Nike is a publicly traded company. Knight is a 20% shareholder. Being a publicly traded company, a board controls Nike, and donating $30 million to a failed company is not in the shareholders’ interest, whom the board serves. Talk of Nike bailing out GST is ignorant and delusional.
GST is now in the hands of attorneys. Like I said, GST’s future is a legal drama, which will take years to resolve. Talk of a second season is a desperate bid for money, which will not happen.
Have to laugh at how people here complain about the power they believe Nike has in our sport yet constantly expect Nike to open is checkbook.
Ask yourself what would Nike have to gain by connecting itself to GST in any way? Zero gain the company is smart to avoid any contact with the league
ya, remember nobody checks your IQ at the door here. Nike is a global ahole company, dispicable, beyond reproach.
that said, nike would have a bit of a pr coup here, to shore up their sliding corp reputation. to show heart or rather fake it well.
and put money at the grass roots, say a country wlde conpetition, like the fa cup. at each stage the winner can get like a full kit of nike gear, and medal, and progressively up the ante.
al the various levels.
fake the caring so well you firget what a bunch of c$&ts they are.
Bailing out GST may go a very long way for good will among public and especially athletes.
GST was fun and has some structure to build on, and add in somecnon cringe specticle. prelim. that gets eyeballs.
like a superstars 100m, an odd distance, say 500m with 200 guys and 800 guys. 800m men against women elite 100m, would get a lot of silly main stream press.
this would get more eyeballs on the real sport.
in the end, i dont care about big salaries, but having a platform to do the sport, and obesity will go way down, n the next geberation,
the people that choose to be fat dks, go ahead and nail your coffin.
the younger ones , will follow trends abd in fact wisdom.'
they need to hate the prior generation and do a u turn.
Doesn't matter. This sh!t show will never be revived. At best, it will be back for one more year with D level athletes and middle school track level production.
The revised deal probably increases the chances of the plan being approved but it still doesn't make a 2nd season of GST viable. I can't see business vendors agreeing to advertising, hosting or broadcasting without some sort of payment guarantee. GST might get some athletes who are just happy for the exposure, but big names would probably want payment guaranteed. Why would you pick GST over Diamond League where you are confident you'll get paid? And why would World Athletics or USADA want to do anything with them when they're still getting mostly stiffed? IMO the plan is still a gift to the athletes to save MJ's reputation.
It is possible that once they emerge from bankruptcy Winners Alliance will offer to put into escrow sufficient funds to get the league going again. (Note that it is backed by a billionaire for whom the amount of money we are discussing here is pocket change.) Otherwise why bother with anything other than a simple liquidation? If the funds are escrowed, then why would the vendors or athletes refuse to go along with a new season of events?
It is possible that once they emerge from bankruptcy Winners Alliance will offer to put into escrow sufficient funds to get the league going again. (Note that it is backed by a billionaire for whom the amount of money we are discussing here is pocket change.) Otherwise why bother with anything other than a simple liquidation? If the funds are escrowed, then why would the vendors or athletes refuse to go along with a new season of events?
It is possible but not at all likely. The best outcome for most at this point is everyone owed money gets paid something and for GST, there are no lawsuits because everyone agrees to the deal. Getting the top level athletes to commit seems pretty unlikely in future years and without them, there’s just no product here that’s worth the hassle of rehabbing this tarnished brand.
josh kerr is owed 200k so idk how that math works out
disclaimer - i didnt read that article
the question isn't how much is owed, really. it's the marginal difference of what they might have realistically earned. even with half pay the big stars have still done super well out of GST
I bet Kyle Merber will still be posting positive ENFJ-style posts about Grand Slam. Like dude, smiling, being friendly, and “hip” when you were 19 doesn’t make you a businessman. Track does not translate to business. Can we stop promoting these high school runners who peaked before college like they’re objectively smart?
The guy tries to move like he’s an entrepreneur—buddy, you’re a YouTuber, and not even good enough to make it a job. Same for Eric van Ingen—the guy is a nobody now, and he was posting back in 2013 like he’s some CEO promoting his merch on Shark Tank. Buddy, you’re a bad YouTuber. Runners are some of the least aggressive businessmen. I saw this crashing and burning from the start.
Runners should not be managing strategy or business. At best, they can start something like a timing system for track—using their brand and contacts to get into local races—and maybe you can break $100k as an “entrepreneur.” But let’s be honest, these athletes get way too much support for things they are completely unqualified for.
The amount of hubris and ego from people like KM is beyond reason. The guy works in a position now that anyone with a high school degree could get.
We used to say “speed goggles,” but the “intellect goggles” on these runners who peaked in high school is off the charts. I saw this coming from a mile away, and for some reason—even MJ is clueless. You took steroids and probably wouldn’t be known unless you gamed the system—and then you move into scamming real people who needed the money and vendors, and we’re supposed to be nice?
