GST financial update: GST still hasn't paid Miramar for stadium, MJ says they had cash crunch after key investor pulled out after going to Jamaica event
MJ wanted to create intense rivalries between runners with lots or trash talking so it spilled over into mainstream media. That would draw millions of new fans into the sport and millions of dollars in revenue. He figured the best way to bootstrap that from nothing was $100,000 to each slam winner. That's the basic plan and it's perfectly reasonable.
Jamaica vs USA seemed like the most natural rivalry to start with, so the first meet was held there. It turns out the Jamaican athletes didn't buy in, but by that time, the schedule was already set.
In hindsight, it didn't work. But this plan hasn't been fully tested yet either. Was the idea bad, or was his execution bad? Nobody knows.
All businesses spend money they don't have. This happens every day of the week. It's especially true in the entertainment industry. And when revenues don't meet expectations, people that were promised money don't get paid. There is absolutely nothing new here.
Every agent of every athlete would have known this could happen. Whether or not those agents, or even MJ, raised that possibilities with athletes, I don't know. But since travel expenses were paid in advance, it's not like the athletes lost any money out of pocket. No real victims here.
Once things started going bad, MJ has to stay publicly optimistic because that's his only chance of bringing the investors back in (or new investors). So he has to keep up the facade in order for there to be any chance to pay the athletes.
There isn't even a hint of fraud in this. It's not illegal to try a new business model and fail. There's not even a whiff of anything unethical either. This is how the entertainment industry works. Money paid upfront is guaranteed money, everything else is a pipe dream.
That's where potential fraud charges come into play. Telling people and facilities you're going to pay them when you know you don't have any money to pay them is fraud. If you write a check for a million dollars when you have no money in your bank account you'll get arrested.
I’m not so sure about this. And I’m not defending him. He has acted stupidly and disrespected seemingly everyone by not being transparent. But there’s a difference between cashing a bad check and taking someone else’s million dollars and engaging services you’re hoping to pay for with money you’re hoping to raise. I think until even very recently he believed he was going to have the money come in. Guy should have established a Chinese wall between himself and the day-to-day expenses and finances. Now he looks dodgy as anything and liable for suit (although why sue when he has no money) but I’m still deeply skeptical he’ll be taken in for fraud.
That's where potential fraud charges come into play. Telling people and facilities you're going to pay them when you know you don't have any money to pay them is fraud. If you write a check for a million dollars when you have no money in your bank account you'll get arrested.
I’m not so sure about this. And I’m not defending him. He has acted stupidly and disrespected seemingly everyone by not being transparent. But there’s a difference between cashing a bad check and taking someone else’s million dollars and engaging services you’re hoping to pay for with money you’re hoping to raise.
He told everyone that he HAD $30 million. That was a lie. He did NOT have $30 million.
If he had said before the first meet "We only have a few millions dollars but we hope to eventually raise $30 million" and then he never got the $30 million, that would be a totally different story. But that is NOT what he said. He lied and said he ALREADY had $30 million and lots of agents and runners believed his lie. That's where the fraud comes in.
And that is exactly what the lawyers will be saying when MJ gets sued.
He told everyone that he HAD $30 million. That was a lie. He did NOT have $30 million.
....
He lied and said he ALREADY had $30 million and lots of agents and runners believed his lie.
Do you have a reference for that? As far as I can tell, he only said he had commitments for $30 million, not the actual $30 million in hand. If you have a reference, please share.
Ok, so an investor pulled funds “mid season”? That’s not the issue. The issue was that you don’t set up contracts, prize purse, and the league budget based on money you don’t have guaranteed. If you have 10 million then you set up the league for 10 million. You could still offer double the Diamond League prize purse, pay for travel, and host some of the best US meets ever. Buuuut, they didn’t do this and instead set it up for 30 million that they didn’t have yet.
A few things to consider.
#1. The spending was negligent and over the top from the beginning. They hired execs first, spent an insane amount on a content summit, resurfaced the Kingston track (1.2 M), rented stadiums for 2 weeks??, and are rumored to have spent close to a million on the Jamaica broadcast alone. This plus flying athletes and coaches first class everywhere.
