Michael Johnson issues letter saying they don’t have the money, no GST2026 unless athletes paid

That bigger platform does not include field. The whole point of GST was to showcase TRACK to the general public. Who (percentage) goes to a meet to just watch field.

That was MJ's whole point.

That guy’s videos are a massive problem. Overblown and filled with errors.

Look at the official NBC Olympic page. Large parts of the stadium were tarped off. Most of the exposed upper decks were empty, and the lower decks were far from capacity. It was an embarrassment.

Here’s the 800:

Athletics, not "running" or "track and field", is a real professional sport. It's just a real professional sport due to Europe and basically nowhere else. The Diamond League is about the best we can hope to do with the resources available now.

MJ's stupidity resulted in him thinking that because Champs is popular in Jamaica he could get huge crowds to some one-off race in Kingston which completely failed. After that his house of cards fell apart. His arrogance has let a lot of people down.

This was my initial reaction, but after further thought it's not obvious that some athletes shouldn't still do it.
Look at it this way. Even if you think there's only a 50% chance of him paying, for some athletes that leaves your expected value at $100K-$200K for a few meets. Still much better than you'd do elsewhere.

He conned them by saying it was 100% secured when he was recruiting athletes. Any evidence of this? I can't find any

And how you know what MJ was “led to believe” That's what he said and there is no other reasonable explanation. Ackman pledged $30 million. That is not in dispute, What else was MJ to think?

Says the racist

location is a huge part of the problem. I would have loved to go to that meet under different circumstances.

if there was a place like Hayward in the philly area, i think it could do amazing numbers.

people love the lore of Franklin, but the fact is the inside isn't nice at all, and it's not even suitable for a meet like nationals with the wonky track configuration.

would be nice if there was something like a 4 stadium rotation that could be utilized in the states.

Johnson did NOT have a legally binding contract with that big potential investor. That potential investor only said that he MIGHT invest. That's a massive difference!

Johnson KNEW that he didn't have a legally binding contract to get that money but Johnson acted as if he did and he fooled all those runners into signing contracts. Johnson is in big trouble.

If anyone believes there will be a 2026 season they are delusional. T&F is just not popular and that’s a bitter pill to swallow; but it’s the truth. He would have had better luck starting a pro Badminton League; it has 680 million household's vs the T&F world champs at 11.4 million.

There will be a league in 2026, called World Slam. He will get investors from Saudi Arabia. The meets will be in Doha, Dubai, Nairobi, & Beijing. It will be mostly Africans, Bahrain, & Turkey, China athletes. No real testing will be done. Records will fall. They will get themselves out of the hole they are in and turn a profit in 2027.

MJ and GST should take issue with their attorneys. If they had "commitments" from their investors, they obviously weren't legally binding commitments which gave them an out to walk away from their commitments. They would do well to "out" their supposed investors publicly and shame them into fulfilling their obligations. Track and Field athletes are poorly paid compared to other professionals and while a bench warmer football or basketball player earns millions and throw away thousands of $$ on their next jewelry piece, a $100k is significant to a track athlete. Sucky situation!

So you have no arguement. You just call him and anyone who says something you don’t like “racist”. You’re a coward who lives in denial. Do you chicken*hit cowards actually enjoy that incel lifestyle? Points for virtue-signaling helping at all?

It would be interesting to see what payments were made to MJ and when

Could be a bad look for him if he was being paid while athlete payments were being withheld

I always thought it was unnecessary to pay $100K for event winners for unproven concept in addition to appearance money for the biggest names and wondered how they were going to fund it, especially since track has small following in the US. Their approach was build it and they will come. The awards could have been compelling amount though a lot less and still drawn top athletes. I'm also disgusted with MJ - he was not only the face of GST but he knew what was going on behind the scenes. I always questioned whether he was clean in an era of major PED use, and this has me doubting even more since he appears to be a proficient conman.

From Wikipedia (21st century) and chatGPT to count:

USA Outdoor locations:

Eugene, Oregon: 12
Des Moines, Iowa: 4
Sacramento, California: 4
Indianapolis, Indiana: 2
Palo Alto, California: 2
Carson, California (LA suburb): 1
Not held: 1

USA Indoor locations:

Albuquerque, NM: 10
Boston, MA: 9
New York City, NY: 3 (2 Ocean Breeze, 1 Armory)
Atlanta, GA: 2
Spokane, WA: 1
Portland, OR: 1

They don't have to all be in the biggest cities, but pick a place that's easy to travel to and is bigger than 180k people. NYC, Philly, Chicago (or Minneapolis, Detroit, etc), and SF, LA, and Portland or Seattle all could be good locations for it.

I hate that we are talking about mj again

I was hoping after his 400m and 200m records were taken we would not have to hear his name ever again

Ackman is using that 30 million to stop a communist from becoming Mayor of NYC.