“I’ve started companies and I’ve made them successful, and I’ve sold them. Not a single one of them was profitable in Year 1,” Michael Johnson said this in March, and well, three months later, the Grand Slam Track went on to collapse. On June 12, they cancelled the final leg of the event, and sources cited that economic problems and the GST’s deal with the Los Angeles venue (Drake Stadium) were part of the reason. Soon, it was also unveiled that the GST still owes the participant athletes over $13M of dues. Despite this, Johnson remained optimistic that GST would be back in 2026 and continues looking for new investors. However, it’s now time to smell the coffee, as things are not looking good for the league. Another surprising detail has emerged, and it makes things look bad for the GST…
When Grand Slam Track faced such a mega setback, naturally, no one was happy, as it didn’t paint a good picture for the sport. Recently, Alexis Ohanian confessed, “No one is celebrating this…..No one wants to see less investment in the sport.” And he isn’t the first one to comment on GST’s sudden failure. Noah Lyles had earlier commented, too, saying, “I’d say my predictions were kind of dead on, unfortunately.” Amid all these mounting apprehensions and pending dues, there’s a detail about Michael Johnson’s GST that now hints that the league may have quite evidently faced financial distress long before the LA leg was called off.
As per a Forbes article published on July 14, it has come to light that troubles looked to have actually started for the Grand Slam Track right around their third Philadelphia leg, held between May 31 and June 1. Forbes reports that, “Grand Slam Track also made adjustments to its race schedule in Philadelphia, eliminating the 5,000 meter race from the schedule entirely and removing one-half of the prize pool for the distance categories – a total of $525,000 between the men’s and women’s events.” Well, if you didn’t already know, GST Philly featured two major changes, and dropping the 5000m race event entirely was one of them. This did seem to have saved the league a huge amount of money.
The other change made at GST Philly was to shrink the event from a three-day venture to a two-day event. The reason officially given behind this move was fan feedback. Michael Johnson said in the press release, “We want to listen to our fans, athletes, and coaches, and having heard feedback from various key stakeholders, we’ve made the decision to condense our schedule in Philadelphia into two, high-octane, and intense days of combat racing.” However, now looking at the larger picture of what happened with GST LA and how the league collapsed given economic concerns, it does look like these were signs of GST economically struggling all this while? Maybe.
But cancelling events hasn’t ended all of their problems. Michael Johnson’s GST still has some alarming issues to face. One of the recent ones that has now come to light is the pending facility rental fee that they still have to pay the Ansin Sports Complex in Miramar, Florida. Yes, as per Forbes, the Miami leg was held between May 2-4, which was 72 days ago, yet the GST has yet to pay $77,896 to the City of Miramar for the venue. The first of three payments in which this is to be paid is due on July 18 ($30,000 ), next on August 18, the same amount, and the final on September 18, for the remaining amount.
At the same time, Michael Johnson’s GST is yet to pay the participant athletes, and they have been promised an installment at the end of this month too. Here’s how some of them had chosen to react in the recent past.
Gabby Thomas and others have commented on Michael Johnson’s league
After it came to common knowledge that the Grand Slam Track has yet to pay its athletes, a report by Front Office Sports said that appearance fees have been paid to athletes who competed in Kingston. But the prize money payouts for them have been scheduled for the end of July. At the same time, both the prize money and appearance fee for the Miami and Philadelphia slams are still unpaid. Those, when raised by the Association of Athletics Managers, were promised to be given by the end of September.
Amid these delays, athletes kept voicing their frustrations. Gabby Thomas commented on a TikTok video posted by GST and said, “So dope! pls pay me…” Athletes like Alison Dos Santos and Emmanuel Wanyonyi also confirmed that they were still waiting for their pay. Another athlete who participated in the Philly leg, Nico Young said, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything about it. We’re working on it.”
The only ray of hope that appeared was when Roshawn Clarke’s agent, Seegobin, confirmed, “I have received the first quarter payment of the appearance fee for my client, Roshawn Clarke, and it’s not abnormal that some of these payments take a while.” As nearly half of July has passed by now, Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track is nearly some major tests around the month’s end. Will they live up to expectations? Or will new complications unfold? Let us know what you think.
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