These people deserve consequences. I don’t care how many polished Instagram posts KM puts out or how many “followers” he has—he is not and will never be an executive. Please don’t try to run another business. We don’t care about politeness—the damage from ignorance is real. These people were not set up to run a business, let alone something at this scale. It was literally a scam, and it was obvious.
Runners are terrible at business. The guys running these platforms likely wouldn’t have them without financial backing. Runners tend to think linearly—they see forward and backward—and that’s the opposite of what it takes to be a real entrepreneur. And the KM marketing around this—I can’t stand it. He’s still trying to operate off an idea of his value from when he was 15. Dude, you’re 40 years old and just executed one of the worst business moves in the running community.
Just keep working for other people. You were a likable teenager and a cool guy in college (for runners), sure—but please stay in your lane in the real world.
I keep wondering "what were they thinking" and then I realize "they are runners, they don't think, they run" you could take 5 random athletes from any other sport and they would execute a business much better - track athletes are blind to how much they matter or track in the real world.
bro - there was nothing to revise. track doesn't make money and these guys were fools. There was NEVER A BUSINESS CASE HERE. Letsrun is peak running business- this blog does not translate to anything else. It's more lucrative to start a running media company/website and just sell affiliate ads like its 2005 than think you can do what basketball or football does. There are also no cheerleaders in track, its a sexless sport and I can't even....you need sex to sell. I could literally make a league in 6months half drunk that produces 10x the value ----take hot woman, make them run without bras/shirtless around the track --sell only to adults over 23 and that would bring in more people in person and online for views -than any of this virtue signaling track business nonsense. Merge onlyfans with running and that is something people would need to be turned away from. This idea is already 100x cooler with more upside ---imagine woman can wear shorts but not shirts. Men the opposite---it would be funny, woke, and actually humanize this boring community.
Fred Curly is a better businessman and he's in jail half the time. Common people want to see cool stuff, from real people ,not a bunch of nerds jogging around a loop, thinking they are cool because they won NXN once.
These guys were riding some ego waves from 2005-2015 and then reality set in ---even in the running community these people have bad reps now, like for once I want KM to post something not curated. Like does the guy ever live his life and not try to romanticize his existence - like get a job, work 9-5 the rest of your life and stfu
It is possible that once they emerge from bankruptcy Winners Alliance will offer to put into escrow sufficient funds to get the league going again. (Note that it is backed by a billionaire for whom the amount of money we are discussing here is pocket change.) Otherwise why bother with anything other than a simple liquidation? If the funds are escrowed, then why would the vendors or athletes refuse to go along with a new season of events?
stfu. back by a billionaire? if that statement mattered and he actually believed in the business why doesnt he just pay 25million and get them out of this mess. because, its nonsense---everyone is 2 degrees away from a "billionaire" billionaires are an fffing dime a dozen now. honestly if you are not a millionaire with the ai systems now--you are a poor fffign moron. its not hard to make money, and so sftu about "billionaire backing" every company has a "billionaire backing" that is a cliche and nonsense.
grand slam will never come back 2026 grand slam is going to be an even bigger dis appointment...you know why?
because they are going o actually do it right thsi time with no fraud - and it's going to be underwhelming - nobody will care in reality but they will be happy to say "we didnt scam anyone this time..it must be success!!" stfu and sit down children. they will do that in 2026 and then to 2031 they will slowly go downhill because nobody fffing give an f about these guys and their $$$sht lives and sport.
track was cool before people said "we need a grand slam to make it cool"
that assumption was literally the opposite of the sport.
the sport should be more pure, less gimmicks, less media, just run, fffing train, run and stop posting.
all these media cucks letting the gaze f your gilrifriends-- like the whole point of running is that is mattered whether or not people watched it whether or not they knew how much you ran and posted on strava -all these beta cucks posting on instragram like the feminines and strava and "wanting track to be liek football" miss the fffing point.
running is cool because its not seen. because its not football
the intent of these people is to sell out. to ruin track. if you are going to ruin it --just turn it to onlyfans. my logic is sound.
the only "romanticization" running needs is books like Once a Runner - that is peak runnign culture. Or "Running with the Buffalos" but all the korn addicted ffing cusks thinking "we will make running as famous as stormy daneils" there is a special kind of hell just for your fake souls
real runners run and dont post about it. they train hard without posting on strava. they PR without making it a big deal.
Grand slam is the MOST ANTI RUNNING community I have ever seen
and it doesnt take a 155 IQ to figure it out - all the 115 IQs on letsrun should be able to understand that but it seems to not be the case at times.
Not that it makes any of this better, but MJ ran a very successful business of training centers before this. So the idea that he’s constitutionally incapable of running a business isn’t necessarily true.