#2. Even if the investor didn’t pull out, setting the league up with a 30m budget was never going to work. Let’s say they finished the season and even hosted in LA. They still would need another 30m next season because of the contracts and promised prize structure (and staff salaries). That was never going to work. it’s not as bad as it is now but they’d still have to convince investors to invest another 30 with only a return of 2-3 million a season. I guess that’s better than asking investors to convert your debt but still not a smart business plan.
#3. Start telling the truth at some point and save face. Athletes deserve to be told the truth. It seems that only a few people knew the financial details and they did a very poor job of managing this venture. It’s time to come clean and just say “we got excited and spent way too much money and money we didn’t have in the bank”. That’s at least honest. Lying will just get this crew in trouble and hurt them forever in the sport.
It’s not about an investor pulling out. It’s about gross overspending and mismanagement. That’s it
It's so obvious it's Nike that turned the screws on Seb's WA and Petr's DL by using KM & MJ as shills just like the MS13 gang does. No Branding. Nike has no imagination, no dreams, no foresight. They have had the same Prefontaine campaign year after year poaching a dead man's grave since the 1980s. No Marketing. No imagination. Same Tees, Pre's Rock, phony worshipping and false idolism year after year. No Price Strategy. Same ticket price points. No growth. McDonalds still closes early on meet days. Hollywood TV moguls met back in the day and decided NFL nose bleed seats $100-$200, 50 yd line seats $500-$1000 regular season, no rivalry games.
That investor absolutely made the right choice. Kingston was a huge mistake. It was obvious, even watching on TV, that GST had no future in the format used in Kingston. LA should have been the first meet. Shame, because Philly was a good meet. They were dialing in the format, but by then it was too late.
Yeah choosing Kingston as the first meet was totally bizarre and doomed this thing from the start. If you've ever watched the Jamaican trials, the stands are almost totally empty. I have no idea why they thought they could succeed there. I thought the Philly meet went quite well and probably would not have led to investor pull-outs if they started there.
Also, clearly something was going on behind the scenes between jamaican athletes/agents and GST because none of them raced the Kingston meet, despite the much higher (promised) payouts and appearance fees. Some of them were running in random meets halfway across the world that same day, it never made any sense.
How is those meets random but the first meet in somrthing called "GST" with 0 history not?
If GST's 501c has no assets, no money, no goodwill, then there is NO lawyer would take your case since there is NO pot of money for the lawyers to enjoin. I.E. no way to get paid.
Ok, so an investor pulled funds “mid season”? That’s not the issue. The issue was that you don’t set up contracts, prize purse, and the league budget based on money you don’t have guaranteed. If you have 10 million then you set up the league for 10 million. You could still offer double the Diamond League prize purse, pay for travel, and host some of the best US meets ever. Buuuut, they didn’t do this and instead set it up for 30 million that they didn’t have yet.
A few things to consider.
#1. The spending was negligent and over the top from the beginning. They hired execs first, spent an insane amount on a content summit, resurfaced the Kingston track (1.2 M), rented stadiums for 2 weeks??, and are rumored to have spent close to a million on the Jamaica broadcast alone. This plus flying athletes and coaches first class everywhere.
#2. Even if the investor didn’t pull out, setting the league up with a 30m budget was never going to work. Let’s say they finished the season and even hosted in LA. They still would need another 30m next season because of the contracts and promised prize structure (and staff salaries). That was never going to work. it’s not as bad as it is now but they’d still have to convince investors to invest another 30 with only a return of 2-3 million a season. I guess that’s better than asking investors to convert your debt but still not a smart business plan.
#3. Start telling the truth at some point and save face. Athletes deserve to be told the truth. It seems that only a few people knew the financial details and they did a very poor job of managing this venture. It’s time to come clean and just say “we got excited and spent way too much money and money we didn’t have in the bank”. That’s at least honest. Lying will just get this crew in trouble and hurt them forever in the sport.
