The Association of Athletics Managers (AAM) has warned Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track league that it must fully reimburse all athletes and vendors if it wishes to return for another season.
The organization, which represents over 80 per cent of athletes who won medals at the most recent Olympic Games and World Championships, said that it was told in a recent meeting that GST were planning for 2026 events. To do so without settling the 2025 debts, AAM said, “undermines trust across the entire ecosystem and sets a dangerous precedent for athletes, vendors, and future partners alike”.
In December, the track league — which it was claimed would revolutionize the sport and see athletes treated as “true professionals” — filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. GST last week submitted a more extensive record of its assets and liabilities, which revealed total debts of $40.68m compared to $831,385 in assets. It also recorded that over $640,000 has been incurred so far in costs related to the bankruptcy and restructuring to law firms, consultants and agencies.
The 2025 debut season was cut short before the fourth and final meet in Los Angeles amid a shortage of cash and investment. At this stage, only 50 per cent of all money owed to athletes has been paid.
However, when GST made its request for $2.9m in debtor-in-possession financing from the bankruptcy court to cover operating costs during the restructuring process, GST also included a $400,000 haul for athletes recruitment ahead of a hypothetical 2026 season. GST has always insisted that the league can return, with four-time United States Olympic gold medalist Johnson still in place as Commissioner.
In a statement published on the AAM website on Friday, the organization warned it does not support the approach taken by GST, which could see athletes recruited for future seasons before payments owed from 2025 are made.
Johnson is the commissioner and founder of the track league (Ricardo Makyn/AFP via Getty Images)
Who is owed money?
Over 150 athletes are owed largely five and six-figure sums. Olympians such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are owed $268,750, while Kenny Bednarek is owed $195,000 and Gabby Thomas $185,625.
The solidarity shown by athlete agents will also be appreciated by the vast amount of vendors who are owed money. The filings state there are 340 creditors who are collectively owed tens of millions of dollars. This includes more than $3m owed to the Momentum-CHP Partnership for the television production of the league, while the construction firm PMY Ets Usa Inc. says it is owed $1.2m, and the graphics company Girraphic, based in the UK, is owed more than $690,000.
The W Hotel in Los Angeles is owed around $350,000, and there is a $339,000 credit-card balance owed to American Express. The City of Miramar in Florida is also owed over $77,000, likely for the use of its Ansin Sports Complex to stage the second meet in Miami, while there is over $135,000 owed to Penn Athletics, with the third meet having been held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Almost $500,000 is owed to Tata, a global communications and technology company, and over $350,000 to London-based Two Circles, a sports marketing firm. Over $31,000 remains owed to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and $25,000 to World Athletics.
What did AAM say?
The full statement read: “The AAM and the athletes represented by us strongly supported GST and Michael Johnson in this endeavor. We took it on faith when Michael told us both publicly and privately that he had $30m in funding for GST. And when it became obvious after the Philadelphia event that there were serious financial issues, we have continued to be patient and support GST. This despite the fact that the partial payments made to athletes in October can be required under bankruptcy law to be returned to the court as ‘preferential payments’. The payments were made within ninety days of GST’s filing for bankruptcy protection in December and are subject to return (“claw back”) to the bankruptcy court. Once returned to the bankruptcy court, these funds would be used to pay off secured creditors, with whatever remains to be divided among all unsecured creditors, not just athletes.
“The AAM believes that the integrity and sustainability of track and field depend on honoring commitments and operating with basic financial responsibility. Moving forward with planning for 2026 events without making athletes and other creditors whole for the extensive 2025 debts undermines trust across the entire ecosystem and sets a dangerous precedent for athletes, vendors, and future partners alike.
“We call on Grand Slam Track to immediately prioritize the satisfactory repayment of all outstanding debts through the reorganization process before attempting to stage additional events or pursue new commercial opportunities. Accountability must come before expansion, and credibility must be rebuilt through action—not promises.”
How did this happen?
In a press release in September 2024, GST claimed it “secured more than $30 million in financial commitments from investors and strategic partners.”
In August, however, an investigation by The Athletic found that GST had received only $13m, with its lead investor, Winners Alliance, having an option — but no obligation — to advance a further $19m. Winners Alliance, whose board is chaired by billionaire Bill Ackman, describes itself as “a for-profit affiliate of the Professional Tennis Players’ Association”, an organization co-founded by 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic.
The Athletic’s investigation also revealed that Eldridge, the asset management company chaired by Todd Boehly, chairman of Premier League team Chelsea and part-owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers, had last spring signed a preliminary, non-binding term sheet to invest, at minimum, a further $30m.
Yet even as GST scrambled to raise funds, at no stage during the opening three meets did it inform athletes, agents or vendors that the business was running out of cash. This is despite both Johnson and Steve Gera, GST’s president and chief operating officer, foregoing their salaries from the middle of April — coinciding with Eldridge deciding not to go ahead following the meet in Jamaica — according to the new documents.
One of the recent filings declared that GST brought in only $1.8m in revenue in the entirety of 2025, suggesting the league failed to land major sponsorships or lucrative media-rights contracts.
Johnson himself is among those to have lost money, with the GST commissioner putting $2.25m into the business on May 23, 2025, just one week before the third event in Philadelphia — an event that GST gave serious consideration to pulling. He had $500,000 returned to him in June, but still remains out of pocket.