🏃🏾‍♂️Sir Mo Farah is Starting His Own Competition

Manchester United played Arsenal at Old Trafford yesterday in the Premier League.

That fixture is one of the longest running rivalries in English football and is usually a nailed-on cert for a brilliant match of football.

Despite that being the marquee game of the footballing calendar this weekend , more people watched, and more people attended The Sidemen Charity Match hosted at Wembley Stadium instead.

Wembley was completely sold out. They raised over £4 for local charities. And at it’s peak more than 2,500,000 people were streaming concurrently.

It’s quite simply absolutely insane numbers from “a bunch of YouTubers” and it seems to be growing every year. Shoutout to the Sidemen boys for breaking even more records this year.

Today, my take on some interesting news stories that have permeated in recent weeks. Starting with some athletics…

Sir Mo Farah is starting a running competition.

RunGP will be a team-based running tournament taking place four times a year hosten on Formula 1 circuits!

The format is interesting, professional athletes will team up with a roster of influencers and celebrities in a team-based relay, with each leg circling one lap of an F1 circuit. Before the main event, the public will be able to participate in a mass run around the track too!

DAZN have secured the broadcasting rights to the tournament and the first one will take place at the Lusail Circuit in Doha on May 9th and 10th.

Firstly, salute to Sir Mo for starting something innovative. I love shit like this. The interest in road-running since the Covid pandemic has been massive but there hasn’t been a sporting event outside of the London Marathon that has capitalised on it. This could bring an end to that.

Secondly, and more importantly I see an increase in key athletics figures taking it upon themselves to right the wrongs with global athletics currently.

Keely Hodgkinson recently hosted the Keely Klassic. A 1-day event in Birmingham housing some of the biggest names in British Athletics. She got injured in the week of the event so she didn’t particpate herself, but it was a sold-out success and an encouraging first attempt back in February.

Reddit Founder Alexis O’Hanion founded Athlos. An all-female athletics event backed by his Venture Fund 776 Capital. Competitors were awarded over $500,000 collectively, with first-place winners earning Tiffany crowns instead of medals and a $60,000 cash prize. Athlos took place back in September and streamed for free on YouTube and Twitter when it happened. It was very well received and will be back later this year.

Finally, athletics legend Michael Johnson will shortly launch Grand Slam Track, maybe the biggest disruptor to Global Athletics currently. There are 4 “Slams” happening this year taking place between April and June. MJ has signed up top tier athletes including Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Matt Hudson-Smith and Kenny Bednarek. Peacock are the streaming home in the US. TNT Sports are the broadcast home in the UK. The first one takes place on April 4 in the States. This is the biggest shake-up to the fledgling sport so I am eagerly anticipating its reception when the first one takes place in a few weeks time.

Athletics is too important to be in such a miserable position globally. If you’d like to see why athletics in the UK is struggling at the moment, watch my video on the topic here:

In the spirit of breakaway leagues, welcome to the Baller League.

Picture a rival to Gerard Piqué’s Kings League… with a UK focus. For those unfamiliar, I will give you the lowdown:

• The Baller League is 3 on 3 football played on Monday nights, featuring influencers, celebrities and ex-professional players

• The company has raised a sizeable $25m thanks to a funding round led by EQT Ventures announced back in December

• The league will be broadcasted on Sky Sports in the UK and has secured O2 as the main title sponsor

• Athlete investors include Mason Mount, Diogo Dalot, Diego Jota and more!

I want to do a deeper piece on this nearer the time but again, see the latest effort to add innovation to a major sport.

There is a lot of rancor in the game currently as younger viewers are simply not watching as much football as they have done in previous years. The Kings League has been incredibly popular across Spain, I am fascinated to see the uptake of the Baller League over here when it launches on March 24. There is a lot of buy-in and a lot of noise.

They spent a lot of money on a Joga Bonito style trailer too! They nailed it to be fair.

• Baller League Trailer HERE

Lets see how it does.

I leave you this week with a fascinating video from my Instagram archives. In all my time as a fan of the beautiful game of cricket I have never known how cricket balls were made… until now!

Fascinating.

See you next week.