Meanwhile Chavez is probably just getting home from his 10 day, fully comped "work trip" to Hawaii covering the Honolulu Marathon and that road mile. God knows how much he charged for that too.
For someone who's around the sport so much, you'd think he would be able to break 5 minutes for the mile.
Meanwhile Chavez is probably just getting home from his 10 day, fully comped "work trip" to Hawaii covering the Honolulu Marathon and that road mile. God knows how much he charged for that too.
For someone who's around the sport so much, you'd think he would be able to break 5 minutes for the mile.
The problem with Citius being a sponsored-content generator as opposed to a legitimate journalism outfit is that they are credentialed as media, in press tribunes and mixed zones and interview rooms with actual journalists without disclosing that they are not performing journalism. This is the "question" a Citius-credentialed "reporter" asked Sha'Carri Richardson in the press conference after she won the 100 at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest:
“I want to be able to speak some life into you. I just want you to know I’m so proud of you. I’m just so proud of the way you have handled yourself, the way you have grown over the years from LSU to now to be able to come out with a World Championship medal. For everybody who doubted you, on social media, because I know it can get real ruthless, for all your competition that didn’t believe in you, for the moments you probably didn’t believe in yourself, I’m just glad you came out here and did what you are destined to do because, girl, I truly believe you are anointed by God because you have been through so much, but here you go, on top, and it is your time and I’m so happy for you.” She went on to ask Richardson how she plans to transcend the sport.
I mean... that's embarrassing, and it's insulting to all the actual journalists from around the world who were covering Budapest. That Citius person should not have been credentialed... or certainly should not have been given a microphone to ask a question in a press conference. But I'm not sure Chris Chavez has been asked about this kind of fawning performance and how that is appropriate. We're just supposed to assume that they are only "little j journalists"? That's big B bull***.
What an afternoon to get the NYC Marathon festivities started! 🙏
I’m honored to receive the George Hirsch Journalism Award from @nyrr in the lead-up to this year’s @nycmarathon. The award is presented each year to an individual to recognize their “excellence in the reporting,… pic.twitter.com/VnKCIVF8ui
I just listened to their podcast where they spent much of the opening 30 minutes talking about the bankruptcy and their debt. It was EMBARRASSING. They still don't get it. I think I'm going to have to write a column. I've always liked Kyle and Chris as people but they have made a mistake here and won't apologize for it or admit it. What's scary is they seemingly don't even understand why so many people are outraged.
On the podcast today, their excuse seemed to be that in 2023 they made it clear they weren't big J journalists - they were little j. So that just means they aren't doing investigative reporting - they are trying to make stars and the sport more popular and are sort of like PR hypemen/social media influencers. As if that's a get out of jail card. So what. Lines are blurred all the time in the year 2025. All the time I say sometimes I'm a journalist, sometimes I'm a fan.
NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Even if you are a social media influencer or simply a celebrity, there are still ethical guidelines and FTC requirements. If you are getting paid to do something (or even anything of monetary value), you must disclose it. End of story. No one knew they were getting paid - let alone $275k.
The fact that they said there was a "partnership" in 2024 doesn't mean payment. And even if they said payment in 2024, they'd still need to say it every time they talked about GST this year. And in every post.
And the fact that they were paid shows you how poorly GST was run and out of their league the GST management was. And Chavez inadvertently admitted it without apparently even realizing it.
He said on the podcast today one reason they were excited to do partner with GST as they'd get access to highlights to the races which normally you don't get. CORRECT. You know why you don't normally get rights to highlights ? It's simple because highlight go to the media outlets that pay for the rights.
In this case, GST was paying for Citius and giving them access to the highlights. What a joke. MJ was in way over his head.
Am I and other media people way more upset than most of you? Damn right. Because we paying thousands of dollars to travel and cover these meets and trying to do a better job of it than someone who is being paid and granted insider access without disclosing it. If I'd known I was trying to compete with such a rigged setup, I might have just skipped the meet and watched it fail - like I predicted - from afar.
