SVG Sit-Down: Athlos NYC CEO Kayla Green on Building the Brand of the Young Track & Field EventThe all-women competition logged 25% audience growth in its second yearBy Daniel Frankel, SVG Contributor Thursday, November 6, 2025 - 7:00 am
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Established in 2024 by Reddit co-founder turned sports entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, Athlos NYC women's track and field competition had an auspicious second-year event at Manhattan's Icahn Stadium last month. For starters, the event had records: notably, Kenyan distance runner Faith Kipyegon's 4:17.78 mile, the fastest 5,280 ft. ever run by a female athlete on U.S. soil. And then there was the audience growth from last year: 25%, with more than 3.75 million viewers watching the event - both live and archived - across YouTube, X, and ESPN+, not to mention a major new TV partner, Scripps Sports ION. (Athlos officials say the audience figure is still growing.)
Unsurprisingly, there are declarations of expansion, with Ohanian outlining the broad strokes that will transition Athlos beyond just a major Big Apple affair to a multiple-city league format that borrows rules and structure from the NCAA.
Although Athlos represents the vision and deep pockets of Ohanian, nurturing the league as founder/CEO is Kayla Green, a track and field outsider who has, however, jumped her fair share of hurdles in the highly competitive realm of brand marketing. SVG caught up to Green two weeks after the event, still catching her breath from the whirlwind that was Athlos NYC 2025. She had lots to say, for example, about how Athlos should be branded, not to mention presented on television.
Athlos NYC's Kayla Green: You can't just blink at 4 million people. We have a property that is highly attractive to brands.
Did you run track in college or something? How did the peanut butter get into the chocolate?
No, I didn't. I don't run fast [laughs]. I'm a complete outsider to the sport. I was the founding head of marketing and the first CFO for Angel City Football Club. I got that call [from Angel City founder Alexis Ohanian], and he [asked,] Can you help name this team? I've named a million things in my career, and I was, like, Yeah, I can do that.
By the way, I knew nothing about women's soccer at the time. I've been incubating early-stage sports ventures for the last six years. Angel City was the first, and then I helped build a brand for L.A. Golf Club, Alexis's pro golf team, which resides within Tiger [Woods's] new league called TGL. This is all really Alexis's vision.
How does that turn into Athlos?
In 2019, Alexis saw on the internet these incredible stories [about soccer players] Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. Yet they're getting visibility only once every four years, during the Olympics or the World Cup. Alexis saw the same thing happening with viral videos of college track athletes. Alexis saw this empty space and said, What if we challenged that? What if we kept the conversation going? What if we had track meets where fans could be up close and personal with Olympians and watch them break world records.
Which is what has happened. We had Faith Kipyegon run the fastest mile on U.S soil only two weeks ago, right? There are these incredible physical feats happening. Why should the narrative go away? Athlos was built on this idea that we would tell the athletes' stories more than once every four years.
You are a career marketer who had built brands at Saatchi & Saatchi and Riot Games.
I'm an exceptional brand marketer. I've built some of the biggest brands in the world. As long as I continue to apply that same lens I've been using, I'll find that spark and that reason people fall in love or stay in love with the brand or business. You don't just jump into women's sports and then, five years later, they pay equity. That doesn't exist. For me, jumping into this was about continuing that fight for equity, for these athletes that have been underserved.
So Athlos has been quite the learning curve?
It has definitely been a learning curve, for sure. I will say this about track and field: you would imagine that it would be a very easy thing to understand. One foot in front of the other, it's the oldest sport in humankind. And yet somehow it can be very confusing to consume. My very first track meet was with Alexis. We went to the Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, OR. About 20 minutes into the event, I said to him, I'm super-confused. There's sand everywhere. Someone has just jumped far. Someone's running. I don't know who's in first place. There's like a sharp object being thrown. Where do I look? It's just a simple act of asking questions.
And that confusion leads you to what? Clarity?
Here's just one small example. Last year, we introduced a bib that was smaller for the athlete. You've seen, in the Olympics, they're still wearing these bibs that look like flags. I just didn't understand why. We're in constant connection with these athletes. I asked one of them, What's up with the bib? Why is it so big? The response I got was We run in mixed-gender events. So the bib is sized for a male torso. And I was, like, Well, that's crazy. Last year, Athlos was the very first women-only track meet that had a bib sized for a woman's torso.
Tell us about those expansion plans for Year 3 beyond NYC.
We will build the competition around teams. This is not like introducing a new format of competition. This is pulling from NCAA, which is what most of these athletes are already somewhat familiar with. We will go into multiple cities. We have not announced those yet, but the goal is to ultimately bring Athlos around the globe.
How instrumental was Scripps Sports an
