Can't commit to four track meets with $30m in funding?!?! Epic failure. MJ / GST could have halved the prize money for LA or Philly, or even be brazen enough to do an IOU. But canceling the meet was an absolute catastrophe for MJ and the GST brand. Fans were emotionally invested, and poof! Athletes needed the cash and qualifying times, and sike!
This is what MJ said during his cancellation speech/ presser: "We feel that we’ve proven everything that we needed to this year in the first three slams, and so we will go ahead now and conclude our season and focus on the 2026 season.”
What a man he is. Athletes and fans left high and dry because he got what he needed from the first three meets.
Well you know that this was ultimately just a classic PR team crappy rhetoric which I'm sure they believed would create an aura of confidence and control in the situation. Unfortunately all it was was in insulting of the intelligence to anyone that listened to it.
Johnson knows he didn't prove anything. He knows this was a failure on multiple levels. It just would have been nice for him to have shown some EQ and humility and owned something as the Olympic Hero founder and CEO of his league. But it's Michael Johnson so yeah, that's what we got.
I see people here complaining about times. I understand where they are coming from, particularly when you compare GST to Diamond League races; however, it is important to recognize that, aside from actual WRs, for the general fan, times really don't matter as much as people here think! A fan who knows very little about track and field is generally not going to be able to appreciate the differences between running 54s, 58s, or 65s for an opening 400m of a 1500.
In any case, I raise the point because there was just very little chance to GST to offer fans stellar times. WCs is quite late this year, but even during normal circumstances, GST would be fairly early in the training cycle of a lot of athletes (Note: it's earlier even than most Diamond League meets!). Who wants to peak in April or May? Who is even in shape to do so? The truth of the matter is that any athlete running super fast times at GST is probably not going to be able to sustain that fitness over the course of the rest of the season.
Training cycles are real, and any new track league needs to take them into account.
Some of you people are way too critical of GST. I think some people were happy to see it fail. Why is that?
GST tried something brand new, and had a lot of great athletes run some really fast times. I wish they had the money for the LA meet. Maybe they’ll try again next year. But damn, some of you act so entitled.
Now go back and watch your Diamond League if you can bear it.
I had tickets to the LA session so was decidedly NOT happy to see it fail. But I DO think they butchered this opportunity out of hubris and arrogance, and it leaves track and field looking even more amateur than before.
I really think increased viewership and interest in GST would happen if they included a celebrity 100m race. I bet tons of otherwise uninterested people would tune in if they were watching their favorite actors, musicians, artists, etc., race.
Manufacturing tradition or importance in track & field is hard. Grand Slam was starting from scratch, so it was always in a tough spot. But there were positives—and real lessons to take away.
Positives
1) Commitment to Star Power From the start, fans knew that top-tier athletes would be at this thing. That alone made it feel important. Getting stars is the starting point for any serious pro meet. It gave the event credibility and built anticipation weeks in advance.
2) Branding and Marketing “Grand Slam Track” sounds big. A fan is way more likely to show up for “Grand Slam Philly” than “The Philly Track Classic.” The unified brand helped. Marketing assets could be shared across meets. It felt like an important series, even if it was brand new.
3) Willingness to Spend on TV Production They invested real money in production. The camera angles weren’t always great but they were trying to improve what we have. Diamond League events are probably great in person, but on TV, they lack narrative. You get dropped into a track event with no build-up. A quick 45 second recap of the shot put that happened “before we went on air” is not compelling tv. Grand Slam tried to give TV viewers more, and that’s a direction track needs to go.
Negatives 1) Lack of crowds + Three-Day Meets in One City This was doomed from the start. If it’s already hard to get fans out for one day of track in the U.S., how are you going to get them out for three? This was a major fail.
2) Not Enough Big Names They spent a lot of money—just not always on the right athletes. While criticizing the Diamond League for wasting money, Grand Slam turned around and spent big on obscure athletes doubling, rather than securing a Sha’Carri or Noah Lyles. That’s a misfire.
3) The Doubling Emphasis Doubling dominated the format, but is that really what track fans want? Honestly, the unpredictability of who might win the Slam was more interesting than I expected, but at what cost? Doubling made it harder to recruit big names, and we ended up with a lot of athletes running off-events just to stay in the game. Did we really need that?
4) Canceling Meet #4 Money talks, but canceling the final meet sends the wrong message. It’s going to make it harder to recruit top athletes in the future. You lose trust.
