A tweet from Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay from January 2017 could be the basis for fraud lawsuits after Andrew Luck was shut down for the year.
“Andrew recovering from successful outpatient surgery to fix right shoulder injury that had lingered since 2015. Will be ready for season,” Irsay tweeted January 19, 2017.
Andrew recovering from successful outpatient surgery to fix right shoulder injury that had lingered since 2015. Will be ready for season!
— Jim Irsay (@JimIrsay) January 19, 2017
According to Pro Football Talk, that tweet could be enough to spark fraud lawsuits against the organization.
PFT reported the following:
As we now know, Luck won’t play in 2017. And so the question becomes whether Irsay was accidentally or deliberately inaccurate in January, when he made a promise that Luck “will be ready for season!” before fans had to decide whether to buy an expensive package of two preseason and eight regular-season game tickets that would allow them to enjoy the exploits of Andrew Luck.
Even without the Colts saying anything more, the circumstances reveal sufficient evidence to launch a class action on behalf of all season-ticket holders, on the basis that they were falsely induced to buy the tickets under the premise that Luck will play.
This is interesting for two main reasons. First, it’ll blow up fan relations if the Colts knew Luck wasn’t likely to play this year, and Irsay still sent that tweet. It’s a really crummy thing to do when fans shell out tons of money for tickets. That’s a great way to guarantee fans never trust the owner or the organization ever again.
Secondly, it’s going to be fascinating to see if anybody can prove that Irsay knew for sure that Luck had no shot of playing this season. What if there was a 15% chance he’d play? Would it still be fraud? I have no idea, but that could set a wild precedent if it’s proven as fraud. You’re going to have fans suing left and right whenever they buy season tickets and a player doesn’t come back from injury quick enough.
Things could be getting wild for the Colts