Michael Johnson - Paying Back Everyone - Ready Set Go Show July 31, 2025

Michael Johnson should run for Congress.

Maybe he can become Speaker of the House.

Looks like GST is having people flood the comment section with nothing but comments about how great GST was and how transparent Johnson has been.

WHERE'S THE MONEY, MICHAEL?

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MJ really trying to delay athlete's payouts just to create more buzz for himself is CRAZY

Ask Bill Ackman

Just watched as much of the interview as I could stand.

Yeah... no one is getting paid today.

And furthermore, Michael is digging himself a deeper hole by all of the talking in circles and avoiding direct questions. "Well we have relationships with the athletes agents... we've talked about payment plans... we have new investors that have expressed interest... It's easier now to raise money than it was 2 yrs ago, it's not easy, though it takes time... it's hard to do a startup, raising capital is complicated... we're confident we will make everyone whole and be back next year..." etc etc etc.

Michael just needs to come out and say we don't have it and shrug his shoulders and say I'm sorry, I failed, we failed. There is no money. No one is getting paid. There's no point in coming after any of us because we don't have anything to give you. Take us to court. You'll waste a bunch of your time and get pennies, if anything.

Look, at the end of the day, those prizes were way overblown. The economics of the sport don't support compensating a 12.5 hurdler $100k for showing up to the track on a Saturday and running a mediocre 100. So no, they aren't "worth" that as Michael keeps saying. At this point, I think Michael is just trying to keep hammering the I've-always-tried-to-get-these-athletes-what-they-deserve-to-be-paid button (but it's not my fault an investor backed out) so he can try and remain in good favor with the athletes.

Mike, just take the L and get this over with so you and the rest of the GST organization can move on with your lives.

this is the key to it all.

It was never a sustainable model.

Imagine if that money was actually put into something to help the future of T+F.

Rather than this garish money pit. The fact they focused on the prize fund so much, post race it was what all the graphics showed and all they asked athletes about, just sums up what a horrendous idea it was.

A handful of athletes and whichever dodgy mckinsey consultants convinced MJ this was a good plan are the only ones who benefitted from this. While the sport as a whole takes yet another hit, especially in the US.

as long as the league is kept alive, even in it's current non-competition form, the executives or whatever you want to call them will continue getting paid.

I watched 37 minutes. that's enough. I just want to know how much money the league has in it's account, and exactly HOW and WHEN he plans to make at least the first payment to the athletes.

Will they? From what money?

This whole thing is screeching towards a bankruptcy and lawsuits, and it’s rare for anyone to get anything out of those situations.

They aren't sitting at ZERO dollars at this moment. Believe that. One of the first things mentioned in the interview was how they were spending money already in 2024, paying the guys who left other jobs to come and work for grand slam. Any of those guys who haven't left GST yet are probably still getting paid.

"If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him....maybe you can hire The Paperboy"

Yea could not take much myself

He talked round a d round but never really answered anything

Played victim and savior back and forth.

You knew after Kingston (but probably before) why did they continue?

Says he has been raising mo ey then why hasn't Miami facility been paid the $30k 1st payment owed to it?

Great you flew everyone 1st class yes stayed in great hotels, yes the venues looked great. But the #1 goal was to pay these athletes what a true pro league would and GST and MJ failed miserably.

MJ is a fraud and from day 1 wanted this to be all about him

Great Post!

As I watched the interview it amazed me how MJ couldn't just "Fall on the Sword", he kept bouncing back and forth between "Yeah, we made a lot of mistakes, and need to fix them", to "We're really happy with what we accomplished, and will be ready to go next year". When he originally commented on the cancellation of the L.A. Slam he said everything is great! "We couldn't be more happy with the success of GST", and that the only reason they cancelled L.A. was due to some venue issues, and they had achieved everything they set out to do. Another lame excuse he had was that they are a Start Up, and like most Start Up companies there are setbacks and obstacles. If I'm correct, Track and Field is NOT a Start Up venture, it's an established sport, with many track meets world wide. This is NOT new! It's new in regards to the concept of having a point system for scoring and place, but not new in regards of the logistics. This isn't rocket science, flying athletes first class and staying in nice hotels isn't a "New" venture or product. On that note, looking at the various sponsors advertised at the meet sites, I didn't see any airline or hotel sponsors. Why not? Seems to be a no brainer to have these two costs covered through sponsorship. Also, I had mentioned this in a previous post, most if not all of the "New" investors MJ is swooning over are black owned companies. Why is this? HOLD ON!!! Before anyone rips me for being a racist, I"M NOT! I love the fact that ANY investors stepping up to help GST is great, no matter their race, but why aren't other non-black companies stepping up to help bail out GST? I simply have no idea! MJ's most recent interview did NOTHING to instill confidence in anyone as to the future success of GST. I hope the athletes get paid, and with new leadership, and some educated business people, maybe GST can become a viable legitimate competitive track series.

Good Luck!

And to be honest, this is why I don’t feel bad for the athletes.

MJ has been calling it a startup from the beginning, and real startups attract employees with high salaries and equity backed by VC. If there’s no revenue growth or market capture, the VC dries up and everyone poses their jobs, equity is worth 0, etc.

Anyone with a brain could see that GST was never going to turn a profit in the immediate future. Athletes bought in to a business model that was unstable precisely because of the high payouts, and now I’m supposed to feel bad that they might not get those payouts because their product sucked and VC dried up?

I believe this as much as I believe he was clean - very little

What are you talking about? Ever heard of Enron? Terrible take

Since this thing went pear-shaped Johnson has been smashed on here by everybody.

I hope it works out and people get paid but I have my doubts like the rest of you.

What I don't like about the GST threads here is the "I told you so" from all the posters.

You're all so clever but I don't see any of you offering a solution.

Does anybody have any idea how to make this GST profitable?

Zuckerberg is a 5k runner and Facebook or somebody sponsoring this for $30 million a year would get this thing going.

Come on guys, brojos included, offer some positive suggestions where funding could come from.

GST is a game changing concept, maybe Johnson just needs to be the frontman and a real business behind it all.

Remember, if this works, it's the athletes that benefit.

I think people offered lots of suggestions - the most common having been not to start a track league like he was doing. I don't think GST failing is going to be as a disaster long term as some of the pundits and GST athletes say it will be. Fisher said something to the effect that it would hurt the sport longer term because athletes will less likely to sign up for similar leagues in the future. Well that's not a bad thing - similar leagues would likely fail similarly. Lyles wanted to see a good tv contract before signing up - he made the right decision.