Michael Johnson not working for the BBC in Tokyo - more GST fallout

I am not asking for that stuff to literally be posted on these boards LOL. I have never thought these boards were the forum for that. In all my previous comments I have stated for MJ to stop making fluffy a** PR statements and show where everything has went and show us how they used the money to pay every last person they could until the money ran out. Show who made what money. When they got paid. But we aren’t “owed” anything and I suspect they have sought legal advice and are being quiet about all of this, though like I said - it’s going to come out, no doubt about it. But never said I expected it on these exact message boards…. I can’t even believe I’m having to defend that because that alone would be the silliest thing, thinking GST is going to come on here and be truthful. They will issue another PR fluff statement before that I’m sure.

as far as your b*ner for me questioning Merber, I don’t know what to tell you man. I can question him and his involvement all I want and you trying to frame it like I have some personal vendetta against him is weird, and frankly silly, unless of course you are him or an extension of him.

a few things

- I don't believe MJ is a crook and had the best intentions when he set this league up, but the reality is it has failed. There's going to be no money saviour coming in, and the athletes who are owed money for racing this year probably aren't getting it back. He should have seeked more assurances about the funding, it seems a massive error not to do so.

- I'm not surprised it hasn't worked? There was a reason the athletes weren't getting paid what he thought they deserved. There's a difference between 'athlete x deserves to be paid ££££' and 'we have the money to pay athlete x £££££'. A very big one in this scenario.

- I think his biggest problem is his over-confidence, somebody less charitable may say arrogance. He lacks humility, after all this is one of the legends of the sport so I understand why. But even now he seems very reluctant to take any responsibility on for what's happened.

- there would have been a high bar for the BBC to get rid of him. He was their number one Track & Field analyst, and they've already lost their number two (Denise Lewis, gone to a role at British Athletics). Not to mention many casual British viewers won't know much, or anything about Grand Slam Track. I think he might have stepped back on his own accord (he should have).

MJ made every effort to make it sound like they had the money and it was just a logistical matter of moving it from their investors & earned revenues over to the receiving parties. He kept stalling and making vague statements about how it’s challenging to move this cash flow around but it’s definitely there and just needs time. Meanwhile the vastly overstated funds had long dried up. He tried to any grab any investor funds he could and figure out which receiving parties he would be able to string along to buy himself more time to get more investor funds from a pool of increasingly more skeptical investors. Essentially operating as a Ponzi scheme does right before it hits critical mass.

Then when the agents, athletes and vendors called his bluff he went and blamed the investors, who he never had sign any legally binding contract, for “not honoring their commitment”. This is a far cry from being in legal or settlement talks with an investor who violated a signed contract guaranteeing funds. It sounds like he either had handshake deals with hypothetical dollar amounts, or structured deals where an investor would promise starting cash then contingent on their perception of GST’s value they could inject an additional investment but they weren’t impressed and decided to walk, and GST went on the assumption it was all guaranteed. It would not surprise me if they massively overinflated these very shaky “committed investments” while trying to court new investors.

The next logical step on MJ’s path of degeneracy is to blame the athletes and tell them to be thankful GST gave them the opportunity to compete. Considering how tone deaf and defensive all of his responses have been I would not put it past him to actually say something outrageous like that. He’s actually gotten close to this by publicly expressing regret for spending too much money providing first class plane tickets and hotel stays for athletes. It’s incredibly ironic to hear him insinuate that they treated the athletes too well.

That’s the beauty of a class action law suit. All of the money trail will come out. All will then know the truth behind GST.

What he said or didn’t say regarding the BBC gig snub is the least of his problems. Unless he decides to pay off the athletes using his own funds, there’s no way to solve anything. There’s no continuance of work to find new investors.

Exactly. I just went for a run and thought about the most succinct way it could be condensed to.

The BBC role is a good will role. He doesn't have to be there, the production can and will go ahead without him and he is easily replaced - his insights aren't that earth-shattering. And it's quite simple, he doesn't have any good will in the sport right now. Maybe he will again in 2-3 years, as of today he doesn't. So he's completely surplus to requirements and that's why he isn't there.

