A new city-based athletics league built around urban franchises, road running and equity stakes sold to competitors is seeking seven-figure funding ahead of a planned 2027 launch, City AM can reveal.

Former runner Florian Lussy is spearheading the as-yet-unnamed project through his R-evo Ventures firm. The venture will be backed by private equity and sponsorship and has already secured its first host city.

The pitch lands as private capital keeps testing new athletics formats, with the Diamond League still anchoring the sport's established elite circuit while start-up leagues chase fresher, broadcast-friendly products.

"We want to create an ecosystem that allows the sport to grow beyond the performance-driven routes and actually become an entertainment product competing against SailGP and Formula 1 in a format that is more appealing to the today's 25-year-old," Lussy told City AM.

The comparison points are both franchise-style, city-hopping series: Formula 1, taken over by US media group Liberty Media in 2017, and SailGP, the national-team sailing league launched in 2019. That entertainment-first packaging is the model Lussy wants running to emulate.

"Our vision for the sport is that we create a world where running is run as a franchise system where you have teams across Europe in the beginning and then global. And they race against each other in a new format."

The format, according to Lussy, is built around events that take place without a track, with races akin to city cycle races and based on duration rather than distance. Duration-based racing is a staple of criterium cycling, where riders sprint around short city-centre circuits for a set time rather than a set distance.

"Our goal is to go off the track because it's about creating something totally new," he added. "The format will be quite different to what we have seen in running so far."

Athletics on the rise?

Lussy admits that hosting a leg in London would be a key goal, but an inaugural season next year may not run to a full calendar. He cites the all-female Athlos, rather than Michael Johnson's Grand Slam Track, as a preferred model.

Athlos, the six-event women's meeting founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, debuted in New York in September 2024 and returned for a second edition in 2025. Grand Slam Track, launched by former Olympic champion Michael Johnson, staged its first season in 2025 before the company filed for bankruptcy protection later that year.

"Grand Slam Track did quite a few things wrong," he said. "But they also had a few good things that they tried to do in this sport. You need to ensure that you build the trust that the athletes don't have the fear of getting let down again and for that you need to set up a structure that allows them to be partially involved in the decisions and grow in their engagement over time.

"Our goal is definitely to sell it [down the line] but the athletes will have stakes in the franchises. We believe that our racing will be a bit less taxing to their bodies because it's not a typical distance. It's fine if they're not in the best shape so we believe that they're more interested in racing with us than they ever were at Grand Slam Track."

Athlete equity remains rare in track and field, where income has traditionally come from appearance fees, prize money and sponsorships rather than ownership stakes.

Every athletics team will get a home race event, but not all athletes will need to be from the country whose city is hosting. Lussy suggests social media runners could feature.

"We're in talks with two three really big names and have eight athletes on the waiting list that are interested to join. We kind of want to create a mix of athletes that were in Birmingham and then also some a sub-elite that have a solid reach because in the end, it's an entertainment product."