GST financial update: GST still hasn't paid Miramar for stadium, MJ says they had cash crunch after key investor pulled out after going to Jamaica event

The investor saw the empty stands and noped out

Pretty rich that Ackman blamed tariffs on his decision to cut and run, when he was so gung ho about getting the guy who campaigned on said tariffs elected.

Either way, gotta hope the athletes and vendors are paid what they're owed, and that the next person attempting to "save track and field" doesn't put all their eggs in a basket belonging to a fickle billionaire who's stewed his brain via excessive Twitter exposure.

Kid on my track team has a connection with someone who worked with GST and from what I was told a couple weeks ago (second hand source and a high school kid so take with a major grain of salt but overall I do trust this kid) GST owes something like 30+ million. Not sure if that was to athletes only or athletes and crew. Either way, not good.

And I would just add, if somebody’s money is contingent, you make sure Kingston is a success. I still can’t believe they didn’t give out tickets (or even bribe people to get in there) when they knew what was happening with the sales for that meet. It was horrific optics and the opposite of a “launch.” Honestly of all things involving GST (and I’m someone who had tickets to the LA meet that was canceled), the sparse attendance at that first meeting is still the thing that most surprises me.

Your lemming colors are showing. Pathetically carrying water for the capriciousness of the petulant short fingered vulgarian in the White House. Whatever VC backed out surely has money in many things that were impacted or the markets felt would be impacted based on the nonsensical announcements made by the prez. Of course, would it be today, as the markets have learned of the TACO of it all, perhaps it’d be different. Don’t blame them for being scared off by the empty stands at the first meet. Not surprised scummy capitalists back out and look for excuses. Just wait to see how the Epstein bff excuses the failings of his “policies” in the coming months.

Be careful. Answering the question that Robert asked got me banned for being "off topic". Why ask a question if answering it is off topic?

Let's remember Kingston was April 4-6 ... Trumps "liberation day tariffs" were April 2 and his first chickening out, before we knew he always chickens out was April 9. This was about the worse time imaginable to be starting a highly speculative new venture.

Bummer GST didn't have that money more locked down. But Trump did not help that week.

They need to force GST to provide an itemized list of all expenses, divided into what has been paid and what has not.

• Have they paid for the Kingston facility? Franklin Field?
• Have they paid the timing company?
• Have they paid the 5-star hotels for the large number of rooms they rented? Or did they set up another "payment plan" with the hotels?
• Have they paid the company that printed all the T-shirts?
• Have they paid for the airline tickets for all the athletes to travel?
• Who else has not been paid? I am sure the total amount they owe is far in excess of the $13 million we have been hearing.

It would be interesting to see WHO has been paid, if anybody. Why did they choose to pay those particular debts first?

Agreed that this was a very bad decision. But all their bad decisions pale in comparison to the bad decision of starting an entire sports league based on the promise that there would be massive payouts to athletes, when their ability to make good on those payouts was contingent upon on a tentative, non-binding, eight-figure financial commitment from a potential investor. That is the kind of mistake you cannot make. And the fact that there was no adult in the decision-making room savvy enough to know how bad of a decision that was shows how mismanaged this league was from the get-go.

Um.

If it were simply a matter of investing elsewhere after the passage of time, why would he explicitly name the tariffs?

The Ackerman obviously tried to blame the tariffs.

Not a man of his word I guess.

$30 million, you say?

It kind of sounds like the source for "kid on your track team" is the many online news articles naming this as the total anticipated investment.

p.s. What high school kid has "worked with GST"??

this is unfortunate, but it really is on MJ and his core team

Both. But being stupid isn't illegal. Fraud is. MJ is in big legal trouble right now.

lol. Stock market HIT AN ALL TIME HIGH AFTER “tarrifs”. You sir, are the moron, blinded by political intolerance.

Honestly this should be a poll on the home page

Headline should read "Michael Johnson refuses to accept responsibility"

Michael Johnson admitted that knew he didn’t have sufficient funding and liquidity before the season started, deceived people, wasn't transparent, didn’t adjust when he had the chance and now is making up excuses.

Wow a lot to reply to here. Obvious that a lot of people haven’t been involved in this sort of start up. First, there is no evidence that the investor acted in bad faith. Almost the opposite. Signed an LOI or term sheet that almost certainly said it wasn’t legally binding and had the right not to invest. Saw the first meet which almost certainly bore no resemblance to what the offering doc suggested the first meet would look like and pulled out.
MJ (who I barely believe a word he’s saying at this point) doesn’t seem to have done anything close to criminal. If the whole thing is fraudulent you’d have to show he never had any intention of paying people. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that either.
Also, almost everyone was represented by a lawyer or agent. I think the strongest lawsuits would be against agents that didn’t ensure there were personal guarantees with the contracts.

MJ also seems very naive. It seems like half of what he is saying is he was treated well enough when he was the biggest star. When Magic and Bird joined the nba they still flew coach. Does MJ really think track is ahead of where the nba was in the 80s

premier league footballers still have a roommate on every trip. Why does he think he can spend money for a room for each athlete when the premier league doesn’t (along with other big league players)

Hmmm, some people might call that fraud.

Btw ackman did lose over 100 million just on Nike stock the day before gst started but someone said he was at gst Philly so it doesn’t sound like he’s the one that pulled out