Good to hear, only appropriate that he lose at least as much relatively as the athletes and vendors.
Vendors may have lost out - not so sure about athletes if you compare it to the alternatives.
I had a TOP agent last week tell me that ALL of his athletes made more via GST - even with the 50% payments - than what they would have made had they done the Diamond League.
That agent lied because I personally know one of the athletes and certainly disn’t make near their Diamond League earnings. Better do some checking around.
It's the low IQ idiots who jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts. Mob mentality at it's finest. "Grab your pitchforks!!" What happened with GST sucks, but never for a moment did any semi-intelligent person think that MJ (or Merber) intentionally scammed the track world. These same people are so proud and tough with their hot takes and will never admit they might've jumped the gun on spewing vitriol at those taking a big chance, including personal risk, to make track better.
There's an old saying that you should never attribute to malice something that's adequately explained by stupidity. Most people don't intentionally set out to create a failed business as part of a scam. But the bankruptcy courts are full of failed businesses that were way too optimistic about the revenue they could bring in.
I'd be interested to see the complete expense side of GST and where all of the investors' money actually went beyond the salaries, etc. that have been disclosed. My guess, however, is that GST spent a lot of the money to create the image that GST was a top sports league and if you signed with GST you would be like an NBA or NFL player or a top PGA pro. As it turned out, and as many on LRC predicted, GST then couldn't generate enough revenue from selling tickets and media rights to back up that image.
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Fred Kerley who is now signed up to the Enhanced Games
Every time I hear news about Grand Slam Track, I am reminded about just how awful of a person Bill Ackman is. Truly one of the worst humans alive, and that's a high bar right now
Every time I hear news about Grand Slam Track, I am reminded about just how awful of a person Bill Ackman is. Truly one of the worst humans alive, and that's a high bar right now
I think he now owns it. Curious if he also got he money he put in returned...think his company was #1 in line
Every time I hear news about Grand Slam Track, I am reminded about just how awful of a person Bill Ackman is. Truly one of the worst humans alive, and that's a high bar right now
I think he now owns it. Curious if he also got he money he put in returned...think his company was #1 in line
Investors are near the back of the line to recover funds from a bankruptcy and in the case of GST, thereby isn’t any, anyway.
MJ is compared to Bernie Madoff: orchestrator of largest Ponzi scheme in history, 57 billion owed to thousands of defrauded investors, no legitimate investments, 11 felonies, imprisonment (had a release date of 2137).
O-K.
Yes. Madoff went into that as a scammer looking to rip people off and got caught.
MJ sincerely wanted this to work. As I understand an investor pulled out?
But yes there were ill advised moves - the location of the first meet was a mistake.
They should have filled smallish stadiums with free tickets if they had to.
But, apparently it was doomed to fail because it was too ambitious financially.
The people I feel bad for are the runners who didn't get paid.
Not too many sports business plans include letting people in for free. It might have worked if the athletes competed for free.
I think he now owns it. Curious if he also got he money he put in returned...think his company was #1 in line
Investors are near the back of the line to recover funds from a bankruptcy and in the case of GST, thereby isn’t any, anyway.
Prior discussions indicated he was 1st in line among creditors. Also his company Winners alliance gets 100% of preferred stock in GST per MSN. I would copy and paste but when I do it gets called spam and I get the boot
I still hold the agents/managers who got involved with GST to also be responsible.
Athletes pay them big bucks to manage so they can focus on training. It appears none of then did their due diligence signing with a startup and trusting one person's "word." The doubling, tripling, of the fees via GST created greed. No one asked the simple, "show me the money" kind of questions.
That $4.2m paid out to the athletes during the 90 day period prior to the bankruptcy petition will be clawed back into the bankruptcy estate as voidable preferences. Athletes will have to write checks to GST. So add that to the a$$ pillaging of the talent that GST was hatched to pay like the elite professionals that they are. secured creditors - ohanion and winners alliance are the biggest secured creditors and will get the assets. Probably pennies on the dollar if anything for the unsecured creditors - ie the athletes. Show me the silver lining to that.
Perhaps somebody could explain to me -- where was GST ever supposed to have any income? I saw plans for lots and lots of expenditures without any significant revenue streams. The entities referred to as "investors" look a lot more like patrons or donors. I can't imagine how they ever expected to receive any money back. It looks a lot more like how ballet companies or opera companies function in medium sized cities -- with lots of wealthy patrons giving them money for operations.
Perhaps somebody could explain to me -- where was GST ever supposed to have any income? I saw plans for lots and lots of expenditures without any significant revenue streams. The entities referred to as "investors" look a lot more like patrons or donors. I can't imagine how they ever expected to receive any money back. It looks a lot more like how ballet companies or opera companies function in medium sized cities -- with lots of wealthy patrons giving them money for operations.
It really only works if they get a TV deal. I think it's possible for a track meet to break even on ticket sales alone, but not with the amount of prize money they were giving out.
So the plan was to put on meets, hope they get decent ratings/streaming numbers, and get a TV deal for season 2.