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Grand Slam Track has yet to pay its champion athletes their winnings. The alternate track and field series, founded by four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson, missed yet another payment on the $12 million+ that remains outstanding after nearly four months.
Where is the money?!
This latest update creates significant concern. Track and field athletes who made the switch to Grand Slam Track from the Diamond League and other professional circuits are literally begging for their money.
Grand Slam Track lost its top investor.
Johnson founded Grand Slam Track to elevate the sport through a more concentrated format. He promised more head-to-head races between the world’s best athletes— especially sprinters.
He also promised a prize pool of more than $12.5 million to be paid out over four different meets in 2025.
Only three of the meets happened. The fourth of four meets was preemptively canceled due to financial uncertainty.
According to Johnson, the cancellation was a cash crunch. One of Grand Slam’s top investors bailed on an eight-figure commitment.
Where’s the money?
Not only did the fourth meet get canceled, the money that was promised is nowhere to be found. Some of the star athletes have received their agreed upon appearance fees for the very first meet in April.
That is it. Everything else remains outstanding. Grand Slam has yet to pay the champion athletes.
The winner of the two-race Slams were supposed to receive $100,000, $50,000 for second, down to $10,000 for eighth. Not a single penny has been paid.
Another deadline missed!
Grand Slam promised to pay out the prize money for Kingston by July 31. Everything else was to be paid by the end of September.
“Our plan is to make payments for Kingston prize money before the end of July and the remaining payments due by the end of September,” Grand Slam Track initially told agents.
According to three agents for athletes who won prize money in Jamaica, that did not happen as planned. They instead received an email on the final day of July.
Grand Slam Track told Front Office Sports to standby because the money is coming as soon as possible.
“Grand Slam Track is anticipating investor funds to hit our account imminently, and the athletes are our top priority,” said the league in a statement. “Once these funds are received on our end, we will work to immediately process them to the athletes, noting all banks have different timelines for receiving and depositing funds into individual accounts. We are in the process of recapitalizing the company, and we are committed to distributing funds to athletes as soon as we receive them. As we continue to receive funds in the upcoming months, we will distribute payments as they come in. We will continue making progress toward completing full payments at the earliest date possible.”
The league does not have the money. It is scrambling to cover its debt.
To make matters worse, Grand Slam also failed to pay the outstanding rental fee for the facility in Miami.
The athletes are fed up.
Grand Fisher won his long-distance event group in Kingston. He won $100,000 that was supposed to be paid by Thursday. He was not paid.
“The last update I heard was that by the end of July, they wanted Kingston prize money out,” the 28-year-old said on July 30. “It has not hit my bank account — or anyone else’s, as far as I know. So fingers crossed. Tomorrow would be the last day before I think people get pretty upset.”
Fisher is one of 45 athletes owed a total of $3.12 million from the Kingston meet. That includes Gabby Thomas, who is literally begging for what she was promised as the league pretends everything is fine.
World Athletics recently warned Grand Slam Track of potential punishment. It is unclear as to what can be done in this situation but this latest missed deadline presents a major issue.