Megan Rapinoe, Caitlin Clark, Serena Williams, Mia Hamm, Lindsey Vonn—the list of high-profile, recognizable women athletes is growing. And track and field athletes may be the next to become household names.
That’s the bet that Alexis Ohanian is making with Athlos, an all-women’s track and field league, which is hosting its second event in New York this week.
Ohanian is perhaps best known as the cofounder of Reddit, but he’s also an investor who’s made no secret of his interest in investing in sports. During a press event in New York City this week, he said the idea for Athlos came to him while watching the Olympics, during which millions of people tune in to watch track and field events.
His logic: Why not try to tap into that audience outside of larger events?
That’s how Athlos was born. The league is an attempt to capture the excitement around track and field events that has, traditionally, only existed around the Olympics and other big-time track and field events.
Last year, during its inaugural event, Ohanian says it drew 3 million viewers, attracted big-name advertisers like Toyota and Tiffany & Co., and was more successful than anticipated.
This year, he expects it to be even bigger, and hopes that some of the athletes taking part will start to become recognizable to casual sports fans—perhaps on a level that even matches what Clark has achieved in basketball.
“Americans are going to be paying attention”
When the Olympics or World Championship track and field events come around, “Americans are going to be paying attention,” Ohanian says. “[We] have a legacy of American excellence in the sport, especially among our women. No one doubted for a second that women’s soccer, women’s basketball, was a tier-one opportunity.”
Ohanian was joined at the press conference by a lineup of Olympic Gold Medalists, world champions, and recordholders, including Masai Russell, Alexis Holmes, Grace Stark, Keely Hodgkinson, Faith Kipyegon, and Georgia Hunter Bell.
Those athletes and others will compete this week for a top prize of $60,000. And Athlos is also giving some of them the chance to focus entirely on their chosen events, something that, until very recently, only the top sliver of athletes have been able to do.
British mid-distance runner Georgia Hunter Bell, for instance, said that she only recently was able to quit her full-time job in tech sales to focus on track and field—and she’s an Olympic medalist who has set national records.
“It was hard training around a full-time, corporate job and trying to train like a professional athlete,” she said. But leagues like Athlos are creating pathways to the pros for athletes like her.
Globally, revenue from women’s sports doubled from 2023 to 2024 and was expected to exceed $2.3 billion this year, according to a March 2025 report from Deloitte. Basketball and soccer remain the sector’s biggest moneymakers.
Athlos is only the most recent attempt at creating a professional-level league for female athletes.
Several others are already gaining traction, including the WNBA, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), and the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).
The demand is there, Ohanian argues, and there’s a big business opportunity for brands, advertisers, athletes, and others to get in on it—though he thinks it’ll take some time.
“I think this is just the start. We’re not at F1 (Formula 1) size yet,” he said. “But I want people to take for granted that this sport—which, again, is the most popular sport during the Olympics—can have the same-size platform outside of that, and bring together athletes, builders, CEOs, and investors who can keep driving it.”
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