5) Hubris Everyone in track—Diamond League included—is guilty of this. But don’t act like Season 1 was a great success if you cancel the last meet. There was promise, yes. But let’s be real about what worked and what didn’t.
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.
Very good analysis.
I would add:
MJ needs more authority and control over the athletes. If fans want to see Gabby vs Paulino vs Sydney, then the match up must happen. Athletes ducking each other has really damaged T&F, and I was expecting GST to fix this.
I'm happy with watching championship races in championships, and time trials in meetings. That's the way track evolved in front of my eyes, that's how I became a fan of the sport. You could see Coe going for the WR in Rieti and Ovett in Oslo, then maybe avoiding each other for the whole season, and having to wait till the big championship to see them race each other for real. And maybe then see the rematch in Zurich or Brussels. I don't want a dozen of Jakob vs Kerr vs Nuguse vs Hocker, I want to see how fast they can run by themselves, and then the prelims, the semis and the big race at the big championship.
If you have six Real Madrid vs Barcelona each year they just lose meaning. You can't sell six match of the century each year. You want to build up towards the two big ones per year. That's it. And maybe see if they clash again at a cup final.
MJ needs more authority and control over the athletes. If fans want to see Gabby vs Paulino vs Sydney, then the match up must happen. Athletes ducking each other has really damaged T&F, and I was expecting GST to fix this.
Why would you want MJ to force athletes to do things they don't want to do ? Gabby, Paulino and Sydney aren't "ducking" each other, they are athletes from different events. Not only could forcing other events on athletes be bad for their training and performance in their own event, it could also lead to injury.
I'm pretty sure there are fans out there that want to see Paulino stumble over the hurdles, Gabby Pole Vaulting and Sydney running a marathon, but that doesn't mean they should be forced to do that ...
Okay, I have to vent one gripe about the name "Grand Slam Track." If you're trying to advance the sport, then why title the new league with a term taken from... baseball?
My guy, it's taken from tennis, connoting the four most prestigious events.
MJ needs more authority and control over the athletes. If fans want to see Gabby vs Paulino vs Sydney, then the match up must happen. Athletes ducking each other has really damaged T&F, and I was expecting GST to fix this.
Why would you want MJ to force athletes to do things they don't want to do ? Gabby, Paulino and Sydney aren't "ducking" each other, they are athletes from different events. Not only could forcing other events on athletes be bad for their training and performance in their own event, it could also lead to injury.
I'm pretty sure there are fans out there that want to see Paulino stumble over the hurdles, Gabby Pole Vaulting and Sydney running a marathon, but that doesn't mean they should be forced to do that ...
Ok, then why are you complaining when fans don't show up? You can't have it both ways. Either you keep the status quo of Sydney dominating c-level athletes, or you follow the ufc model, force the match-ups, even if it means getting guys from slighlty different weights to square up...give the fans what they want to see and they will come.
Some of you people are way too critical of GST. I think some people were happy to see it fail. Why is that?
GST tried something brand new, and had a lot of great athletes run some really fast times. I wish they had the money for the LA meet. Maybe they’ll try again next year. But damn, some of you act so entitled.
Now go back and watch your Diamond League if you can bear it.
Why would you want MJ to force athletes to do things they don't want to do ? Gabby, Paulino and Sydney aren't "ducking" each other, they are athletes from different events. Not only could forcing other events on athletes be bad for their training and performance in their own event, it could also lead to injury.
I'm pretty sure there are fans out there that want to see Paulino stumble over the hurdles, Gabby Pole Vaulting and Sydney running a marathon, but that doesn't mean they should be forced to do that ...
Ok, then why are you complaining when fans don't show up? You can't have it both ways. Either you keep the status quo of Sydney dominating c-level athletes, or you follow the ufc model, force the match-ups, even if it means getting guys from slighlty different weights to square up...give the fans what they want to see and they will come.
If you want forced match ups, let's go the celeb route. I'd rather see Tom Cruise race Matthew Boling!! ... Or Ariana Grande race Cynthia Erivo.
Olympic and World 100 meter champion Noah Lyles chats with Leaders in Sport's James Emmett, discussing his goals and the new opportunities he's exploring to grow his brand. The conversation highlights his ambitions beyond track and field and his excitement for the future. The duo spoke at this year’s SPORT BEACH at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.