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Prodigy sues Gannon sues Prodigy

I'm pretty sure that Gannon is contractually obligated to play a certain amount of tournaments during the season.
 
robdeforge said:
I don't think you can blame people for reading it as "G.B.'s departure would also leave PDI without a (single) high-profile PDGA athlete under contract for the quickly-approaching 2023 season." They definitely left the door open for misinterpretation of that sentence
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Reminds me of the "there can only be one hawk" comment that turned off Macbeth and was his cited reason for deciding against joining prodigy. Seems prodigy maybe intended all along to have only one hawk, so when it decides to fly the coop, this is what they get.
 
seedlings said:
Gannon could hold out.

[speculation]IMHO all Prodigy wanted to do was make Buhr stay. Someone said Prodigy might have had big plans with Buhr, and it makes a lot of sense. Prodigy overreacted in an extreme way (compared to historical DGers leaving contracts), so Buhr IS key too … something. But what's big enough to make this bad-publicity-business decision to block Buhr from leaving (for merely 8 months, btw)? Prodigy did have something in the oven, timer about to go off, with dinner guests at the table, so to speak. Hmmm… What if a company was going to buy Prodigy for enough money to set the ownership for a lifetime… Buhr leaving might sink Prodigy's value, leaving a low-ball offer? I literally have no idea, but something big was in the works. OR maybe prodigy is just vindictive. Could go either way. [/speculation]
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Interesting speculation.... But we are hearing that they also tried to sue D!ckerson and Pierce. Was there a secret buyer then as well? If this is truly the third time (at least) that they've tried it - maybe they just believe in attempting to use the legal system to bully people. They wouldn't be the first (or last).
 
coupe said:
I'll admit at the outset that I haven't been impressed by the way Prodigy has positioned or marketed itself from the beginning: it's like they can't keep from sharting all over themselves, and this lawsuit, IMO, is another example. (FWIW, my ambivalence regarding Prodigy hasn't kept me from trying their discs: I've been bagging the D3 and D4 since summer of 2014 and the PA4 since Spring 2015, and nothing I've tried in the meantime has come close to replacing any of them.)

I have to question the business acumen of whomever is advising Prodigy in this matter. Given that Gannon was under contract for 2023, I would think that they would have been better served to hold their fire until he actually signed with new sponsor then sue the sponsor for tortious interference, because the sports-watching public in general understand the concept of tampering, and, for the most part, accept that tampering is a no-no. At the very least, that would have avoided the optics of "Big bad Prodigy beating up on a 17 year old kid." Whatever the merits of their claim, even if Prodigy wins the current suit (which, if their point-by-point rebuttal to GB's claims in their filing is upheld, is more likely than not), it's difficult to envision a scenario in which this doesn't end badly for them.

Regardless of whether the phrase "without a high profile PGDA athlete under contract" was meant to be read narrowly or broadly, the perception is the reality, and the perception among the wider public, who aren't reading or hearing the phrase strictly in the context of a legal pleading, was always going to be that they don't consider the other team members, including KJ and IR, "high profile PDGA athletes." That can't help but be perceived as "disrespecting" those team members and is likely to be something other companies bring up, if only in passing, when their contacts are up for renewal.

Additionally, the lawsuit puts team members in an awkward position. Does anyone (other than, perhaps, the suits at Prodigy) honestly believe that the lawsuit isn't going to be a story—if not the top story—at every tour stop and that (dozens, if not hundreds, of) people aren't going to bring it up and ask team members for their take on it at every event and promotional event throughout the season? How many times and how many different ways can you say, "No comment" before it becomes a major distraction?

Third, unless Prodigy was set to launch a major marketing campaign featuring GB, throwing out the figure of $1.5 million in potentially lost revenue if Gannon bails has the strong potential to sow doubt in the minds of the likes of KJ and IR (not just in terms of the amount of they receive in royalty payments, but the number of "their" discs sold vs. the number of "GB's" discs that would need to be sold to reach $1.5 million in gross revenue and what that number implies in terms of Prodigy's marketing efforts on behalf of GB vs. KJ, IR, and the other top tier team members) and where they stand in Prodigy's pecking order: if you're KJ, for example, who's practically been the face of Prodigy* and a consummate ambassador for the past 3-4 year, would you be OK with playing a distant second fiddle in terms of marketing to a newbie who's got a grand total of 1 year on the Pro Tour under his belt?

* Yes Chris ****erson is arguably Prodigy's most successful player over that time frame, but I would wager that if you ask most people what the first thing they think of when they hear "Kevin Jones" they would say "Prodigy," whereas if you ask what they think of when they hear "Chris ****erson," they would say "Robochicken" or "C****."

And have they learn nothing from or forgotten about the fiasco that was the 2016 Paige Pierce tour. Do they really want to go through a season-long repeat of that cluster ****?

Can Prodigy recover from this latest (self-inflicted) PR disaster? Perhaps; but you can be sure that players will be watching the proceedings closely, and if the lawsuit undermines the trust of their current and prospective team members, I suspect it will be ****ably hard to do so.

All that said, GB doesn't exactly come off as blameless in this kerfuffle, either (but that's perhaps a topic for another post in a different thread). When all is said and done, I suspect my attitude is going to be, "A plague on both your houses."
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Wonderfully written (even with the guess-the-letters autocensor applied) and with a flourish at the end. That is a phrase not used often enough. A tip of my hat to you, sir.
 
