Grant Fisher says he'll be "upset" if GST payment isn't made by July 31 deadline, insinuates legal action may be taken

Doesn't deserve that much money for running 7 laps around a track with a few hundred people watching. Think about it

They didn't even payout the first event? I thought they just had issues with the later 2 events as the investors saw the lower viewer engagement than expected.

Not even paying out a cent of prize money yet is an insane scam

True, but it's not like they make a ton on the DL circuit. They often were running for free at places like The Ten that time of the year.

And Gran is already making a TON from Nike. And he was paid an appearance fee by GST. I really feel for someone like Ejgayehu Taye. The 130k is A LOT for her. She dominated Kingston, was 2nd in Philly and didn't run a single DL 5000 and isn't going to Worlds as a result.

Within the last 2 weeks MJ could not come up with the $30k he owed the Fla facility. If he can't pay that where is he getting all the money to pay the athletes what they are owed from Kingston?And if by some miracle he comes up with the Kingston money what about what he owes for Miami and Philly? Grant sorry to tell you, but you are never getting paid.

No professional track meet pays out immediately because of drug testing.

But that money ought to be in an escrow account somewhere, because it has to be paid to somebody eventually.

I'm going to requite registration in this thread moving forward. When unregistered users are posting things getting down registered at a 20-1 clip, the posts are over the top.

I don't get why people think an employee like Kyle would have any idea but the finances. Jonathan Gault has worked for us for 10+ years and has no idea. Hell I've been here for 25 and almost have no idea as that's Weldon's job.

GST kept saying they were a startup. I thought that jargon was way over the top. They are a track meet. But startups fail. Businesses go bankrupt all the time.

When you are young and have never been screwed over in business, it's hard to understand that. Weldon and I experienced early in letsrun when an advertiser whom we had a 3-year deal just stopped paying us.

In another separat instance, at one point, we had an agreement to sell letsrun. We didn't sell it. Why?Because a wise man who we asked about it - who had a great career in business gave us simple advice - "Assume you are fired on day 1." The entity that was going to buy us said they wanted us to continue to run the site. Our advisor said, "They can say whatever they want. But talk doesn't mean anything. Are you happy enough with the price even if you are fired on day 1?"

Do I think MJ started GST with the intention of blowing up his brand and screwing everyone? Absolutely not.

But do I think Grant is gong to get paid and there will be a 2026 version of GST? Absolutely not.

Great post rojo. It’s hard for people who haven’t run businesses to understand what goes on.
aisha on her pod had a few interesting insights. One was that rieti meet was known for not paying. (Since changed). Athletes ran there knowing the advertised prize money would never be paid. They like the meet so ran anyway.

she also said one meet (unnamed) took 2 and a half years to pay her.

shes on WA committee as an athlete’s rep

one worrying thing is she said they are trying to tighten up on WA reps by making sure they know the WA rules better. This seems completely wrong to me. The problem with gst seems to be no agents got personal guarantees with a start up. Not that they don’t know how many times you have to thread on a white line before you get dqed.

You should have asked me, Rojo. What you do is you sell but as part of the agreement you say you want a 5y deal to remain as a contractor. X amount/year... whatever the number is that will make you happy knowing that at year 5 you may be gone.

MJ is a jackass. I remember he was training at Columbia's track back in maybe 1999 and a bunch of us went up to watch one of his workouts. He was training on OUR track that OUR coach gave permission for him to use. Anyway, we were in the stands across the track and I took a picture of him. He came up to us, berated us for being there, and says "you took a picture. What if you got a photo of Michael Johnson (yes he referred to himself in the 3rd person) scratching his ass. Then you got a photo of Michael Johnson scratching his ass and that can get out and then what?".

The funniest part of that story is that after getting the film developed, he was spot on. It was a photo of Michael Johnson scratching his ass. One day I need to go through a box of photos and make it public... just because.

Maybe it’s just coincidence that the one agent who’s a lawyer Mark Wetmore represents Noah Lyles and couldn’t agree on a contract with Grand Slam. Maybe not.

Michael Johnson is appearing on the 'Ready Set Go' podcast today, Thursday.

Chuck Berry had it correctly. After getting screwed by the record companies for years, Chuck would not go on stage til the money was in his hands. Athletes at the very least should see the cash in escrow before they perform.,

Begging someone to take one for the team and give the highlights of this podcast.

One correction here: she was announced for the Pre 5,000m but was scratched from it. I have to assume she was injured. I agree with most of your assessment in that if all she gets is an appearance fee of $2,000 for each race this is a travesty for her.

MJ says that GST has made the first payments to athletes and is about to make a further payment.

He also says that GST is still bringing in new investors.

Still sense MJ's in denial about the costs incurred by GST. Still trying to justify expenditure by saying GST aimed to put the athletes first.

^^^^

Grant is going to retire a multi-millionaire and will be forever sought after in this sport. People will pay Grant big money to show up in 25 years and give a 15-minute ra-ra speech at corporate events. For people like Taye and Ngetich, setting the expectation that you're going to get six figures and not delivering is a brutal blow.

We should know soon. Same-day wire transfers are due at 5:50 pm ET.

Did they get paid today?

They would have paid them by now if they were going to get paid… the money isn’t there. No investor is going to give the money when there’s basically a zero percent chance gst comes back next year even if they pay the athletes. They aren’t going to take out a loan to pay them even if that was possible. Nobody would lend them money. They’d never get paid back

Michael Johnson said he was about to make second payments to athletes on the podcast.

The outrage should really be at the investor who backed out. I wonder what clause in his contract allowed him to prop up GST and then pull out before expenses were paid. That POS, would be riding high on the hog if it was successful and making money. He/she would be guaranteeing that they got their money