It’s not about an investor pulling out. It’s about gross overspending and mismanagement. That’s it
Yeah I think the problem is blatantly obvious here.
The "venture" Johnson was trying to run (GST) absolutely needed a rock solid funding agreement/contract. There is this odd narrative that was seeded (by him) of GST a being a "startup" and hence trying to run the league like one. If Johnson truly thought it would work this way then he fooled everyone, including himself.
Because while in principal it was a venture "starting up", it didn't fit the bill for one on a human resources point of view - his biggest resource being his athletes. They weren't employees in the sense of working for company equity or a short term reduced or non-existent salary in the hope of long term growth leading to a sizeable one. Half his athletes were in theory working like an independent contractor would in the startup - and they don't work for equity, they work for money.
Mismanagement in the key term you pointed out. It's mismanagement because there was no management. It was a former athlete and bunch of phonies that knew they could make themselves some quick (and I'm sure substantial) money off of him. There is this weird notion in the sports world in particular right now that former players/athletes that once had high competency in their chosen sport must have the same level of competence when it comes to things like commentating on their sport, having a holistic POV on their sport or running a business related to their sport. Being a former "great" or self proclaimed "hero" doesn't mean sh-t. It's not an automatic endorsement that you will have any idea what you are doing in whatever you wanted to do related to your sport.
Track found out the hard way with this guy.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
If GST's 501c has no assets, no money, no goodwill, then there is NO lawyer would take your case since there is NO pot of money for the lawyers to enjoin. I.E. no way to get paid.
Of course there’s a way for the lawyer to get paid. By their client. They might not take it on contingency but that’s a different matter. Also, they’d almost certainly make a case for fraudulent conveyance against anyone such as MJ who did get paid. A 501 refers to how it is treated in tax law. It offers no legal protections otherwise.
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
If GST's 501c has no assets, no money, no goodwill, then there is NO lawyer would take your case since there is NO pot of money for the lawyers to enjoin. I.E. no way to get paid.
Of course there’s a way for the lawyer to get paid. By their client. They might not take it on contingency but that’s a different matter. Also, they’d almost certainly make a case for fraudulent conveyance against anyone such as MJ who did get paid. A 501 refers to how it is treated in tax law. It offers no legal protections otherwise.
Ambulance chasers gotta see that Nike fanboi GST has assets otherwise no case. Eat the loss. Stop crying. You got shafted by Nike GST. Funny as Hell!
This Thursday is the deadline for GST to pay all prize and contract money for the Jamaica meeting at the beginning of April, if they are to meet their previously announced deadline to make these payments by the end of July.
Can someone please tell me how tariffs would impact a pro sports league?
Let's remember Kingston was April 4-6 ... Trumps "liberation day tariffs" were April 2 and his first chickening out, before we knew he always chickens out was April 9. This was about the worse time imaginable to be starting a highly speculative new venture.
Bummer GST didn't have that money more locked down. But Trump did not help that week.
I assumed this would be the theme of every page in this thread. Situational influence is everything. Friday, April 4, 2025 was probably the worst day in recent memory to have a startup in any venture that relied on unsecured investor capital.
The tariffs are absolutely a legitimate issue, given the landscape that day. The market plunged the day prior on Thursday, solely due to tariffs fear. Everyone was on edge. The free fall continued on Friday, except even worse. China announced huge retaliatory tariffs.
Sure, the simpletons will look at market conditions 3 months later and squawk. That's what red board players do. They've got all the winners once everything is official in red type on the tote board.
But on late Friday afternoon April 4 imagine entering an empty track stadium simultaneous with market collapse and financial dread as the lead story on every network and throughout the internet. This investor made a logical decision dictated by real world variables. Expectation was that the market would continue to avalanche. And that would have been the case if tariff numbers and timetables had remained unchanged.
Fortunately there's about as much backbone in this president as that salmon I consumed a few hours ago.
I'm honestly surprised MJ isn't camped out in Saudi Arabia with his gold spikes draped around his neck trying to pawn himself to a sheikh. The money he needs is chump change, it's the salary of a single golfer.