This is disturbing. I half heartedly joked a few weeks ago that they couldn’t possibly have a 2026 season without paying the 2025 athletes but I didn’t think it would actually come down to them not getting paid when all was said and done. How do they not keep that commitment? And what investor is going to come in to pay athletes and then not have a 2026 GST season? Like what’s the incentive for anyone to invest? They are starting right off the bat with owing money to people.
The biggest problem for GST for 2026 is that they have no proof of concept. Yes, GST put on three track meets, but so what? Putting on a meet isn't that hard. The difficulty has been making that meet profitable. GST didn't manage to show that it could move towards profitability over the next few years. Kingston was a total bust, Miami looked like a bronze label meet, and Philly was only a success in comparison to the other meets. Objectively, Philly was a failure if you compare it to any European DL meets, or even a top tier Golf Label meet like the Paavo Nurmi Games.
So if you're a potential investor, you look at what was achieved this year and ask when could GST possibly be a real, profitable success? With the current model, I'm not sure it could turn a profit even in ten years. The only hope would be that it staggers on until 2028 then catches a potential post-Olympic wind of enthusiasm for track. Investors would come onboard a loss-making entity if they believed it was showing good signs of moving towards eventual profitability. But GST? It only has Philly as a heavily qualified success and what do we think the losses were on that meet? Over $1m? I'm certain that total losses for the three meets exceeds $3m.
I just hope that local suppliers aren't waiting to be paid. The athletes are missing appearance fees and prize money, but they'll have sponsorships. Suppliers are completely on the hook for their losses, low wage jobs depend on them getting paid.
They had like 20 people on payroll, many that they have started to lay-off. Probably $1.5-$2 million in payroll, possibly benefits as well. I don't think this was ever really about the athletes, more of older athletes trying to move back into the spotlight.
If they listened to those who know the business of the sport it would be in a better place, they all said it would fail and not be sustainable. We all had high hopes, but the model was never going to work. You all know the saying; the best athletes don't always make the best coaches and it's true in business as well. Great that MJ pulled in investors, but those investors should have focused on working with the LAGP and the NYCGP - instead they went up against them and destroyed our athlete's domestic series.
Based on my expertise I would say production of each meet with staffing all in was probably about $2.4 million per meet. I am guessing income for each meet, without sponsor dollars: Jamaica $60K, Miami $225K, Philly $525K, with a negative net being between $1.9-$2.3 million per meet. Scaling Philly back to two days probably cut cost for that event by about 20-22%.
Everyone in the sport needs to work together and not against each other. Like them or hate them USATF is the NGB and should be leading the way for our domestic opportunities, with support from the track community.
A track league needs massive infrastructure, marketing to casual fans, and a hook beyond “racing matters, too!” This didn’t pass the “who cares” test. And the only people who did care? Already track fans. Everybody else just wants to see a WR.
This is what seemed a fatal disconnect from the start--making a prime hook that Runner X goes against Runner Y in something other than their main event. Who cares other than hardcore track fans about the Olympic 800 champ running the 1500? That was a great match-up, but more or less meaningless to the casual fans they claimed they were trying to entice.
Startups are funded with hard cash, as well as equity. In Silicon Valley startups need to pay top dollar for top engineering talent, the stock options are only one part of a compensation package.
You misunderstood my post. Yes, they pay their employees with cash and equity, but I was very clearly referring to the capital structure of the company, not compensation packages. Meaning they are typically funded with equity from investors (i.e., cash) rather than debt from creditors.
Won’t name specific meets, but I know of multiple Gold/Silver/Bronze meets that never paid out anything to certain athletes. Don’t think it was across the board and I’ve heard it mostly from smaller names. Way less money compared to GST though.
Point was more that this is somewhat par for the course in pro track, just a way bigger deal when it’s 100k vs. 1k.
The Times (UK) reporting that Michael Johnson has been unable to give specific dates when athletes will be paid their GST prize money. The plan is to pay Kingston prize money by the end of July and prize money by the end of September. Fairly evident from this article that that GST don't currently have the money.
I believe that the TV revenue wasn't good at all, and the GST crew thought this was going to be the big money earner for the project. That being said, I watched the televised meets and was really annoyed at how long it took for the actual running events to start. From when the broadcasts started, it was nearly 45 minutes of commercial ads and lame pre-meet banter between the commentators. The personalities were ok, but there was way too much dead time before the first event began. I think that during this "dead time" a lot of viewers bailed out, even as an avid track fan I got bored and easily could've turn the channel. What they could've done production wise was to begin the broadcast with a short primer and go directly to the racing. After a few ad free uninterrupted events slowly start ramping the ads throughout the broadcast to pay the bills. This way, you now have the immediate interest of the audience and the increased likely hood of them staying tuned into the broadcast.
The Times (UK) reporting that Michael Johnson has been unable to give specific dates when athletes will be paid their GST prize money. The plan is to pay Kingston prize money by the end of July and prize money by the end of September. Fairly evident from this article that that GST don't currently have the money.
I believe that the TV revenue wasn't good at all, and the GST crew thought this was going to be the big money earner for the project. That being said, I watched the televised meets and was really annoyed at how long it took for the actual running events to start. From when the broadcasts started, it was nearly 45 minutes of commercial ads and lame pre-meet banter between the commentators. The personalities were ok, but there was way too much dead time before the first event began. I think that during this "dead time" a lot of viewers bailed out, even as an avid track fan I got bored and easily could've turn the channel. What they could've done production wise was to begin the broadcast with a short primer and go directly to the racing. After a few ad free uninterrupted events slowly start ramping the ads throughout the broadcast to pay the bills. This way, you now have the immediate interest of the audience and the increased likely hood of them staying tuned into the broadcast.
I really want to know their TV deal.
