Fisher: The last update I heard was that by the end of July they wanted Kingston prize money out. It has not hit my bank account or anyone else's, as far as I know. So fingers crossed, but tomorrow would be the last day before I think people get pretty upset.
Gault: So would you be upset if it's not in your bank account by August 1?
Grant gives the best interviews, never really seen him not smile like that. He's clearly upset about GST, but kept complimenting them and kept it professional.
Let’s not forget they shorted him and the long distance runners out of additional potential payday to the tune of $50,000 in Philadelphia by “consolidating” the distance events into one race for half the prize money.
Let’s not forget they shorted him and the long distance runners out of additional potential payday to the tune of $50,000 in Philadelphia by “consolidating” the distance events into one race for half the prize money.
Looking back, it’s funny to think they pretended to do that as a way of making the meet more streamlined, but actually they were doing it as an emergency cost-saving measure, because their funding had already fell out the back end by that point.
I would hope he, MJ, and everyone involved in GST will start making statements in the next couple of days if tomorrow's payments don't happen.
The fact that they haven't reached out to the athletes to say they're extending the deadline means that either A) money will indeed be deposited tomorrow, or B) there are no prospects for money being deposited any time soon.
And he’d have an argument. Remember that these athletes potentially gave up other paydays for the promise of the lucrative Grand Scam Track Series.
Rather than an argument, it’s just enforcing an agreement. GST owes the money and the extremes would be paying it in full, or filing for bankruptcy.
Yeah, there's no "argument" unless GST had some super unusual contract provisions giving them relief from payment in the event of financing difficulties or otherwise (for the record, this is extremely unlikely and probably would have been reported.)
But a lawsuit only matters if the entity has assets. If GST is bust, then the athletes are out of luck. The circumstances under which MJ and others could be deemed personally liable are extraordinarily rare under the law.
Oh man, Grand Slam slammed so hard. No boring topics ok. Let's talk about how hard Grand Slam slammed. And next year. Lets talk about how Grand Slam will slam hard with the biggest slams next year. In the meantime, why not buy some Grand Slam LA merch! Hell ya!
Merber still hasn't made a single comment. Disgusting. He's been friends with some of these athletes for 10 years.
Pretty obvious now that Merber is complicit alongside MJ.
If you work for a company, and your boss publicly promised something, and then maybe possibly broke the law or at least breached a contract by failing to fulfil said promise, you STFU until told otherwise by your lawyer (not your company's lawyer), regardless of what you did, lest you wind up being the fall guy. Save your fury for MJ, who clearly deserves it. He was captaining the ship, he deserves the blame.
Same thing has happened to me, obviously not for the amounts these guys were promised. The thing that irks me is the race organiser knows before the race there is no money to pay the prizes, but they say nothing. they smile and shake hands and act like everything is fine and then after the race they take your bank details knowing they aren't going to pay. Then the delaying tactics and excuses come.
If they just said up front before people travel to the race that there is a lack of funds and the race will go ahead without prize money, at least then people are in a position to decide to pull out and go and run somewhere else. It's the honest thing to do.
And on the local level it creates distrust with new organisers trying to establish themselves. Runners are wary to register because they have experiences of prizes not being paid, of poorly organised races, of postponements and changes etc.
If you aren't sure how much money your event is going to generate and you still want to have a prize fund, instead of putting a fixed amount, have it as a percentage of revenue. For example every runner pays 20£$€ to register, then 2£$€ of that goes to the prize fund. That way you dont bite off more than you can chew.
Good on you Gault for seeing the opening and asking the question. Grant was honest and tactful. Now, a better question for next time is to find out who his favorite skater is? Brandon Westgate, Brian Anderson, Eric Koston, Andrew Reynolds? I’ll be looking for you at the frozen lemonade stand.