Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Spend big to lure stars, says Kerr
JOSH Kerr has urged World Athletics chiefs to up the ante on prize money to give athletes more incentive to show up for major championships.
The Scot, 26, picked up less than £30,000 for his 3000 metres gold at last weekend’s world indoors in Glasgow – slim pickings compared to his sixfigure shoe sponsorship deal and the cash available from A-List meetings.
It comes as four-time Olympic champion and BBC pundit Michael Johnson unveils plans for a “fan-focused track circuit” from 2025 that could shake up the sport.
World Athletics chiefs, who are already reviewing their competition formats, are understood to be monitoring the proposals, which would require their co-operation to clear space in the calendar.
And Kerr believes only better pay would jazz up the existing Diamond League and allow the kind of head-to-heads that capture the public attention. “I’ve always gone with the idea that it would be cool to sign athletes to a league in a certain way,” the reigning outdoor world 1500m champion said.
“If you could sign someone to a Diamond League and have 12 guys race each other three times, I think that would be a situation where guys would start to think that financially it would make a lot more sense for them to worry more about the league than they would about a World Championships.
“It was $40,000 to win on Saturday, that seems crazy versus other sports. Think about winning a World Championships.
“We need to bring some validity to these championships. We are very lucky to have the likes of Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, Femke Bol, having amazing athletes come here and do their job.
“But those numbers are lower than appearance fees now for athletes of that calibre. We’ve got to find ways to attract athletes to race more and to race head-toheads more.
“We need to race and we need to have head-to-heads and the way to do that is pay athletes good money to race a series of events.”
One source could be investment from Saudi Arabia to trump World Athletics’ current relationship with neighbouring Qatar.
That would lead to more accusations of sports washing. But with British Athletics struggling to find sponsors domestically, extra backing must be found somewhere to underwrite the sport away from the Olympic Games, Kerr insists.
“We are walking a fine line with some of the LIV Golf stuff but if people want to come and invest money in the sport then I think it is needed,” he said.
“I do think World Athletics are doing what they can to interest investors and try and bring some more eyeballs.
“But that’s what 2024 is about. We have another Olympic Games to try and bring the viewership up, bring the sponsorships in and I think it’s definitely needed.”