Early Friday morning, American sprinter Alyssa Johnson qualified for the 100m hurdles finals at the 2024 Olympics. Then she went to X with a plea: “If anyone wants to buy me 8 tickets so my family can he sees me running, I’d love to… but I know they’re going to cost $500 a piece,” he wrote. Within an hour, her question was answered: Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and husband of Serena Williams, had come to the rescue.
Ohanian might seem like an unlikely benefactor to women’s athletics — a “fairy” like Fast Women’s Allison Wade called him—but, as the principal owner of Los Angeles-based professional women’s soccer team Angel City FC and recipient of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 2022 Champion For Equality Award, the venture capitalist is a longtime champion of women’s sports. In April, he was announced that his company Seven Seven Six would sponsor a new women-only track event under the brand Feat on September 26, 2024.
“At 776, we believe in the power of sports to drive positive change and inspire future generations,” said Ohanian. “By investing in women’s athletics, we aim to build a best-in-class event that raises the profile of top female athletes and creates a fairer sporting landscape.”
Ohanian’s partner in this venture is Olympic 200m gold medalist Gabby Thomas, who added: “We hope to not only provide athletes with the resources and visibility they need to have lasting careers, but also inspire fans to around the world in a renewed form to experience the best of our sport”.
The first-of-its-kind event will feature top-level female runners, including Thomas, 5,000m silver medalist Faith Kipyegon, US national indoor 400m champion Alexis Holmes, Australian 100m record holder Torrie Lewis and others —racing distances from 100 to 1,500 meters. They will be vying for a share of $500,000, the largest purse ever offered in women’s athletics. The gold medalists will take home $60,000 each (that’s twice as much as the winners of the Diamond League finals alone).
To raise even more, Ohanian he promised the 36 female Olympians who ran his event that he would personally pay them $60,000 if they won a gold medal in Paris. Tomas was the first to collect with her victory in Olympiakos.
But Ohanian isn’t just looking for big names. When discus thrower and Olympic champion Veronica Fraley posted that she couldn’t pay her rent despite competing in the Olympics, Ohanian almost immediately sent enough money to cover the rent for the rest of the year. Fraley didn’t make it to the Paris final, but her attention led to $23,000 in donations GoFundMewhich he will use to continue training for the World Championships and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
To capitalize on an amazing track and field Olympics, with Team USA winning 29 medals as of publication, Ohanian was on the field in Paris inviting literally everyone to the Games: Team USA gymnastics, rugby star Ilona Maher, Flavor Flav (which sponsor and the biggest hype man for the Team USA women’s water polo team). To keep the attention of new fans, you need star power and a sexy setting that requires rethinking the traditional dance floor encounter. (Example: The dramatic pre-match music and light show at the Stade de France in Paris.)
Athlos will have DJs and individual entrance music for the athletes and Megan Thee Stallion will be the opening headliner. “Only the best for the best”, Ohanian he wrote on TikTok. (You know who else has tapped into Megan Thee Stallion’s star power lately? Kamala Harris.) At the Business of Women’s Sports Summit in April, Thomas he said Ohanian was inspired by the spirit of Formula 1 events, which have seen an unprecedented surge in popularity since their Netflix debut Drive to survive series in 2019.
While track and field may not be having its F1 moment (yet), this is the kind of mainstream popularity the sport has rarely seen, and it’s not just because of Ohanian. In February, Duæl Track—a made-for-TV arm wrestling match — promised a $1 million prize pool at their event in September.
Almost simultaneously with Ohanian’s announcement, legendary Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson launched Athletics Grand Slama new championship debuting next year that will feature big names like 400m hurdles gold medalist and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, 1500m silver medalist Josh Kerr and 36 other athletes.
Netflix launched in July Runa documentary series which followed elite track and field athletes as they prepared for the World Championships. the show they are attracted 2.4 million views in its first week of release and the second season is already being filmed. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime has a documentary in the works about the Ingebrigtsen brothers, including indoor 1500m world record holder Jakob Ingebrigtsen, as they prepare for the 2024 Olympics, according to the Norwegian newspaper. VG.
Athletes also generate interest in their own right through social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. They tend to separate personalities (cf. Sha’carri Richardsonwho just won the Olympic silver medal in the 100m sprint and Olympic gold medalist in the 100m Noah Lyles has 1.4 million followers) rivalries (see: Jakob Ingebrigtson vs. Josh Kerr, or Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone vs. Norway’s Femke Bol) and relationships (see: power couple Tara Davies-Woodhallwho won an Olympic gold medal in the long jump and her husband, Paralympian Hunter Woodhall) to help them stand out on the world stage.
Still, it never hurts to have a fairy godfather, and a savvy businessman like Ohanian knows how important it is to maintain that Olympic momentum so that athletics doesn’t lose that once-every-four-year spotlight — and the revenue opportunities that it has brought for both individual athletes and the sport as a whole—after the Closing Ceremony.
“None of this came from a charitable POV. It’s not because I have daughters or because I’m married to a world-class athlete,” Ohanian said. he wrote on LinkedIn about its investment in women’s soccer—but the general sentiment applies to all women’s sports, including women’s athletics. “It’s because these women were objectively great and objectively underestimated. It’s just good work.”
