Tue, June 17, 2025
Michael Johnson, former Olympic champion sprinter, cancels Grand Slam Track competition due to economic concerns
Michael Johnson, former Olympic champion sprinter, has expressed that due to economic concerns, he has cancelled the final meet of the Grand Slam Track, a global professional track league, that was due to take place in Los Angeles. However, organisers are confident that the league will return next year despite the sudden end to its 2025 inaugural season, according to the Independent. To dodge significant financial losses, the fourth and final meet of the Grand Slam Track league will be cancelled.
It is reported that Grand Slam Track’s deal with its host partner, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is no longer feasible. However, new investors are set to be announced, and organisers insist that the “pilot” year has still been relatively successful. Sporting stars such as Josh Kerr, Dina Asher-Smith, Fred Kerley and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone all signed up and competed in the league. Despite financial constraints, prize money for winners stood at $100,000, with $50,000 for runners-up and $10,000 for eighth place.
One of the goals of Grand Slam Track is to garner “the youngest fanbase of any sports league in the world in the next five years,” as stated by co-founder Steve Gera before the first meet of the league which was held in Kingston, Jamaica. However, the event was met with some criticism for omitting field events. Johnson responded with: “I am going to save what I think I can save. I think I can save track, I don’t think I can save track and field.”
Despite this, Grand Slam Track has unfortunately received slow ticket sales and exposure and is currently not in a position to provide prize and travel money which is necessary for the fourth and final LA meet. Deciding on the correct locations is critical for the future of the event as Philadelphia sold close to 30,000 tickets whereas the crowd in Jamaica proved disappointing.
Gera voiced to the Independent: “We had discussions with a couple of different cities across the UK [but] that was a decision that we made to just focus on tightly packaging our run of shows [in the Americas] in year one. But we’re really excited to get the product into Europe in the not too distant future.”
