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A California-based gym owner was slapped with a $170,000 lawsuit. His crime: screening a UFC event in the mat room. This is his story.
by Tim Bissell
The gym had a couple of cars out front and a half-dozen people milling around. Some were holding crates of soda, others had Tupperware and pizza boxes. Wynkoop’s car eased into a parking spot among the gathering. He stepped out and scanned the faces in the small crowd. “You made it,” he said with a smile as he produced a jangling set of keys from his pocket.
He opened the doors of the gym and turned on the lights, revealing a front office area and a doorway to a 900-square-foot mat room. The group followed him inside as a couple more people showed up.
As his guests began setting up food and drinks on the front desk, Wynkoop checked his phone again. It was 6:55pm. He opened his MacBook, clicked on Safari, and slammed in the address to UFC.com. The homepage showed Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar squaring off and a counter ticking down, with under five minutes remaining.
He drew his credit card and bought the pay-per-view for $50. The screen changed. Live event will begin shortly. From his desk Wynkoop yanked out an HDMI cable. He carried that, and his computer, into the mat room where the crowd of now twenty people were getting comfortable.
Wynkoop set his MacBook down, beneath a wall mounted 55” flat screen TV. As soon as he connected the machines, the television’s blue screen came to life and the room began to fill with the familiar tones of Face The Pain. Wynkoop grabbed a plate and took a breath. After the long trip home from Vegas - where he had watched one of his instructors compete in an MMA bout - he was ready to enjoy a night of UFC fights with his gym friends and family. Little did he know, what he’d just done, might have cost him every penny he owned.....
That night, sometime between Demian Maia smothering Jon Fitch and Rogerio Nogueira upsetting Rashad Evans, Wynkoop noticed an unexpected and uninvited guest appear at the gym.
“He was a grown man, saying he wanted to find martial arts training for his brother, another grown man, who had anger issues,” remembered Wynkoop. “Which is odd because people search for those solutions for children in martial arts and he was coming by our gym at 10:30pm.”
Wynkoop didn’t speak to the man himself, but he was in the room as others did. “He seemed somewhat nervous,” said Wynkoop who described the individual as a “normal white guy” with “nothing interesting about his appearance”.
From the stranger’s vantage point in the front office, he would have been able to see there was a party happening in the mat room. But, he couldn’t have seen the TV screen or what it was showing.
After a few minutes of strange conversation with Wynkoop’s colleagues at the front desk the man left the premises. Wynkoop quickly forgot about him and turned his attention back to the fights........
After Aldo’s hand was raised in victory Wynkoop closed up shop and, other than a few people overdoing it on pizza, everything was cool. The next day he opened the gym again and business went back to normal. But two months later, on April 1st, Wynkoop received a letter that changed everything.
“I was hoping it was a bad April Fools’ joke at first,” laughed Wynkoop. But the letter was no joke. It was from the Law Offices of Thomas P. Riley, P.C., notifying Wynkoop that he and his business partner should expect to be served a lawsuit in the near future. The lawsuit, the letter explained, was on behalf of Riley’s client Joe Hand Promotions (JHP).
Joe Hand Promotions is the exclusive distributor of commercial licenses for UFC pay-per-view events. Any bar, restaurant, or other commercial enterprise wishing to legally screen a UFC pay-per-view must pay JHP for the right to do so. JHP recently quoted $788 for a commercial license for a martial arts gym with a fire code occupancy of 50 people or less.
As he inspected the letter more closely Wynkoop saw that he was being accused of “unlawful interception” of UFC 156. And that the forthcoming lawsuit would request statutory damages from him and his partner to the tune of $170,000.
After the reality of the situation sunk-in, Wynkoop wondered how JHP had known about the OC Jiu Jitsu screening. Then he remembered that uninteresting man and the angry brother he claimed to have. It seemed clear to him that the individual who stopped by the gym unannounced was working undercover for JHP. And while he couldn’t have seen the TV from the front desk, Wynkoop reckoned that this man would have been able to witness the event through an open side door.
“We were definitely worried,” said Wynkoop of his initial reaction to the letter. Though, he did state that running a business is inherently stressful and that he and everyone else at the gym tried to take this news “in stride” as they began working on a solution.
Wynkoop’s instinct was not to engage with the Law Offices of Thomas Riley or Joe Hand Promotions personally, and to instead find an attorney as soon as possible. Fortunately, one of the BJJ students at the gym was also a lawyer.
“He sent [Thomas Riley] a letter saying, ‘It’s probably $800 for a license and whatever amplifier based on your occupancy - we’ll just give you $1,500 and let’s call it a deal, to cover your damages and your time for nuisance.’” However, according to Wynkoop, Riley’s firm was not interested in their offer.
