I think you are being very generous with the positives which is commendable but stretching big time. You made the point about a "commitment to star power" and then in your negatives section lamented "not enough big names". Contradictory scenarios right there.
There are/were so many common sensical disconnects with the structure and organization. When he committed fully to this 2-race "double" format (which clearly suits 100/200m runners and 200/400m runners the best in this type of short turn-around, 2-3 day format), this should have prioritized his athlete spending.
So let's be logical for a second here. Your league is based in the Carribean/US where for the average sports fan sprint events are the most compelling, relatable and the (larger) personalties of these athletes tend to resonate more right? Combined with your competition format, this should have meant that securing the biggest 100m/200m names was your number one priority above anything else. You said it - it means Lyles and Richardson. Not only are they the biggest names in American sprinting, they have crossed over into the mainstream of public consciousness - for good or for bad reasons, it's irrelevant, they are there. Richardson for the "comeback" which Americans love, and Lyles for taking on the NBA as a whole and then Tyreek Hill. When Stephen A Smith get's his panties in a twist over comments you've made, by hook or by crook you've done something right.
So honestly, forget Sydney McLaughlin who despite being a great athlete has let's face it, no polarizing/endearing personality traits and has hardly been visible in the sport or media in the last 2-3 years except for when she shows up at global events and runs extremely well in what is still an underdeveloped event that is still devoid of depth. Not only that, this event - the 400mH, doesn't really fit into what your concept is built around which is why she ends up running this "alternative" 400m race winning by 40m while the "A race" happened in the 200/400 group. So the million bucks a season or whatever she was on should have been going to both Lyles and Richardson to anchor your lineup. Your second signing was Josh Kerr - I mean come on. Congrats to Josh and Ray for pulling that one off, but what the f--k? So he's in this 800/1500 group and he's decidedly average at one half of your events (the 800). He's not American and has zero pulling power in this country at all. Zero. So right away, a massive disconnect between your on-track concept and your talent. It's almost impossible to overcome this (and guess what, they didn't).
The branding and marketing is all well and good - but your product has to live up to the hype, otherwise you are better off "under promising/over delivering" vs the dreaded opposite. When you use the Grand Slam moniker, you will immediately draw comparisons to tennis and golf and their "Grand Slams". So then you better make them epic like these events are. But a golf tournament is a week long experience and a tennis major is almost two. The winners of these have to go through an herculean ordeal - look at the recent French Open final between Alcaraz and Sinner as the best example. Meanwhile in your very first meet you have a guy running for third in a race where the winner jogged the final 100m and that's how he wins a "slam"? It may have felt like an important series by name, but the product didn't live up to it and to cap off your woes they didn't do enough to get people in the stadiums. Philadelphia was the best presenting meet but also because they had the kids meet there both days prior and presumably they got to stay for free and then watch the main program.
Regarding production it was a valiant effort and not Johnsons forte - whoever was his highly paid executive in charge of this should be first out the door. The DL could do a much better job with a pre-show and analysis, but while GST at least had one, it was just devoid of much other than trying to convince people there was a huge crowd in attendance (when we could see there wasn't) and talking about the size of the prize money (which nobody watching cares about AT ALL). Jon Anderson was your "voice" but seemed underprepared and more interested in making "color commentary jabs" vs anything of value. In their defense, they had only 8 events to talk about per day and despite this claim of next level story-telling and athlete rivalries, there just weren't any. The one good vignette was Dos Santos but otherwise no imagination, the epitome being Jessica Hull and her Jamaican snacks. Why didn't they get a challenger with a good story to tell - "struggled to get into meets, been a journeyman in Europe, this is my shot to make good, most people don't understand how hard and unglamorous this sport is but I love it" sort of stuff. It was just lazy and uninspiring - sometimes you just have to be honest about it and call a spade a spade.
For me the only positives were some select individual races and ironically they came in an event group not perfectly suited anymore to his format - the mens short distance. Every race was good quality. Arops effort in Philly in the 1500 was everything the league had to be about but was only able to capture in one race. Otherwise it felt like a series of Continental Tour meets with a few big name signings across each event. But let's see if MJ stays true to his "we are open to all feedback and take it seriously" - he could do worse than reading some of the threads on this messageboard as a starting point.