I never thought I would say this, but I’m actually starting to feel a little sorry for Michael Johnson. Can you imagine how many sleepless nights he’s having, realizing that he may have irreparably tarnished a reputation built over a lifetime? To quote the Seinfeld cake episode “that is going to be punishment enough….” and I’m not inclined to pile on at this point.
When I said that's reassuring I was being sarcastic. It's big clusterf*ck and at least now MJ is seen for what he is and has lost all credibility. I'm certain lawsuits are coming. The biggest mistake in terms of making GST successful was location choice. Had the first venue been Philly followed by others where fans actually show up to watch pros then maybe they had a chance but it's hard to overcome incompetence and fraud.
I said this before. This was always about MJ and his ego. He thought his name was a much bigger deal than it really is. He thought just by putting his name to ot investors would trip.over each other to throw money at him. When it all failed once again he thought his name would draw more money in. His ego would not allow him to admit GST failed.
This was always about Michael Johnson and nothing else.
This is where he should get flamed by prosecutors pressing fraud charges against him. They are going to have a field day proving how he failed to disclose shaky nonbinding “commitments” as the funding base to the athletes & vendors who signed agreements with GST and passed off what were likely just conversations or “handshake agreements” as cash in hand.
You think athletes asked Michael if his funding was secured? I highly doubt it.
Same thing with most vendors.
TV people might have been smart and said "pay us beforehand we have to get trucks down there, etc".
But I bet the stadium, etc just said "here's the fee" and they expect to get paid after the event.
GST had given the impression they had a lot of financial backing. Now that wasn't the case, but most people assumed it to be true.
legal beagle wrote:
MJ may suck and have overpromised, but GST breaching contracts with athletes and vendors isn't "fraud" in the legal sense, nor is it criminal.
I think that's most likely the scenario. Not being able to pay something isn't a crime. If they fraudulently told people the money was secured that would be something else. But I just looked it up, "Grand Slam Track has secured more than $30 million in financial commitments from investors and strategic partners for the launch of the league." is the language in their first press release.
they didn't say they had $30 million they said they had "$30 million in financial commitments."
I also doubt anything criminal occurred, although I would like to see what any agreements looked like. But I do think the Miami and Philadelphia meets are a different scenario than Kingston - by Miami he apparently did not even have a commitment from anyone that would allow him to pay the athletes/venues. At that point did he have an obligation to update everyone? If you're someone like Nico Young who just ran Philadelphia, did he have an obligation to tell him he was unlikely to ever receive any prize money he might win?
I don't think you can really SUE for lack of payout from running 5 laps around a track. Maybe you can get your flight/hotel paid for out of a civil case, but that's it. Move on, grow up. sh1t happens way worse every day to regular people.