Michael Johnson cancels Grand Slam Track’s LA meet amid financial concerns

Organisers of Grand Slam Track remain confident the new athletics competition will continue in 2026 despite the premature end to its inaugural season

Grand Slam Track has played out in half-empty stadiums at times (AFP/Getty)

Michael Johnson will cancel the fourth and final meet of the inaugural Grand Slam Track season in Los Angeles to avoid major financial losses at the event.

Athletes and their representatives will be updated in a Zoom call on Thursday amid silence in the build-up to the LA leg scheduled for 28-29 June, after competing “challenger” athletes were not announced ahead of time as they were before the previous three meets.

The Independent understands that the economics of the LA event, and Grand Slam Track’s deal with its host partner, UCLA, had become financially unviable.

New investors are set to be announced next week and sources inside Grand Slam Track suggested that making the best short-term financial decision was key to ensuring the longer-term outlook of the project.

The Los Angeles leg will not be replaced with another host city and the season will instead come to a premature end. But organisers remain confident that Grand Slam Track will continue in 2026, with LA likely to be on the circuit, and have privately stressed the positives of what they insist has been a relatively successful “pilot” year.

Before the opening event in Kingston, Jamaica, Johnson’s co-founder Steve Gera told The Independent that they were “maniacally focused on having the youngest fanbase of any sports league in the world in the next five years”.

Josh Kerr, Dina Asher-Smith, Fred Kerley and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone signed up to Grand Slam Track (Getty/The Independent)

The star-studded list of athletes – which included US stars Kenny Bednarek, Gabrielle Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as well as British names including Josh Kerr and Dina Asher-Smith – competed in two linked events, such as 100m and 200m sprints, with results combined to calculate the winners in each category. Prize money for winners stood at $100,000, with $50,000 for runners-up and $10,000 for eighth place.

The competition was billed as a much-needed shot in the arm for athletics, although the decision to include only track events and omit field disciplines was met with criticism. “I am going to save what I think I can save,” Johnson explained. “I think I can save track, I don’t think I can save track and field.”

But ticket sales have been slow and sponsorship and broadcast revenues have not met lofty expectations. The Times reports that organisers will save around £2.2m in prize money and travel expenses by cancelling the Los Angeles event.

Some of the action has played out in half-empty stadiums, although the third event in Philadelphia was more popular, with close to 30,000 tickets sold over two days after the action was compressed from the three days of events held in Kingston and Miami.

A disappointing crowd in Jamaica prompted organisers to review their locations for 2026, with a variety of other markets being considered, including European cities.

Gera told The Independent in March: “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.”

Grand Slam Track is set to officially confirm its decision on the LA event later on Thursday. Organisers declined to comment.