On Friday, Olympic legend and Grand Slam Track Founder and CEO Michael Johnson informed fans of something most already knew and feared from the start.
The fledging league is in trouble.
“While I am no stranger to setbacks and overcoming obstacles, as an athlete, professionally, and personally, this current situation of not being able to pay our athletes and partners has been one of the most difficult challenges I’ve ever experienced,” said the 4x Olympic Gold medalist in a social media post last week.
Johnson noted athletes and vendors have not been paid yet and plans to fulfill the league’s financial obligations have not come to fruition the way they had hoped.
“…unfortunately, we saw circumstances change in ways beyond our control,” he said. “The 2026 season will not happen until those obligations are met- and that is my no.1 priority.”
So what happened to the start-up track league?
In June 2024, prior to the Summer Games in Paris, Michael Johnson announced he would be launching Grand Slam Track in 2025.
“I am delighted to finally unveil Grand Slam Track to the millions of track fans around the world,” said Michael Johnson in the 2024 release. “We are excited to launch this new platform for the planet’s greatest racers in this sport we all love. Our team has worked tirelessly to design and build a product that will be loved by fans and provide opportunities for our racers that they truly deserve. We’re revolutionizing the track landscape, allowing our sport to remain at the forefront of the sporting world year round, and pushing our superstar racers to break new ground in their personal storytelling, competitive success, and marketability.
“Grand Slam Track is going to take our sport to new heights, and we want you to come along for the ride.”
The release described the league’s competition and general operational structure. It also mentioned that GST secured $30 million in funding from investors/partners including Winner’s Alliance, “a global, athlete-centric commercial solution.”
Following the Paris Games, Grand Slam Track shared more news.
“..what we’re bringing about is strong structural change inside of sport, which is more of a thinking problem,” said GST President and COO Steve Gera at the time. “We’re just professionalizing and codifying the world’s oldest sport, an ancient sport, and really the anchor of the Olympic movement. Everything that we’re doing now is really geared towards creating a truly professional sports league for the best racers in the world.”
GST revealed athletes such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Kenny Bednarek, Gabby Thomas and others would be competing at events to be held in Kingston, Jamaica and in Miami, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
It sounded promising, especially for competitors who were begging for more opportunities to compete and earn, and long-time track fans, who wanted more ways to watch and experience the sport outside of the Olympics and Diamond League events.
While the hype was great, the first Slam in Jamaica produced disappointing ticket sales for a large venue. In Miami, the smaller venue showed more promise and Philadelphia produced the best results with an estimated 10,000+ in ticket sales according to Citius Magazine.
But in June, the league announced it was canceling its final event scheduled in LA in late June.
The news came amid questions about GST’s financial health and employee turnover, including the departure of Chief Content Officer Rick Qualliotine and Chief Live Event Officer John Porco.
In addition, athletes and venues complained about not being paid despite competing and hosting events, respectively, further fueling speculation that GST was in serious trouble.
“We’ve had a very difficult situation this year financially,” said Johnson in an interview with Front Office Sports, referencing an investor who couldn’t meet their financial obligations.
Despite their financial struggles, Johnson noted that they were pleased with the TV product and social media engagement. He also mentioned they’re adding partners and working on securing additional capital.
While the situation is challenging, Johnson appears to be taking the steps necessary to right the ship, the first being to take care of those owed money.
“We’ve got to get this right,” said Johnson. “We’ve got to get our athletes and vendors taken care of.”
He admitted they made mistakes and acknowledged that they might have ran too fast (pun intended) at launch, an issue many start-ups face.
Grand Slam Track has options to pursue and can apply lessons learned from other leagues.
They could pursue smaller venues to keep the overhead lower and to improve the experience; seeing an empty stadium isn’t eye pleasing. The league could also reduce the number of venues and/or hold multiple events at a single venue.
Another option is to review the competitor payouts. Paying athletes a reported $10,000 to $100,000 per race depending on where they finish seems high for a start-up, especially in a sport which doesn’t have much competition in terms of overall events to participate in.
And while track athletes deserve these payouts, for they, and the sport in general, have been underfunded and undervalued for far too long, the business of track needs to handled in a fiscally responsible manner.
That’s evident by the fact that despite a claimed $30 million in funding, the league hasn’t been able to pay the venues or athletes. That also shows that the loss of the investor in question was significant, proving that GST must diversify its funding sources to reduce its dependency on a sole entity.
So while Grand Slam Track is learning the tough lessons experienced by all start-up ventures, it’s good to know that Johnson and his team have been working hard to take care of their commitments and build for the future.
And no matter the obstacles, Johnson’s mission remains the same- to uplift the sport of track, which is something sorely needed.
