EA Sports Suit Again Puts Brandr Boss’ Reputation Before a Court
The first-year linebackers coach at Nease High School in St. Johns County, Fla., had suffered enough insults to his reputation.
For months, he was subjected to what he’d later claim was a relentless intimidation campaign, orchestrated by the disgruntled parents of one of his players, a junior, who was playing behind his son, a sophomore.
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And these weren’t just any parents—the father, Scott Warren, was a former honorable mention AP All-American defensive end at Florida State who had become a prominent dermatologist in the Jacksonville area.
At the start of the 2003 season, an anonymous letter had been sent to the other Nease coaches and players’ parents, falsely accusing the linebackers coach of “living a lie” about his own collegiate football background. In a separate letter to the Florida High School Athletic Association, the parents accused the coach of committing battery upon their son during a game—a charge of which the coach was later cleared.
That November, the coach filed a lawsuit against the parents for defamation, tortious interference (since the coaching gig, while effectively volunteer, included a small stipend) and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Among other things, the suit alleged, an individual acting on the parents’ behalf had repeatedly harassed and threatened the coach and his family, to such a point that the local sheriff’s office began monitoring the team’s practices.
The coach, Wes Haynes, wrote to the court that the experience had damaged his “professional reputation for veracity, character and integrity.” Earlier that year, he had co-founded a new sports marketing company, Licensing Partners International, after leaving his job as a vice president at the PGA Tour.
Now, 20 years later, Haynes is again in a gridiron-adjacent court fight, this time on behalf of his latest licensing company, The Brandr Group, launched in 2014 after a stint as a senior VP at IMG, which bought Licensing Partners International several years earlier.
Last week, Brandr sued EA Sports for tortious interference and other civil violations related to the video-game maker’s much anticipated relaunch of its NCAA football platform. Brandr subsequently sought a temporary restraining order against EA Sports to prevent it from “engaging in interference and violating (its) right of publicity,” by continuing to pursue deals with college athletes.
Brandr’s lawsuit followed reports that EA Sports was planning to work through another licensing company, OneTeams, to acquire and incorporate the names and likenesses of current college football players, including those at schools where Brandr serves as the co-branding licensing agent. EA Sports has publicly called the litigation meritless.
But if EA proceeds as suggested, it could undermine Brandr’s business model. Despite this direct threat to its bottom line, Brandr has framed its lawsuit around the cause célèbre of college athlete rights.
The approach recalls the defamation suit of two decades earlier, in that it attempts to make the case about moral integrity, but it more closely resembles a suit Haynes filed against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2019, after losing out on a bid to create a digital plan for the rebuilt World Trade Center.
In that litigation, Brandr claimed to have spent more than $2 million over the course of several years mocking up a WTC website and building out other online features, all with the “repeated assurances and representations” that the company would be compensated in due course. But when it pushed the Port Authority for a formal contract, the agency declined to issue one and later explained that the parties had only engaged in “informal discussions” that “were not binding.”
Haynes, in an interview, said that the World Trade Center effort—Brandr’s only non-sports project—arose from his time at IMG, which had served as licensing partner to the World Trade Center.
Had Brandr successfully landed the WTC gig, Haynes said it wouldn’t have diverted Brandr’s focus from college sports licensing, but that the company would likely have split into sports and non-sports divisions.
As it came to pass, however, Brandr didn’t have to worry about a divided corporate focus, as the court dismissed its case against the Port Authority.
Haynes, who declined to comment on the specifics of the EA Sports lawsuit, is banking on a different result this time around. He draws a direct link between Brandr’s existence and another lawsuit: the 2009 class-action case brought by former NFL players who claimed their rights of publicity had been violated through the uncompensated use of their names and images in NFL Films videos. Though Haynes was not a party to that suit, he became involved in the resolution when, as a component of its $50 million settlement, the league retained IMG to operate a new licensing agency for retirees.
In the process, Haynes made several appearances before the federal court to offer his expertise about the group rights model for ex-NFLers. The experience, Haynes said, prompted him to reach out to the NFL Players Association, which later hired Haynes and Brandr to represent the remaining collegiate rights of active NFL players.
“That, frankly, was the origin of the NIL group-rights type projects and model for college, using NFL player group rights in combination with school IP,” Haynes told Sportico. “Our first call was to the University of Alabama, and then it grew from there.”
Brandr characterizes its lawsuit against EA Sports, which it calls a “textbook case of tortious interference,” as a pursuit of “fair compensation” for college athletes, who were barred from earning money from their NIL prior to July 2021.
Beginning in 2017, Brandr says it began envisioning the endorsement opportunities that college athletes could one day have and moved quickly to establish a co-branding strategy for athletes and schools.
“It is in this industry (among others) that TBG has invested significant time, energy and money, building a sterling reputation and substantial goodwill, and in the process creating a brand for itself,” Haynes stipulated in a sworn statement accompanying Brandr’s lawsuit.
Given this investment, Brandr’s future may ultimately rest on a successful resolution of the case—something it was unable to achieve in its World Trade Center suit.
In both situations, Brandr moved aggressively to fill a yet-unrealized niche, without an ironclad guarantee that its services were agreed upon by all the necessary stakeholders. A Brandr sympathizer may see in these disputes a scrappy and enterprising start-up taking admirable risks, while a skeptic could instead perceive a company with a tendency to jump the gun.
Brandr filed suit against the Port Authority in 2019, alleging unjust enrichment and fraudulent misrepresentation. The company argues that while there may not have been a formal agreement between the parties, there was at least a quasi- or implied contract that had been mutually assented to. The court did not agree, dismissing the case in March 2020. Though it gave Brandr leave to file an amended complaint, Haynes declined to do so.
By then, he says, the Port Authority had changed its marketing approach toward the World Trade Center, “so we decided to move on and focus solely on sports.” (A PA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)
As for the defamation case two decades ago, court records show that the dispute was sent to mediation, after which the Warrens paid an undisclosed sum to settle. Haynes declined to comment on it and Scott Warren did not respond to an interview request sent to his medical practice.
Haynes’ sons Hunter—the purported subject of the Warrens’ ire—and Riley both went on from Nease High School to play football at Wake Forest, before following their dad into the sports licensing business. They now serve as vice presidents for Brandr.
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