Grand Slam athletes may not get paid?

Here is an idea to speed up the distance races. Set a base time, say 12:40 for the 5000m. The prize money for each place decreases by $1000 for every second above that time each runner crosses the line. For example if the winner runs 13:00 he gets $50,000-20,000=$30,000. If second place runs 13:05 he gets $30,000- 25,000=$5000.

that number might be aggressive, but I very much like the idea.

But I thought Grand Slam was about "real racing"?

As we can see from these Diamond League races, people actually do care about fast times. And if you think about it, all a rabbit is doing is leveling the playing field for the guy leading the race -- everyone racing then has the same ability to draft, so the incentive to sit behind someone the whole time is a little less.

I wish this childish abomination would just go away. It was an embarrassment to real track athletes and fans alike.

Damn, Nico's response when asked if he's received payment: "I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about it... We're working on it"...

Ufff. That doesn't sound good at all.

I think when everything is revealed you will not be too surprised to k ow that Saudi Arabia is behind this!!!

hello michael johnson

Proving undoubtably that you are a wuss.

Maybe the biggest on LRC.

And that’s saying a whole lot.

Whoops! Someone will unfortunately be returning that cyber truck and firing the ‘chef’.

The Fyre Fest og T&F

Has Kyle Merber, regular and forthright poster to LetsRun, weighed in on this forum since GST shut down?

Of course it's not. I was talking the other day with some guys who said the whole league is just functioning on credit. He was hoping like any great American startup that he could just run up debt and investors would just keep throwing money at the "potential" and "vision" of his idea to cover costs. He keeps using this term "startup" but this isn't a startup - let's be clear about that.

Unlike a true startup where employees understand the risks, are prepared to make no money but might work for equity that might be realized long term, he signed and promised people REAL money and not money in 2-3 years, money now. This would be like having your startup and bringing in 48 contractors to do work for you. Those contractors aren't part of your company - they don't care about what you think your company is worth or it could be worth - they want what they are owed.

I heard the other day some athlete representatives are getting portions of invoices paid to them for just the first meet. I have never heard of that before (an invoice being paid "in part"). All I will say is that I would be very very anxious if I was an athlete relying on this money.

Axe falling a bit

sportico.com

Grand Slam Track Execs Depart as Upstart League Restructures

ericpaul729

Grand Slam Track, the league founded by gold medal sprinter Michael Johnson, has parted ways with two key executives as it restructures the league.

Open link

Put a fork in it. It's done.

Waffle House Grand Slam came before Denny’s

Great idea. When Grandslam predictably declares bankruptcy, Johnson can rebrand and use Triple Crown Track as a new and different league and make promises to athletes he once again can't keep

Gee who would have ever thought it might be a good thing to have a leadership team who have been involved in the sport, understand the sport, understand what makes the sport attractive to the regular public - even if it is only once every years. Maybe it was important to have a team that could question ideas and concepts, weed out obvious pain points and critical flaws. Maybe some folk who could stand up to Olympic hero Michael Johnson instead of just being ignorant "yes" people happy to drain a large paycheck.

Put it this way, if Mark Cuban said tomorrow he wants to fund an off-season basketball league to "compliment" the NBA, do you think the executive team are a bunch of former track and field/swimming and cycling executives? So why was Grand Slam Track's executive team full of recycled WWE and NFL boofs.

What's going to happen is that the USATF is going to rescue this to some degree and use it to replace all the meets they lost this summer and keep Johnson as the "series director" or something like that. It will just become a hopefully much higher paying American Track League/Visa championship series which honestly, won't be a bad thing.

this reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos. This debacle will no doubt make a good Netflix documentary.