Repeat after me. DISCLOSURE is everything. And the word never came up one time in 30 minutes of the podcast.
/Rant over.
But they weren't paid so they got the stick, not the carrot assuming Johnson scammed the initial payment as a bribe which was likely at that inflated figure.
I think Gault said Chris got paid for his commentating role, but CM got zero of what they were owed which was $270,000 or whatever the exact number was.
Re GST: Fool me once, shame on me . . . Dissecting this thing is like dissecting Fyre Festival for what went wrong. I'm good at cutting my losses with time wasters. Even a child knows you don't have the money until you actually have the money. The one thing I gained from this post is that I now understand that the guy that was hanging with Michelle Woolf outside Hayward Field after the last event of the last day of Oregon22 was Chavez. I think I also saw him driving the On van that was parked at that convenience store near the stadium.
Citius clearly made a mistake in not disclosing the partnership more clearly and the team should be much more diligent than they are about being clear about their role in the ecosystem. Content creators can be good and help bring visibility to the sport but they're doing a different job than journalists obviously. One challenge this sport has is a real lack of independent track/running focused news. LetsRun obviously does some coverage but man I'd love a news source that is a) not the content creation/hype of Citius and not the b) often shambolic work of LetsRun (especially the brojos and especially on the boards). Basically my dream is that Jon Gault or other journalists from e.g., the Athletic start the running equivalent of Escape Collective which does really good independent coverage of professional cycling and is very transparent in not taking any payment for gear reviews, coverage, etc.
Jon Gault is Letsrun’s greatest asset, in my opinion, and I hope/assume they are compensating very well for the work that he does.
Occasionally, you’ll see comments about “why doesn’t Jon leave to report for someone else?
Why would he?? No one else cares about being an unbiased journalist focused on all aspects of running/track and field. If he went to a different publication, he would likely not have the freedom/resources to cover everything he does here.
Probably the best thing the brojos have done is create a journalistic position that is dedicated running.
How many foreign athletes did GST target for cheating? Each of those countries's authorities will ban or arrest MJ, KM, CC and others. Different situation for each country. I expect that the International Olympics Commitee and each national Olympic federations, World Athletics, World Athletics national federations, Diamond League, each Diamond League meeting, United Kingdom Athletics, etc. totalling several thousands will also ban MJ, KM, CC, etc.
Meanwhile Chavez is probably just getting home from his 10 day, fully comped "work trip" to Hawaii covering the Honolulu Marathon and that road mile. God knows how much he charged for that too.
For someone who's around the sport so much, you'd think he would be able to break 5 minutes for the mile.
self-proclaimed lil j journalist accepting his journalist award.
It's an award for marathon journalism.
There are literally about a dozen people globally who could reasonably vie for this, and Chavez is clearly one of them.
A lot of people here are coming across as jealous that they have also been longtime fans, but lacked the ambition, motivation, dedication, or skillset to create what Chris has.
self-proclaimed lil j journalist accepting his journalist award.
It's an award for marathon journalism.
There are literally about a dozen people globally who could reasonably vie for this, and Chavez is clearly one of them.
A lot of people here are coming across as jealous that they have also been longtime fans, but lacked the ambition, motivation, dedication, or skillset to create what Chris has.
I'm glad he has.
hahaha jealous of Citius? Jealous of Chris?
He has certainly done well and created a big brand but no part of me would ever want to be in his position. Do you really think the people who post anonymously on LetsRun are the same ones who wish to have a massive social media presence?
My posts on this always get taken down, but Rojo does need to get off his high horse about Citius as long as Letsrun has their pathetic partnership with AG1, a product that Rojo literally made fun of on a podcast last year.