This is my speculation but I am pretty sure they likely PAID the network for the airtime and then recoup the cost through ad sales. At 250k viewers, not sure how much of that materialized.
Startups are funded with hard cash, as well as equity. In Silicon Valley startups need to pay top dollar for top engineering talent, the stock options are only one part of a compensation package.
You misunderstood my post. Yes, they pay their employees with cash and equity, but I was very clearly referring to the capital structure of the company, not compensation packages. Meaning they are typically funded with equity from investors (i.e., cash) rather than debt from creditors.
It's also not necessarily true that startups pay "top dollar" or get "top engineering talent" (my apologies to the exceptions). There's not a lot of that to go around and few startups have the cash to compete with, say, Google or Amazon or Meta at the high end. An engineer with both types of opportunity available would be making a certain bet by joining a startup. The expected-value math on that bet doesn't necessarily work out in favor of joining the startup. (Financially, that is. They may also have other reasons.)
OGs all worked pro bono to get Grand Slam going. MJ400, officials, doctors, massage therapists, stats, announcers, EMTs, USADA, timing, cameraman, crews, media, surveyors, etc. For the Love of the Sport. Janitors, food service, parking were paid. We paid our own airfare, hotel, food, sightseeing, 7-Eleve, Starbucks, McDonalds, etc.
The Times (UK) reporting that Michael Johnson has been unable to give specific dates when athletes will be paid their GST prize money. The plan is to pay Kingston prize money by the end of July and prize money by the end of September. Fairly evident from this article that that GST don't currently have the money.
I believe that the TV revenue wasn't good at all, and the GST crew thought this was going to be the big money earner for the project. That being said, I watched the televised meets and was really annoyed at how long it took for the actual running events to start. From when the broadcasts started, it was nearly 45 minutes of commercial ads and lame pre-meet banter between the commentators. The personalities were ok, but there was way too much dead time before the first event began. I think that during this "dead time" a lot of viewers bailed out, even as an avid track fan I got bored and easily could've turn the channel. What they could've done production wise was to begin the broadcast with a short primer and go directly to the racing. After a few ad free uninterrupted events slowly start ramping the ads throughout the broadcast to pay the bills. This way, you now have the immediate interest of the audience and the increased likely hood of them staying tuned into the broadcast.
Sorry, but this was one of the aspects of this venture that set it apart. Getting to know some of the athletes and getting a 'scouting report'.
I’m no agent but have done plenty of contracts in my life with and without lawyers. It’s a start up. Didn’t any agent get personal guarantees put in? Thats pretty basic stuff for anyone dealing with a start up.
GST is a charity meet like all the other meets in the USA, Eur, China. A non-profit. They feed any positive balances into perks for Seb, Max, Petr, etc.
OGs all worked pro bono to get Grand Slam going. MJ400, officials, doctors, massage therapists, stats, announcers, EMTs, USADA, timing, cameraman, crews, media, surveyors, etc. For the Love of the Sport. Janitors, food service, parking were paid. We paid our own airfare, hotel, food, sightseeing, 7-Eleve, Starbucks, McDonalds, etc.
considering this may go to court, I guess we’ll find out
OGs all worked pro bono to get Grand Slam going. MJ400, officials, doctors, massage therapists, stats, announcers, EMTs, USADA, timing, cameraman, crews, media, surveyors, etc. For the Love of the Sport. Janitors, food service, parking were paid. We paid our own airfare, hotel, food, sightseeing, 7-Eleve, Starbucks, McDonalds, etc.
considering this may go to court, I guess we’ll find out
No lawyer would take the case. MJ has no money. He spent it all on $500/nite hotel rooms with hotel catered meals, coke w ice, coffee, etc.
An article showed up on google saying the athletes are owed 13 million (12.8 actually) but I don’t have a subscription to read it. Front office sports if anyone has it
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Reading through all these comments - on top of having read pretty much everything else over the last year or whatnot on GST, and talking to plenty of people about it - I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what GST was doing that was *actually* innovative, new, or in any way, potentially, a game-changer for T&F. What hadn't been done or tried before, either in standard meets or other attempted leagues / circuits?
Having athletes compete in two events per weekend? Is that it? Was that the innovation that no one had previously come up with that was going to revolutionize the sport?
Building story arcs for a handful of athletes over the course of several meets?
What was going to be sufficiently new and different that it would (a) drive people who otherwise wouldn't watch track to watch, and (b) compel those people to keep watching and keep coming back? What was going to get fans to say "OK, I've seen track meets and track races before, but damn, not like this."
Packaging and presentation was nominally different. But what was substantively different?
Yet to get a satisfying answer. Sometimes it seems like the main differentiator was in how much they pay the athletes, which does sweet nothing to attract, interest, and maintain fans. What was GST supposed to do *for the fans?*
I end up at the same point. In the end, it was just a standard track meet where everyone ran two races. The "storytelling" was a bust because the season was only ever four races long. F1 gets 22 races to develop storylines. And you're right, I'm the end, every meet looked like every other track meet ever staged.
The only track meet I've ever seen that looks unique is the Night of the 10000m PBs. Outside of the massive DL meets, nothing else compares to it in terms of buzz. And they do it with the hardest possible event to make exciting. If I worked at GST, I'd be spending my time thinking about how to adapt that formula for a full track meet. That means night meets, pyros, crowds on the infield, track side beer and cheer, entertainment, and at least at the start, very cheap tickets. And aim it squarely at your community, which is running clubs and college kids. That's your core fan base. Get them to turn up and over time, casuals will want to come just for the buzz.
Very much agree with what you've said about the 10000m PBs meeting in London - a similar style meeting, the KPMG Prague Night of PBs for the 5000m has now been started and follows the London approach with races at different levels.
The London meeting took a break this year but will be back in 2026.