Grand Slam Track blew through nearly $18 million without paying a penny in prize money? How?

The prize money isn’t currently the least of their problems and it’s what is going to force them into bankruptcy.

GST still has 27 employees listed per LI. There would have been payments to GST employees, and possibly even to Winners Alliance staff designated as employees/operation support.

Winners Alliance has 22 employees on their site and is structured with C-level, SVP, VP, Director, Sr Manager, employee -- which appears heavy for their size/management. They also have a Board.

Team Playmaker, which is funded by WA, supposedly provided the exclusive sales support and they have 10 employees.

PJT was brought in for the funding deck and they're a Blackstone spin-off in NYC with 1100+ employees.

There may have been payments to the other companies mentioned for services / salaries / expenses.

The problem with an endeavor like this is you need to bring in like 10+ athletes for each of these 10+ events. These athletes are flying in from all over the world and occupying a ton of hotel room in high cost places. No one was necessarily asking for Grand Slam Track, but MJ and such are paying 2025 inflationary prices to get it going. The cost to bring in the name brand runners is very high but the payoff in getting fans to fill in the stands or TV revenue is very high.

The WNBA is an example of how hard it is to force a product on the masses. It took 20 years of losses because Caitlyn Clark made people care about it (still debatable.) And once it becomes even break even, the players are fighting you for every last dime.

For some reason people like Formula One and I guess this was the model they tried to copy but even Formula One only has 20 drivers among 10 teams splitting a gigantic amount of revenue.

Track just has too many mouths to feed and a limited audience willing to get sun burned in the stands or willing to sit in front of the TV all day.

Road runners, especially major marathons have much better set up where a small pool of elites can be funded by the entry fees of the masses and/or sponsors.

If watch the videos from the WSPS, EVERYONE looks like they are having a great time, fans and athletes alike. Makes me wish I was a thrower instead of a distance runner.

Here’s something that is rarely understood: pro track is not popular in Jamaica. The high school champs—super popular. But the only time pro track on Jamaican soil was big was a meet or two in the Powell/Bolt heyday.

H'''ers and trips to Vegas?

They talked about it in the article. The wining and dining, the suites at SoFi stadium, promo shoot in Malibu, lord knows what else.

Also spent a lot on set dressing the stadiums, that stuff ain't cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to pay for their airtime on CW, NBC and internationally.

Did Michael Johnson or any other GST officer/employee have skin-in-the-game (i.e. personal investment) in GST?

I would love the see GST’s balance sheet and income statement (if they even have financial statements)! 🧐

Here’s the Balance Sheet:

Assets: $0

Liabilities: $14,000,000

Equity: -$14,000,000

So, I'd be looking at the athletes that are not making any noise about the lack of prize money. My guess is that substantial up front fees were paid to both SML and Josh Kerr, the first two athletes signed to the league and the two that have been at the forefront of the promotional material for GST. They were the most prominent ambassadors. I would not be surprised at all if SML cleared $2m before a race was even run, and maybe $1-1.5m for Kerr. Contracts and ambassadorial fees for others likely add a lot to the bill, and then there's the vendors that demand up front payment, like airlines providing first class travel, high end hotels, etc. burning through cash is easier than you think when you're shopping into he luxury part of town

The way things like this blow up is usually that the organizers dole out contracts to friends, family, cronies, etc. instead of getting competitive bids to get the best value. And then everyone takes turn burning through their expense accounts. They fly first class or charter a flight. Stay in 5 star hotels and eat at Michelin starred restaurants. Every simple function, like a meeting with a vendor, turns into an opportunity to bill the company for a trip to the steakhouse.

On top of all that, bringing together top athletes from around the world to compete in multiday track meets isn't cheap. The legal fees alone dealing with setting up the business entity and financing, contracting with vendors, contracting with athletes, etc. is going to easily reach into the high six figures.

No, paying the employees of an investor or lender is not done.

I quite enjoyed GST.

And love to see runners get real paydays.

They need a patron, not investors looking to make money on it.

Phil Knight. Step up

Rich people generally contribute to charitable causes like hunger, housing, education and medical research. Bailing out professional athletes ain’t one of them.

Before they clammed up, Callum Squires was sending--checks email--about 13 press releases a day. I always had the feeling he was getting paid by the word.

Having a meet in Jamaica was pure idiocy. They should have started in Europe where fans love track. I knew this league would fail from day one, and when I saw Grant Fisher run a 14: 30 or what very 5k, then not even compete hard in the next one when he knew he won some money, I was like this sucks! maybe people should investigate MJ for any overseas secret bank accounts :) :) :)

Wealthy people do not contribute to such causes. They contribute to their own foundations. Why do you want GST to fail?

When a startup blows through cash, the usual culprit is headcount. If you assume an average salary of $100k (which is probably low given how top-heavy their C-level staff is), you'd be torching nearly a million dollars every 4 months. And that's not counting fully loaded employee costs, and of course travel + athlete appearance fees + broadcasting, etc. Not hard to see how headcount alone could be $1mil every 2-3 months.

I bet there were a lot of additional "vultures" who swooped in to clean up on consulting fees and so on when it became clear GST was circling the drain too.

Ha. I guess I had it right when I wrote that. Sometimes I see Steve Gera referred to as CEO and Michael the Commissioner. But the Athletics refers to Johnson as CEO/Founder and I see Gera's linked in refers to himself as the COO.