Athlos NYC
Times Square turned into a long jump pit, tourists turned into fans, and women’s sport turned the volume all the way up. Athlos isn’t just an athletics meet, it’s a full-blown spectacle powered by world champions, music, and serious prize money. If this is what the future of track looks like, we’re sprinting towards it.
By Glorious
If you’re reading this on Friday morning, then Tara Davis-Woodhall has just been long jumping through Times Square. (No, we have not lost our minds!) That is exactly how the Olympic gold medallist and world champion spent her Thursday evening in the heart of Manhattan. For one night only, the crossroads of the world became a long jump runway, with sand, lights and a few of the planet’s most powerful athletes flying past LED billboards and bewildered tourists. If you happened to be there, you probably stopped in your tracks. And if not, trust us – it really happened.
Welcome to Athlos NYC!
If you’re wondering what on earth that actually is, here’s the story. Athlos NYC is a women-only track and field event reimagined. It isn’t just about the fastest time or the highest jump. It’s about staging, narrative and culture. It rejected the quiet margins of women’s athletics and said instead that it would headline. In 2024 it debuted with six track events, a bold production aesthetic and a celebrity performance after the meet. This year it adds the long jump, which explains the Times Square teaser (the qualifying event that happened yesterday 9th October 2025), a prelude to the main event happening on 10th October 2025, 5 pm Eastern Time, which is 10 pm for those of us in the UK. You can watch it live on ESPN+, ION or on YouTube, depending on where you are in the world. And if you’re reading this a little later, you can still find it online because there’s no subscription, no paywall and no excuse.
The Times Square jump is its own moment. It was designed to make jaws drop, to stop tourists mid-stride, to say that women’s sport does not wait patiently in the shadows. And it’s not just a bit of theatre. The top three jumpers from the session have advanced to the final at Icahn Stadium on Friday 10 October, where the full slate of events unfolds under the lights.
potential
Once the action moves to the stadium, there will be six track races: 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, 100 m hurdles and the mile, plus the long jump final. The line-up reads like a greatest hits of women’s athletics, featuring Faith Kipyegon, Keely Hodgkinson, Marileidy Paulino, Masai Russell and Brittany Brown. There will also be a tribute to Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who recently announced her retirement after a career that redefined sprinting. A live DJ will spin between races. Ciara will headline a concert after the final event. The broadcast is slick, fast-paced and unapologetically fun. Athletes walk out to their own music, they talk to the crowd, and they are treated as the stars they are.
Oh, and if they win? Cash money. Big money. The kind of money you usually only see at the Diamond League finals or in Olympic contexts. Athlos promises instant payouts. Once results are confirmed and a custom Tiffany & Co silver crown is placed on the head of each champion and the money lands straight in their accounts. Cash App is a key partner, enabling instant payments straight to winners. On top of the standard prizes, a world record nets a 250,000 dollar bonus. First place in each event earns 60,000 dollars, second 25,000, third 10,000, fourth 8,000, fifth 5,000 and sixth 2,500. In total, the pot exceeds 773,000 dollars. And because the organisers have built an athlete-first model, ten per cent of ticket, broadcast and sponsorship revenue is redistributed among the competitors so that even those off the podium benefit.
So who is funding this athletic party and where did it come from? Athlos is co-founded and funded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, with founding advisor-owners including Olympians Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall. The track and field league aims to keep global stars in the public eye and is designed to evolve into a city-based, team league owned by athletes. Ohanian is the primary investor, but the structure gives those three athletes a central voice in how the league develops, ensuring the athletes themselves are shaping the direction of the sport rather than being shaped by it.
The Athlos vision is built around a few core ideas. It is athlete-centric from the ground up, designed to serve competitors first rather than television schedules or sponsors. By 2026, it will evolve into a global team competition with city identities, giving fans new allegiances to rally behind. It also aims to give athletes year-round exposure and financial stability rather than the usual peaks and troughs that come with major championships. And, most importantly, it wants to build an athlete-owned structure where the people on the track are also the people with a stake in its future.
Last year’s Athlos NYC made waves. In just five months of planning, they landed world-class names, built an audience of around three million viewers, secured sponsors and capped the night with a Megan Thee Stallion concert. The production was daring. Walk-out songs, staging, lighting and fan engagement made the night feel more like a music festival than a meet. For many, it was the moment athletics finally decided to stop playing second fiddle. But it also left a question hanging in the air. Could Athlos prove sustainable? Could it deliver on its money promises? Could it become something more than a one-off spectacle?
unapologetic
That question matters because Athlos isn’t just a novelty. It’s a statement about where women’s track might go next. The experiment tests whether private, athlete-owned ventures can coexist with traditional federations. It asks whether fans want to see their sport packaged more like Formula 1 or UFC, with personality and narrative driving interest as much as times and distances. The answer, judging by the early hype, is yes. Women’s sport has grown at a pace few predicted, powered by audiences who crave more access, more personality and more fun. Fandom has shifted. It’s no longer polite applause in a grandstand once every four years. It’s digital, expressive, community-driven and hungry for drama. Athlos is tapping into that. It knows people want to feel involved, to see the stars they follow online perform in spaces that look and sound like the culture they live in.
So if you find yourself reading this, whenever you find yourself reading this, it might not be live, but you can bet it’s somewhere online, easy to find and definitely worth watching. You’re seeing athletes who are rewriting what a meet can look like. Athlos is fast, glamorous and irreverent, but it’s also serious about progress. It’s about value, visibility and ownership. It’s about giving the next generation of girls something electric to aspire to. It’s what we at Glorious think is the future.
All imagery via @athlos / athlos.com
Title image photographed by @em.johnson for Athlos NYC 2024
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