Read the rest at: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2016/12/1...l-lawsuit-news
by Tim Bissell
The gym had a couple of cars out front and a half-dozen people milling around. Some were holding crates of soda, others had Tupperware and pizza boxes. Wynkoop’s car eased into a parking spot among the gathering. He stepped out and scanned the faces in the small crowd. “You made it,” he said with a smile as he produced a jangling set of keys from his pocket.
He opened the doors of the gym and turned on the lights, revealing a front office area and a doorway to a 900-square-foot mat room. The group followed him inside as a couple more people showed up.
As his guests began setting up food and drinks on the front desk, Wynkoop checked his phone again. It was 6:55pm. He opened his MacBook, clicked on Safari, and slammed in the address to UFC.com. The homepage showed Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar squaring off and a counter ticking down, with under five minutes remaining.
He drew his credit card and bought the pay-per-view for $50. The screen changed. Live event will begin shortly. From his desk Wynkoop yanked out an HDMI cable. He carried that, and his computer, into the mat room where the crowd of now twenty people were getting comfortable.
Wynkoop set his MacBook down, beneath a wall mounted 55” flat screen TV. As soon as he connected the machines, the television’s blue screen came to life and the room began to fill with the familiar tones of Face The Pain. Wynkoop grabbed a plate and took a breath. After the long trip home from Vegas - where he had watched one of his instructors compete in an MMA bout - he was ready to enjoy a night of UFC fights with his gym friends and family. Little did he know, what he’d just done, might have cost him every penny he owned.....
That night, sometime between Demian Maia smothering Jon Fitch and Rogerio Nogueira upsetting Rashad Evans, Wynkoop noticed an unexpected and uninvited guest appear at the gym.
“He was a grown man, saying he wanted to find martial arts training for his brother, another grown man, who had anger issues,” remembered Wynkoop. “Which is odd because people search for those solutions for children in martial arts and he was coming by our gym at 10:30pm.”
Wynkoop didn’t speak to the man himself, but he was in the room as others did. “He seemed somewhat nervous,” said Wynkoop who described the individual as a “normal white guy” with “nothing interesting about his appearance”.
From the stranger’s vantage point in the front office, he would have been able to see there was a party happening in the mat room. But, he couldn’t have seen the TV screen or what it was showing.
After a few minutes of strange conversation with Wynkoop’s colleagues at the front desk the man left the premises. Wynkoop quickly forgot about him and turned his attention back to the fights........
After Aldo’s hand was raised in victory Wynkoop closed up shop and, other than a few people overdoing it on pizza, everything was cool. The next day he opened the gym again and business went back to normal. But two months later, on April 1st, Wynkoop received a letter that changed everything.
“I was hoping it was a bad April Fools’ joke at first,” laughed Wynkoop. But the letter was no joke. It was from the Law Offices of Thomas P. Riley, P.C., notifying Wynkoop that he and his business partner should expect to be served a lawsuit in the near future. The lawsuit, the letter explained, was on behalf of Riley’s client Joe Hand Promotions (JHP).
Joe Hand Promotions is the exclusive distributor of commercial licenses for UFC pay-per-view events. Any bar, restaurant, or other commercial enterprise wishing to legally screen a UFC pay-per-view must pay JHP for the right to do so. JHP recently quoted $788 for a commercial license for a martial arts gym with a fire code occupancy of 50 people or less.
As he inspected the letter more closely Wynkoop saw that he was being accused of “unlawful interception” of UFC 156. And that the forthcoming lawsuit would request statutory damages from him and his partner to the tune of $170,000.
After the reality of the situation sunk-in, Wynkoop wondered how JHP had known about the OC Jiu Jitsu screening. Then he remembered that uninteresting man and the angry brother he claimed to have. It seemed clear to him that the individual who stopped by the gym unannounced was working undercover for JHP. And while he couldn’t have seen the TV from the front desk, Wynkoop reckoned that this man would have been able to witness the event through an open side door.
“We were definitely worried,” said Wynkoop of his initial reaction to the letter. Though, he did state that running a business is inherently stressful and that he and everyone else at the gym tried to take this news “in stride” as they began working on a solution.
Wynkoop’s instinct was not to engage with the Law Offices of Thomas Riley or Joe Hand Promotions personally, and to instead find an attorney as soon as possible. Fortunately, one of the BJJ students at the gym was also a lawyer.
“He sent [Thomas Riley] a letter saying, ‘It’s probably $800 for a license and whatever amplifier based on your occupancy - we’ll just give you $1,500 and let’s call it a deal, to cover your damages and your time for nuisance.’” However, according to Wynkoop, Riley’s firm was not interested in their offer.
Read the rest at: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2016/12/1...l-lawsuit-news
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