FLW Outdoors announced that it has reluctantly filed a lawsuit in Minnesota State Court against BRP/Evinrude for their failure to pay its agreed upon sponsorship fees for the entire 2009 FLW Outdoors tournament season.
Irwin L. Jacobs, Chairman of FLW Outdoors stated, “FLW Outdoors has had a long-term sponsorship and working relationship with Evinrude as a premier sponsor of FLW Outdoors and its tournaments. In 2009, FLW Outdoors received confirmation from Evinrude officials both in writing and verbally that Evinrude had agreed to the continuance of their sponsorship with FLW Outdoors at about the same level of sponsorship fees for 2009 as they had in 2008.”
Throughout FLW Outdoors’ 2009 tournament season, Evinrude’s representatives and/or management have participated in all of FLW Outdoors’ tournaments. Further, Jacobs stated, “FLW Outdoors has fully supported Evinrude’s sponsorship throughout the 2009 FLW Outdoors’ tournament season. Evinrude has enjoyed all of the same contractual marketing commitments that FLW Outdoors supported Evinrude with in 2008, including, but not limited to, substantial onsite space for displaying and marketing their products at all tournament locations; Evinrude engines installed on half of all FLW Outdoors/Ranger stage and tournament boats throughout all tournaments; signage throughout all FLW Outdoors tournament locations; television commercials on all FLW Outdoors television programming worldwide; magazine advertising; internet marketing and advertising; and heavily-promoted Evinrude on all marketing materials and advertising as part of FLW Fantasy Fishing, an international game worth $10 million in cash and prizes. Yet Evinrude has refused to pay FLW Outdoors any of the amounts it promised as consideration for those benefits.”
Jacobs further stated, “Not only are we terribly disappointed in the fact that Evinrude hasn’t paid any of their agreed-upon sponsorship fees for 2009, but they also haven’t paid any of the committed contingency dollars on behalf of their Evinrude Pro Staff anglers through the 2009 FLW Outdoors tournament season. FLW Outdoors has advanced on Evinrude’s behalf almost $100,000 to those Evinrude Pro Staff anglers who had cash commitments from Evinrude based upon their performance this season. To date, Evinrude hasn’t reimbursed FLW Outdoors a single dollar for the money that FLW Outdoors advanced on its behalf to the Evinrude Pro Staff anglers.”
In nearly 15 years of business and tournament operations, FLW Outdoors has never had to sue a single sponsor for failure to pay their sponsorship fees.
