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Former US track athlete and Grand Slam Track founder, Michael Johnson, shared his thoughts on the future of his league. This came just a few days after the Los Angeles event, the final leg of the league, got cancelled.
Owing to this cancellation, citing economic reasons, Johnson's league was cut short to three events in its debut year, which initially comprised four. The former Olympic champion shed light on the revolution around storytelling in track and field and how he saw his GST league amid this revolution.
Speaking in an interview during the Cannes Lions 2025, Johnson shared that initially, storytelling around the sport emphasized the competition, which shifted more towards athletes in the current sphere. Johnson said:
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"Sports has always been about storytelling but the storytelling has traditionally been sort of exclusive to the actual competition, so the story of the game or story of the match or how it unfolded but now it's extended to more back story of athletes themselves."
Speaking about his league, Johnson added that he shared his aspiration to scale it and make it a storytelling giant. He said:
"I just started Grand Slam Track, new professional track league. We just completed our annual season, so we learnt a lot and next for me is how we can scale that and continue to grow it to be a storytelling machine around the league."
Michael Johnson made his feelings known after the cancellation of the Los Angeles leg of the Grand Slam Track
Michael Johnson shared his thoughts on the cancellation of the Los Angeles leg of his Grand Slam Track event. The LA event, scheduled to take place later this month, happened to be the final GST event of the 2025 season.
However, the leg was cancelled after a business decision that Johnson referred to in his interview. The former Olympic champion elaborated that, due to the change in the global economic situation and the need to ensure the long-term sustainability of the leg, the LA edition was called off. He said, via BBC:
"The global economic landscape has shifted dramatically in the past year, and this business decision has been made to ensure our long-term stability as the world's premier track league."
The debut year of Michael Johnson's event saw three successful events in the past couple of months across Kingston, Philadelphia, and Miami. These events were graced by several top Olympians such as Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden.
