It looks like those “Berry Tramel is a Sellout” billboards were a bit too accurate!
Six weeks after he was sued by Big Dog Media for defaulting on a $1.5-million line of credit to fund Sellout Crowd, Berry Tramel has finally responded in court with answers and his own counterclaims.
You can view the whole thing on OSCN.
For the most part, Berry’s conspiratorial defense is that he was duped and tricked into personally guaranteeing a $1.5-million doomed loan for Sellout Crowd.
He also argues that Big Dog Media’s insiders – a.k.a. Toby Keith, Bob Stoops, and Hunter Miller (a.k.a. Barry Switzer’s son-in-law) – engaged in shady double-dealing and deception, essentially setting Berry and others up to fail while shielding themselves from the financial risk and fallout.
For example, Tramel is claiming that when he signed a guarantee agreement for a $1.5-million line of credit, he thought he was simply giving his autograph to paperwork that gave him a 2.5% ownership stake in the company.
This is despite the fact that it seems pretty obvious he was signing an agreement to guarantee a loan:
That’s the first of a six-page guarantee agreement Berry signed and had notarized. I know it’s been a while since he was a copy editor, but you’d think he’d pay more attention to the headline, right?
In his response, Berry’s excuse is that he – just like a fresh recruit – was too distracted by the National Signing Day theatrics of the situation to notice what he was doing.
I kind of feel bad for Berry.
Just like Regular Jim Traber being called up to the majors, he was obviously way out of his league and overwhelmed by the situation. There’s a big difference between writing folksy observations about the sporting world and working behind the scenes to build, fund, and launch a sports website that had no chance of succeeding.
That being said, I don’t really buy his “I’m just a local yokel sportswriter who was taken advantage of by fast-talking businessmen” excuse.
I bet if you gave Berry some of Regular Jim’s truth serum, he’d admit his poor decision-making had less to do with cigar smoke and more to do with visions of dollar signs and dreams of swimming in a silo of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.
Yep, that’s right.
Berry was offered $200,000 a year over three years to quit The Oklahoman and join Sellout Crowd?!
In today’s day and age, when all media is struggling to get by, and even outlets like ESPN and Barstool are forced to reduce staff and payrolls, how could anyone – much less a guy who actually works in media – think that was sustainable?
Seriously, that’s almost as dumb as giving a $1.5-million loan to a bunch of clueless people to launch a massive sports media website that had no chance of succeeding!
Now that we know how much money he was offered, Berry’s move to Sellout Crowd makes way more sense. Terrible business models be damned, if someone offered me $200,000 to write forgettable – and deletable – blog posts about OU and the Thunder and record podcasts with Jenni Carlson, I’d probably lose all sense of reality and sign the document, too.
Outside of my life savings, what’s to lose?
Quick aside – On the topic of Jenni Carlson, I wonder how much she was offered to make the jump? Since women in Oklahoma only make about 80% of what their male counterparts make – and because the people involved in Sellout Crowd had no clue what they were doing – I’m going to guess it was about $160,000.
Reminder – You can read Berry’s full response on OSCN and make your own assumptions. His co-defendant Mike Sherman filed one too with the same attorney.
It will be interesting to watch where all this leads.
I ran the case by an attorney friend who specializes in banking and contract law, and they didn’t seem very convinced by Berry’s arguments.
Unless he can prove that he was drawn into jumping offsides and signing the guarantee under false or misleading circumstances, his chances of winning the case are about as likely as OU making this year’s College Football Playoff.
Basically, they’re not very high.
Then again, just like on the football field, anything can happen in a court of law.
At this point, the only thing that’s certain is that everyone involved in Sellout Crowd is guilty of being stupid.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
