A group of vendors in Grand Slam Track’s ongoing bankruptcy case have asked the court if they can proceed with a lawsuit against Michael Johnson and the league’s primary investor, Winners Alliance, accusing both of contributing to the conditions that led to the league’s financial failures.
The vendors are among the league’s largest creditors and allege that Johnson paid himself $500,000 in June 2025 while Winners Alliance was a major factor that ultimately steered the venture into more than $40 million in debt.
The creditors are seeking $25 million if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed and was part of several disclosures the creditors made on Monday that they say show “incompetence” in the league’s leadership.
In an extensive filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the committee of the largest unsecured creditors offered up a detailed narrative that includes more than dozen alleged actions against Johnson, Winners Alliance and league officials.
The disclosure follows an objection on Friday to the league’s reorganization proposal to give athletes 85 percent of owed payments at $7 million while vendors would receive share of around $200,000 which is less than 1.5 percent of what they are owed.
The deep list of athlete creditors include Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Kenny Bednarek, Josh Kerr and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and if the league’s payment plan is approved, hundreds who competed in Grand Slam Track’s three events would be a step closer toward receiving appearances fees and prize money.
Monday’s filing is a deeper look into what the creditors said they discovered during their investigation of the league, which is categorized as a venture that pushed ahead to stage its planned events with full knowledge that the all of its funding was not available as additional cash to cover mounting expenses was unlikely to arrive.
“Despite the unrealistic overly optimistic revenue projections, the Debtor only generated a paltry $1.8 million in revenue for 2025 despite completing three ‘Slam’ events, far short of the projected $14.5 million in revenue that was necessary to narrow the losses to $27 million,” the filing said.
Meanwhile, Winners Alliance is portrayed as placing more focus on stabilizing its image within sports instead of ensuring that Grand Slam Track was adequately funded during its events or fulfilling obligations to all creditors — and not just athletes — as solutions to possibly emerge from bankruptcy are proposed.
“Moreover, Winners Alliance has, on more than one occasion, made clear that its top priority is not ensuring the Debtor’s business prospers or that the Debtor’s creditors are protected, but that its reputation in the athletic industry is shielded from any reputational damages.” the creditors said in the filing. “Winners Alliance has openly preferred athletes above all other creditors of the Debtor, despite knowing that the Debtor was in financial turmoil very early on in its business and could not make payments to either athletes or trade vendors as promised. Yet, Winners Alliance neglected to offer assistance and instead encouraged the Debtor to incur more costs.”
The creditors have also said that the league and Winners Alliance knew what projected revenue from each of the four planned Grand Slam Track would be and should have secured additional funding to shield shortfalls, like the low turnout at the first meeting in Kingston, Jamaica last April.
“Put differently, the Debtor and Winners Alliance knew that significant additional investments were required to fund the business, and the business could not sustain itself based on the projected revenues under their internal budget forecast,” the filing said. ‘The Debtor and Winners Alliance created and knowingly implemented a business model that required significant cash outlays, and the Debtor’s only source of working capital beyond the initial seed investment was the potential $25 million line of credit from Winners Alliance set forth in the Investment Outline.”
The filing also revealed that the creditors singled out Johnson for a $500,000 payment that was transferred to him in June 2025 after he reportedly loaded the league $2.7 million. However, there is no record of the loan mentioned in any board correspondence, according to the creditors.
Johnson’s loan was referenced in a January court filing and he is also listed as a creditor and is owed $2.2 million from the remaining balance.
On Tuesday, Gran Slam Track and its representatives responded to the creditors’ claims it a separate filing as a “fundamental misunderstanding of quintessential plan confirmation (not disclosure statement) issues and can be best characterized as an ill-conceived proposal to destroy the Debtor’s future prospects” while deny the allegations from the creditors objection on Monday.
“The Committee’s half-baked, unsubstantiated, risky and punitive alternative to a reorganization is a litigation quagmire which will result in: (1) no assurance of any recovery to any creditor; (2) the end of the Debtor’s future business prospects; and (3) an administratively insolvent estate,” the league said in it’s response.
The next hearing involving the league and creditors is on Thursday.