ChrisWoj said:
Interesting speculation.... But we are hearing that they also tried to sue D!ckerson and Pierce. Was there a secret buyer then as well? If this is truly the third time (at least) that they've tried it - maybe they just believe in attempting to use the legal system to bully people. They wouldn't be the first (or last).
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Someone with Reddit lawyer credentials said they did a legal search and didn't find any court documents for Paige or ****erson- which makes me think Prodigy 'only' threatened them. Something about Gannon forced them into the business decision to sue this go around. Maybe they just learned about memes.

Edit… really? Forum bot censor, really? Can someone add the robot chicken's last name to the approved list?
:|
 
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seedlings said:
Someone with Reddit lawyer credentials said they did a legal search and didn't find any court documents for Paige or ****erson- which makes me think Prodigy 'only' threatened them. Something about Gannon forced them into the business decision to sue this go around. Maybe they just learned about memes.
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Can you link to the post it was under so I can go check that out? Very curious.
 
I was never interested by Prodigy products. But here is my outside view from a far distance of a Prodigy timeline:

1. Prodigy launches with a "Globo Gym" marketing strategy. We are better than you, and we know it.
2. One of the original Prodigy founders pushed out. Knowing him, he probably did a ton of the initial work.
3. One member/part-owner/sales director/former champion whatever he is begs for money from the disc golf community for family issues instead of holding a real job with good health insurance like some of us responsible discers.
4. Sues 17 year old for breach of contract.

Yup. They act like an entitled child prodigy. Perfectly named company.
 
seedlings said:
Someone with Reddit lawyer credentials said they did a legal search and didn't find any court documents for Paige or ****erson- which makes me think Prodigy 'only' threatened them. Something about Gannon forced them into the business decision to sue this go around. Maybe they just learned about memes.

Edit… really? Forum bot censor, really? Can someone add the robot chicken's last name to the approved list?
:|
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I don't have any proof, but I heard somewhere they threatened to sue Paige, but DD's lawyers intervened and it went away (no idea if it just disappeared or they settled or what).
 
ChrisWoj said:
Can you link to the post it was under so I can go check that out? Very curious.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/discgolf/comments/1178dzy/prodigy_v_gb_full_motion_for_tro/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

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I still think the best part of the legal documents is this excerpt:

"G.B.'s departure would also leave PDI without a high-profile PDGA
athlete under contract for the quickly-approaching 2023 season."

You have 2 other players who made the 12-man All Star team...clearly Gannon is leaving (if not this year then next), why in the world are you going out of your way to alienate the next 2 best players on the team?

The Kevin Jones memes based on this are great. I probably shouldn't hope this drags on, but the content is amazing.
 
Horsman said:
Would be fun if he could fill those obligations with local C-Tiers.
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It might be fun for those of us on the sideline who have no stake in the train wreck but, quite apart from not earning points toward a 2024 DGPT tour card, it would almost certainly do massive damage to his "brand" if he did so. His other sponsors (bag/cart, apparel, shoe, sunglasses, etc.) aren't shelling out bucks for him to play a bunch of non-descript events that nobody care about and won't be happy with him if he did.

As I said upthread, Gannon doesn't exactly come across as blameless for the circumstances he finds himself in. Another poster noted, correctly, that Gannon was already going to be under the microscope this year because he's playing for his next contract. Regardless of what one thinks of Prodigy, now that the "stuff" has hit the fan, he needs to present himself to the public at large and to prospective sponsors as the consummate professional, especially if he loses the suit, because prospective sponsors will be watching and evaluating his every move through the lens of, "Is he a petulant, entitled jerk, and do I really want to take the risk of him crapping all over me the first time he doesn't get his way?" He needs to be extremely careful that his words and actions don't harm his prospects going forward. If he needs a model of consummate professionalism under distasteful circumstances, I suggest that he would be well served emulating Cam Todd's performance at the 2004 USDGC.
 
One of his perks of being sponsored was to have discs to sell at events/clinics. He found those discs hard to sell with the flashing, and some so poorly trimmed from the factory that there were rough edges left (harder to remove than the flashing themselves). It's damaging to his brand to try to sell products that should have been considered seconds as new product.
 
thatdirtykid said:
One of his perks of being sponsored was to have discs to sell at events/clinics. He found those discs hard to sell with the flashing, and some so poorly trimmed from the factory that there were rough edges left (harder to remove than the flashing themselves). It's damaging to his brand to try to sell products that should have been considered seconds as new product.
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Right, it's one thing when you order 3 drivers and they all have flashing and you have to remove it. It's another thing to get 1,000 discs as a pro (or as a retailer) and get faced with either removing all the flashing yourself, or pissing off customers with sub-par disc quality you're trying to sell.
 
So anyway, I think Prodigy will eventually calm down, regroup and will realize there's a million fish on the DG course.

They're acting like there's literally no possible way they're ever gonna find someone as good or young as him to sponsor ever again which I'd like to think is not true.

Both parties will bounce back and this whole ordeal will seem like a silly little misunderstanding.
 
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dmoore1998 said:
Right, it's one thing when you order 3 drivers and they all have flashing and you have to remove it. It's another thing to get 1,000 discs as a pro (or as a retailer) and get faced with either removing all the flashing yourself, or pissing off customers with sub-par disc quality you're trying to sell.
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Poor Gannon, he only made $86k on tour last year. How is he going to figure out gas money for the tour this year?
 
I think the real question is, how much money is enough for pros?

Is DG really that popular now to the point where you can ask for a million and feel like that should not be up for question?
 
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