I'm aware the AG1 relationship is not the same thing as Citius/GST as it's clearly a paid sponsor of Letsrun, but at the same time Wejo does these ad reads explaining how AG1 is backed by RCTs and blah, blah, blah... just obvious BS that none of them believe. It rubs me the wrong way that Rojo brags about how Letsrun's integrity can't be bought (a quote from their most recent episode) while simultaneously getting a payday to promote a product he (rightly) ridiculed in the past, and would never even consider using.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
The concern with the Citius Mag / GST situation isn’t just money — it’s alignment. When media figures and league operators are financially and professionally intertwined, independence disappears fast. Chris Chavez has increasingly positioned Citius as a narrative-driven, progressive outlet rather than a neutral one. Again, that’s a choice, but it becomes a problem when the same outlet is paid to promote or “cover” the product it’s tied to. Kyle Merber’s involvement only adds to the optics issue. When league leadership and media coverage are effectively moving in parallel, fans are right to ask whether they’re getting journalism, promotion, or some hybrid that benefits insiders more than the sport. If the GST deal delivered real, measurable value, then transparency should be easy. Spell out the deliverables. Show the outcomes. Without that, skepticism is fair — not political, not personal, just basic accountability.
Can we just be honest about what GST was? It's very common in industries like athletics where people age out of their jobs. You have a bunch of people, who feel like they're top performers, but not lack any sort of skillset in order to obtain a salary they feel entitled to.
What ends up happening? They start a "business," use their industry connections to funnel money around to each other, branding themselves to experts as industry experts? Now obviously, this business is bound to fail, they're career athletes, not seasoned experts prepared to scale a multinational professional sports league.
However, as they get together, they start to drink their own Kool-Aid and get excited, and actually believe that their horrible product will work. At the end of the day, the fault is less on them (although the CITIUS money is crazy misleading) but on the investors who for some reason heard these guys pitch this thing, looked at financials, and still shoveled them millions of dollars. This thing deserved the same budget as an NYC food truck.
Now, they'll lick their wounds, live on the money they tucked away (the athletes and vendors are the ones who get hurt always) and transition back into commentary, because that's really all they can do. It's on the running community to determine if we're willing to accept them back into the community and let them revamp their career on ESPN/USATF.tv.
My posts on this always get taken down, but Rojo does need to get off his high horse about Citius as long as Letsrun has their pathetic partnership with AG1, a product that Rojo literally made fun of on a podcast last year.
I'm aware the AG1 relationship is not the same thing as Citius/GST as it's clearly a paid sponsor of Letsrun, but at the same time Wejo does these ad reads explaining how AG1 is backed by RCTs and blah, blah, blah... just obvious BS that none of them believe. It rubs me the wrong way that Rojo brags about how Letsrun's integrity can't be bought (a quote from their most recent episode) while simultaneously getting a payday to promote a product he (rightly) ridiculed in the past, and would never even consider using.
The other problem with saying "We can't be bought" is it's a privileged thing to say. Yeah, people who come from well-off families are fortunate that they don't have to worry about money. The rest of us need to earn an income to pay our bills.
There are literally about a dozen people globally who could reasonably vie for this, and Chavez is clearly one of them.
A lot of people here are coming across as jealous that they have also been longtime fans, but lacked the ambition, motivation, dedication, or skillset to create what Chris has.
I'm glad he has.
hahaha jealous of Citius? Jealous of Chris?
He has certainly done well and created a big brand but no part of me would ever want to be in his position. Do you really think the people who post anonymously on LetsRun are the same ones who wish to have a massive social media presence?
I didn't say that they are jealous of his IG count, did I? Read more closely.
I'll say it again: A lot of people here are coming across as jealous that they have also been longtime fans, but lacked the ambition, motivation, dedication, or skillset to create what Chris has.
The jealously in these people is clearly about Chris being an insider, genuinely well-liked by dozens of elite runners, and making a good living doing what he loves.
And yes, a lot of anonymous trolls probably do wish they possessed the courage to try.