In a London boardroom, Athletics Australia president Mark Arbib and board member Jon Steffensen met with the sport's world governing body, the IAAF. They went in expecting to confirm the sale of a large percentage of the innovative Nitro Athletics concept to the IAAF.

They had good reason to believe this would be a formality as the governing body had signed a memorandum of understanding in July to purchase the concept from Australia and take it around the world.

But then the offer was rejected, and the deal fell through.

The IAAF executive rejected the claim. They figured they should not be seen to be spending money with one country, rather than many. The members also queried why they needed to buy Nitro when it could be staged without IAAF funds.

Later, they realised ripping off the Nitro concept is harder than it seems. And Nitro had Usain Bolt.

The IAAF's agreement would have financially safeguarded the concept in Australia and provided a lucrative revenue stream as the sport sought growth through the teams concept, and transformed the traditional format of athletics.

The Australians had devised the concept and drawn the biggest name in the sport, Bolt, as an equity partner.

With teams and novel events like a three-minute mixed distance challenge and elimination mile, Nitro brought crowds flocking to Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium, where Bolt was a natural drawcard.

They also had financial backing to underwrite the concept, which was fortunate because in its first year Nitro - which is run as a subsidiary company of Athletics Australia - lost $1.826 million.

There was state government money and Channel Seven support, while Seven owner Kerry Stokes spent $1 million of his own money. After the IAAF decision Stokes' financial loss has now migrated into an equity share of Nitro. So the sport didn't lose money on Nitro, but Nitro did run at a loss.

That would have been OK if the IAAF honoured its MoU and bought the concept, but they didn't.

The IAAF has since tried to throw an olive branch to Australia, offering to sanction future Nitro events (which was not the case first time around) so the performances count in a high performance sense.

The IAAF has also since expressed interest in taking a small stake in Nitro.

"It is a small percentage stake," Athletics Australia CEO Darren Gocher said.

There is rumoured to be a mood within the IAAF to revisit the purchase of Nitro in full, but at the moment that appears to be only rumour or wishful thinking. A backflip could also be embarrassing for the governing body.

The IAAF's decision to renege on the MoU was damaging. Without the sale and investment, Nitro is difficult to stage again soon enough to capitalize on the momentum of the first series.

As the recent Athletics Australia annual report points out, the board has agreed that any "ongoing operations of Nitro are contingent on a neutral or positive impact on the financials" of AA.

On top of this financial challenge, the window for Nitro - which is small anyway with the domestic season, Australian Open tennis and then start of the AFLW and AFL seasons - is further cluttered by the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Gocher said Nitro was not dead, but there are hurdles. AA needs to work out the right structure and financial partners before finding a date.

"It's unlikely it will be in the first half of next year so then you are looking at the end of next year and there is a matter of the turnaround to the year after. If it is a series then that will not happen until early 2019," he said.

"What we are looking at and most partners are looking at is a series. It makes a lot more sense to be an international series across countries rather than just one country."

So in part the answer to finding financial backers and partners is to make it bigger: if the IAAF won't take it to the world, Australia will.

If a series is run between Australia, Asia, America or Europe the scope for attracting bigger world brands and broadcasters is greater. But so, too, are the costs, even if they are potentially defrayed across multiple countries' sports bodies.

"We need enough lead time to do it properly in organising an international series and fitting in with the athletics calendar and different countries.

"I would imagine in the first year we would look at staging across three (countries). Ideally you would have more than that. Some of it will come down to where it fits in to be able to run it across three or four consecutive weeks or spread out across the season."