It is obtuse as long as you are a firm believer that only white men should continue to fail upwards.

Rojo defends MJ just because they have the same last name.

Start ups fail yes and are a risk, but for the investors! The risk shouldn’t be for the athletes running who win a prize pot that actually doesn’t exist.. it was lying and Fraud. Many people commit fraud with the best of intentions and just delusions and desperate spiraling and bad decisions.

Did you go to Philly? Their vision was starting to become reality.

Why in the world would he quit after Jamaica? Jamaica was their opener. It wasn't good but no one knew it was going to be a disaster after that.. Miami was better and Philly impressive. If I was courting new money and had them in Philly, I'd be optimistic they might bite.

I had a talk with Kyle in Philly after it was over. He was so excited. He said something like, "I feel like we have something." HE felt like they'd learneed stuff and the kids meet was a big draw and he wanted to have like a 5k in the future as well.

In my mind, if this thing fails, Merber is more of a victim here than many of the athletes. Come on, I'm supposed to feel like Fisher was robbed of 200k that he wouldn't have come close to winning on the DL circuit? No, I'm not crying a tear for him.

Fisher, SML, etc are like Tom Brady in the FTX collapse.

I don't have sympathy for MJ really. I just don't understand the hatred. And those who want him banned from the sport forever. Please. But my real pushback is on Merber.

If you know the values, let's see them.

How much was he making at Amex? How much with GST?

How in the world would you know how much he was making?

They were playing with other people's money specifically the athletes. I doubt Fisher gets anywhere near the endorsement deals that SML has - she is an anomaly. Very few track athletes make big money including many at GST, and any athlete's career can end tomorrow with bad injury and then sponsors disappear. FTX collapse ended up with Sam Bankman-Fried as convicted felon now in jail. Are you saying MJ and crew belong there too for misleading and defrauding many? Or they were just behaving like kids and have no accountability?

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Final thing, stop with the "from day one were told it's a startup" BS. That narrative only came out when the venture was teetering and about to implode - in fact unless I'm wrong it only came out for the first time when they announced they were cutting the Philly meet from 3 days to 2 and then reinforced when LA was axed. When this series was created and sold to athletes and agents, the narrative was "it's the new dawn of pro track and field with the money the athletes finally deserve" and "unrivaled this" and "never been seen before that". All he did was chirp about his 30 million dollars in backing - I never ever heard him say it wasn't guaranteed or it was a startup and things might not be guaranteed. All I heard was how awesome it was going to be and how he was saving the sport of track running. It's easy to say "well the agents should have been on to it and understood the pitfalls" - based on what? They have never had to confront this before - what are they going to do when their athletes are like "hey we finally have a chance to make serious, career changing money" - go back to them and say "hey I don't think you should do this because it's a startup and you might not get paid"???

Good post. The startup language wasn't from day 1. And the cancellation of the distance stuff for Philly was clearly to save money. So when did the lying start? And is it still continuing?

Even better post by Salvitore. I've changed my take on Johnson. Taking him off BBC was probably right call.

Agree with you here. I can’t imagine SMLs team is happy about this and we all know how Grant Fisher feels about it. I keep going back to the athletes from other countries who gave up running DL meets to come and win $100k which is life changing money for them (I mean for everyone, but you know what I mean). Despite the varying levels of reasoning or need of the money, everyone wants to get paid. You, me, athletes, workers…. We don’t work for free and so to see people try and say somehow an employee of GST who was undoubtedly aware of the financial situation is more of a victim than the athletes is absolutely a garbage take. None of us work for free - why should these athletes? That’s essentially what is happening. Yes they got air fare and yes they got a hotel room… and? When I travel for work, I get air fare and a hotel and I still get paid while I’m gone working….

I'm moving this post above my previous post

I'll take the bolded theme further than that. I watch lots of true crime programs. The lazy format is to tease one suspect after another before whittling down to the correct one.

Those shows are absolutely ruined when one of the guys is described as extremely religious and with a glowing equally-faithful wife and kids.

I already know he's the killer. I have never seen it fail.

I have actually written to the programs telling them to get their act together.