IAAF Diamond League

The worldwide governing body of track & field, the IAAF, introduced a new series for this season: The Diamond League. It's the latest attempt to try to increase interest (and money) in track. The last several years have seen a number of these; most prominently, the Golden League series of meets, the World Marathon Majors and the NCAA's move to regional-based qualifying. All of these were well-intentioned but ill-conceived - or at least had major flaws.
The Diamond League is a replacement for the Golden League, and improves upon its predecessor in a couple of important areas. First, it will award a "season-championship" in each event. Competitors will accumulate points throughout the series, which should build drama, at least in some cases. This is in contrast to the Golden League, where a competitor had to win all six meets to capture the jackpot. In practice, that meant the outcome was a foregone conclusion after two of six events for the most part. It also eliminated the possibility of two top-caliber athletes battling for the title on the last day - a slice of drama all sports should include if they want to be successful.
The Diamond League also will include all events (well, except the 10,000 and the hammer throw, but there are reasons for that), whereas the Golden League included only selected events. Those selected events tended to include the biggest stars: those most likely to win, furthering decreasing drama. It also featured the blantantly sexist move of almost always including women's high jump and pole vault and *never* women's throws.
There are still kinks in the Diamond League, but it does look like a good step in the right direction for international track.
-Jason