports league entirely dedicated to snowboarding and free-skiing.

The league’s first season will feature a four-event global competition format, which kicked off in Aspen in March. Athletes will compete in a bracket-style competition in each event to earn points based on their results from each event, and the competitor with the most points at the end of the season will be crowned the “Snow League World Champion.”

On the business side, White has raised $15 million from several notable investors in the sports space (Ares Management, David Blitzer, and Kevin Durant, to name a few), and he plans to change the model that snowboarding has traditionally operated under.

Rather than only receiving earnings from the competition if they place, all riders receive a $5,000 appearance fee (quite unique for the industry), and they will then compete for a total of $1.6 million in prize money over the course of the season, with each finalist getting an increasing amount of money. This all leads right into next year’s Milano Cortina Olympics, where the athletes have hopefully built up more buzz that they can capitalize upon.

The big initiatives now for the league are securing additional sponsors — Hublot and Tiffany are already signed on — and continuing to grow its media contract (NBC currently airs the events) that allows White and co. to create a premium offering that caters to high end consumers while staying true to the sport’s roots.

MJ Tries to Hit a Grand Slam

Founded by U.S. sprinter great Michael Johnson, Grand Slam Track seeks to create the “first truly all-professional league for track.” The league started last month in Jamaica, had its first U.S. based slam in Florida last week, and will hold two more events across the U.S. this summer.

The league has six event categories for male and female athletes. Each slam is made up of two events — each with eight competitors — covering short sprints, short hurdles, long sprints, long hurdles, short distance, and long distance. The goal is to promote intense competition and rivalries between runners as they have to compete against each other in a non-specialized way.

GST has raised over $30 million from a few prominent investors, including billionaires Robert F. Smith and Bill Ackman. Similar to the Snow League, it is attempting to incentivize the best in the world to compete with them through bigger prize money (first gets $100,000; eighth gets $10,000) and emphasizing that head-to-head element through its unique format that builds drama and storylines.

Airing on NBC, Peacock, and the CW, GST will look to secure further sponsors and expand its reach even further via documentaries and storytelling to showcase the best of the best on and off the track.

Why Now?

As we talked about back in February, disruption is coming to sports.

The massive growth of the industry has attracted the attention of well-capitalized investors, and there are more competitor and upstart leagues entering the arena now to carve out their piece of the pie.

While diametrically opposite in most literal aspects, the Snow League and Grand Slam Track share a lot of similarities as they start this journey. Here are I three I see.

First, both recognize the global appeal of their sports and believe the IP is being underutilized outside of Olympic competition due to the sports being run mostly by governing bodies. The two all-time greats in their respective sports that lead these leagues believe this is an existential challenge given the increased competition for eyeballs in entertainment, and they need to think differently to sustain their sport.

Second, to combat this, both are attacking the supply side of this issue by creating a specialized event schedule that highlights athletes, rivalries, and storytelling. The hope is it gives the stars a chance to capitalize on the momentum built during the Olympics and create shoulder programming that brings fans behind the curtain and builds deeper connections with the athletes.

And finally, even with all of the positive momentum, the two leagues are also facing stiff competition from other challenger leagues. The X Games is launching a team-based snow sports league next year, and GST is competing against incumbent Diamond League, Alexis Ohanian’s women-focused Athlos event, and more.

This fractured landscape creates potential dilution of talent and stiffer competition for sponsorship and media dollars, the lifeblood of sports leagues. Mergers with bigger competitors are the usual way this goes in other sports, but in the case of these two leagues, there is no 800-pound gorilla here that could play that role. Instead, we’re likely looking at a zero-sum game where there will be a small winner’s circle and the rest left off the podium.

The question here will be if the Snow League and Grand Slam Track can get enough traction via their athletes and unique formats during their initial runways to set up the next round of funding and put them on the path to being sustainable businesses.

Time will tell if the approaches work.

🍸️ Impress Your Friends at a Cocktail Party

Want to show off your sports knowledge in a public setting but don’t have time to read the deep dive? This section is the CliffsNotes of this week’s topic

• Opener: The Olympics is a great two-week sprint where legends are made, but those legends often have few options to compete in the non-Olympic years due to lack of a traditional league-based competition.

• Shot: Two startup leagues — the Snow League and Grand Slam Track — are looking to upend this model, offering a unique season-long competition format that pins the best in the world against each other and tries to create sustained fanbases.

• Shot: The Snow League, founded by snowboard legend Shaun White, has raised $15 million and is holding a four-event season (snowboarding halfpipe and soon to be free-skiing) this year across the world, with an overall winner being crowned at the end of the fourth event based upon total points accumulated across the events. White’s vision here is to create an F1-style luxury experience for fans and sponsors that stays true to the sport’s roots and provides the riders with real earning opportunities.

• Shot: Similarly, Grand Slam Track is founded by track legend Michael Johnson, and the league will hold four events this summer. The goal is to pit runners against each other in two-race “slams” of varying distances, taking away specialization and heightening the rivalries. GST has raised over $30 million and is looking to pay its athletes the highest purses for competing with them.

• Chaser: While diametrically opposite in most ways, I see three key similarities between these two upstarts:

  • First, both recognize the global appeal of their sports and believe the IP is being underutilized outside of Olympic competition due to the sports being run mostly by governing bodies. The two all-time greats in their respective sports that lead these leagues believe this is an existential challenge given the increased competition for eyeballs in entertainment, and they need to think differently to sustain their sport.

  • Second, to combat this, both are attacking the supply side of this issue by creating a specialized event schedule that highlights athletes, rivalries, and storytelling. The hope is it gives the stars a chance to capitalize on the momentum built during the Olympics and create shoulder programming that brings fans behind the curtain and builds deeper connections with the athletes.

  • And finally, even with all of the positive momentum, the two leagues are also facing stiff competition from other challenger leagues. The X Games is launching a team-based snow sports league next year, and GST is competing against incumbent Diamond League, Alexis Ohanian’s women-focused Athlos event, and more. The fractured landscape could create long-term challenges. The question here will be if the Snow League and Grand Slam Track can get enough traction during their initial runways to set up the next round of funding and put them on the path to being sustainable businesses.

🤯 “Whoa” of the Week

Insane, mind-blowing things constantly happen in the sports business world. Here was my favorite of the past week.

1. The Miami Grand Prix has become the crown jewel of the F1’s U.S. swing, and it will be continuing for a long time. Plus, this activation by LEGO is one of the coolest marketing plays out there.

2. One company’s issue, or a canary in the coal mine for Americans’ consumption patterns changing?

💪 Weekly Reminder that Sports are Awesome

This newsletter is, of course, mostly centered on the business side of sports and the things that happen off the field. That being said, it’s important to remember why we fell in love with sports in the first place, though.

This section is meant to highlight the amazing things that happened in sports this week that serve as that reminder.

1. The Spurs’ press conference for Pop was incredible

Thanks for reading! Let me know what feedback you have.

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Until next time, sports fans!

-Alex