Foul called over NFL owner’s quarterback tweet
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Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay hailed on Twitter in January: “Andrew recovering from successful outpatient surgery to fix right shoulder injury that had lingered since 2015. Will be ready for season!”
The problem, as some see it, is Mr. Irsay may have known Colts quarterback Andrew Luck’s injury wouldn’t heal, just as fans rushed to renew their season tickets.
“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,” wrote popular sports commentator Mike Florio on the NBC Sports Web site on Thursday.
Mr. Florio is predicting a fraud lawsuit.
“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. Other things said by the Colts only strengthen that potential claim,” he wrote.
The team’s general manager Chris Ballard, for example, gave an interview recently stating, “There’s not been one point where we’ve said or put a timeline on this.”
“That won’t cut it if/when Irsay faces questioning under oath by a lawyer. It will be very easy to compare Irsay’s remarks to information provided to him by doctors and then to twist Irsay in knots while he tries to talk his way out of a jam, but inevitably makes it all much, much worse,” wrote Ms. Florio.
