Breaking: Grand Slam Track narrowly avoids collapsing - for now. FOS reports they have received some emergency funding

I don't see any reason why someone is investing fresh money into thisi, but at least it's good for the athletes I guess.

Good news for the athletes, but I wish some of the headliners would say give everything I won to the runners for whom the money makes a life-changing difference in this round. That amount of money doesn’t mean as much to Hocker as it would to Dylan Beard.

Charity meets are for the young elites doing their best.

I just don't see the point. In fact I never saw the point. Why would anyone get involved in this, either as an investor or a participant?

In a perfect world I'd like to see the lower tranches get paid first. Those athletes who were salaried should not get paid until the challengers got paid.. Only thats not how it will go down.

It's a settlement. The investors are financially liable for the debt to the athletes and vendors. The investors could have been subject to a lawsuit for payment.

Grand Slam Track is probably done.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who chairs Winners Alliance, was supportive of the plan but was not heavily involved.

It’s not a perfect world and I’ve never seen that done in any individual sport. The payments have equal priority and the non-salaried athletes are not entitled to charity.

The minimum required is full payment to the athletes. I don’t know about criminal probes but I do think reputations have already been destroyed.

But only half payment for the athletes. Are they really needing to keep those 'fewer than 10' employees on, given the league is essentially no more?

I would like to donate and know another person willing to donate as well. Whether GST succeeds or not I would like to see the athletes who participated get paid.

No the investors aren't. At most, they lose their investment unless they were more than investors and became owners of the business.

Assuming GST was set up correctly, the investors are not liable. They would just lose the value of their investment (which may be worth nothing) if GST goes under. Only the GST corporate entity would be liable, and its debts probably exceed its assets and future value. A settlement would take an agreement from the athletes and vendors to accept less than they are owed. The article doesn't mention anything about an actual settlement agreement with athletes, only plans to try to get the vendors to take less.

Honestly, I'm surprised that anyone is putting more money into GST. This year proved that the GST business model doesn't work. Someone with deep pockets may just be putting good money after bad from a sense of moral obligation. Anyhow, good for whoever is getting the athletes more of the money they earned. This was turning into a big black eye for track and field.

Put the $20 bill back in your pocket boomer. A Go Fund Me will NEVER work.

I’ll still watch it. Crazy anyone decided to bail them out though. Hopefully they can figure it out for the sport and the athletes

Thank you for finally asking the questions. This needs investigative reporting on it and you make many valid points including why FOS? And is it simply bare minimum to avoid a criminal investigation aka a deflection? I swear MJ lurks on this board and knows there are a lot of questions. You guys could be the ones to break this whole thing open, I don’t know why you don’t!

Mt first thought was that this wasn't real and just a marketing tool to keep the "lights on" because obviously you won't get new investors if you cease to exist, but if athlete agents are being wired money then some cash must have come in.

My question is a simple one, why? If you were an "investor" in this and let's say your "commitment" was 5 million dollars - not what you were contractually obligated to give him, just what you said you might give him (as it appears was the case with the "30 million") but you gave him say half of that, why would you ever give him a cent more now?

You've witnessed the poor quality of the product, the ensuing clusterf--k which included Johnsons braindead and tone-deaf media releases and the negative press from athletes, agents and media pundits which has for all intents and purposes absolutely destroyed the brand name and cache of Grand Slam Track, and you're willing to front up more money? I agree, we've heard the "up to" caveat used before but again, some fresh money has definitely come in.

I'm sure there is a tax expert out there that could explain this - maybe some investor dropped a tax bracket or something by just giving away their money here??? None of this makes sense. It's basically like a ship slowly sinking and you're like "But I need to renovate the kitchen first" and someone is like "Sure, here's the money to do that - and hey don't worry that ultimately you're going to sink that's fine". Has to be a settlement of some kind right? Lawyers got together and just agreed on some figures where both sides can just walk away and dust their palms off.

What a story this has been top to bottom though. Depressingly predictable from the moment details emerged on this even back in 2024, but still a fascinating tale.

You’re probably both right to some extent. My guess is Ackman put up some money because it would be a bad look for athletes to get stiffed even if he isn’t liable.

He can now wash his hands of the mess and say “Hey, I tried.”

I’d be shocked if they attempted to run another event.

I'm not sure it's that simple. If the investors were truly just investors and had no involvement in decision-making, then yes, that is probably true. But if any of the investors were on the board or were otherwise involved in the decision to move forward with these meets without sufficient funding to pay the athletes that had been promised certain fees for performance, I can imagine some legal theories that would potentially make them liable for failure to live up to those promises.