Jermaine O’Neal is not happy with the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and his frustrations have boiled over in the form of a lawsuit accusing the airport of lying about its commitment to a mixed-use development to fraudulently induce O’Neal into building a world-class youth sports facility on airport-leased lands.
The retired NBA All-Star filed a lawsuit in Dallas County District Court against the airport on Monday on behalf of his company, Drive Nation Sports, bringing claims for fraudulent inducement, fraud and negligent misrepresentation and seeking unspecified damages. O’Neal alleges he was duped into sinking $14 million of his own money to build the Drive Nation Sports complex after believing airport leadership when they said they were committed to building a mixed-use development to surround the sports facility on the south side of the airport.
“That promise could not have been further from the truth: Today, Drive Nation’s multimillion-dollar sports facility is on an island, surrounded by a sea of warehouses and a single Whataburger connected to a gas station,” the lawsuit alleges. “This is far from the mixed-use development that DFW pledged to entice Drive Nation to sign the lease. Meanwhile, DFW has reaped the benefits from the lease, experiencing increased profits from travelers flying in (and then out) of DFW to attend tournaments and camps at the sports complex and spending money at airport concessions along the way.”
A spokesman for DFW Airport declined to comment on the allegations.
Filing suit against the airport was a last resort, O’Neal told The Texas Lawbook in an interview Tuesday, recounting five years of failed conversations that he said fell on “deaf ears,” including when he brought in a third-party company that approached him about acquisition.
“This is about what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong when it comes down to it,” he said.
O’Neal declined to name the company that’s described in the lawsuit as a “preeminent youth sports organization” but said a deal was almost reached that would have kept him on board at Drive Nation and that the company had “virtually unlimited resources” to “propel Drive Nation to the next level.”
There was one catch: The company wanted to extend the 40-year lease O’Neal signed by 15 years.
That was a no-go for DFW, according to the lawsuit, with airport officials claiming they were “legally barred from entering into a lease of more than 40 years.”
As his 18-year career in the NBA came to a close, O’Neal founded Drive Nation in 2015. Later that year, he turned down an offer from the City of Keller to build the sports complex he envisioned in the 200-acre Keller Sports Park, despite an “attractive deal” offering him a 99-year lease at a rate of $1 per year.
That was in large part because of the “full-court press” put on by former DFW airport executive John Teller, who served as vice president of commercial development when O’Neal first met him.
“What really caught my eye was DFW was about to do the first-of-its-kind mixed-use park,” O’Neal said. “That was intriguing to me.”
During negotiations with the airport in 2016, O’Neal alleges he asked for a lease of more than 40 years but was told by DFW Airport officials that it was illegal for it to enter into a lease longer than 40 years.
That turned out not to be true, according to the lawsuit that cites representations — including an offer of a 99-year lease — the airport made when it was trying to lure Amazon to build its headquarters at DFW Airport.
O’Neal’s counsel, Victor Vital of Barnes & Thornburg, said his client didn’t realize the airport lied about that point until the investigation that preceded the filing of this lawsuit was launched.
Drive Nation and the airport inked the deal in January 2017, and by October 2017 the 90,000-square-foot sports complex opened, boasting six basketball courts, 10 volleyball courts, weight rooms, an indoor track and other training and recovery equipment.
Since then, Drive Nation has produced about 100 NCAA Division 1 athletes and four current NBA players, including the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft: Cade Cunningham.
Raised by a single mother in difficult circumstances, O’Neal explains in the lawsuit his motivation for opening the facility: He credits mentors, including NBA players who took an interest in him early on, with the success he found professionally and wanted to pay it forward.
“Drive Nation is a mirror image of me and how I was raised,” he said. “My objective has been — even during my time in the NBA when I won the community service award three times — to come in and give back what was given to me, to impact the community, close the gap a little bit.”
Vital said an exact amount of damages hasn’t been calculated and that the legal team is still in the process of determining whether to seek benefit-of-the-bargain damages or out-of-pocket damages.
“Both measures of damages are going to be seven-or-eight figures, for sure,” he said.
As for explaining DFW Airport’s motive in dealing with his client, Vital said it comes down to one word.
“Arrogance,” he said. “That’s the only plausible explanation I can come up with because it makes no sense. Sometimes, arrogance causes people to make irrational decisions, and I think that’s what happened here.”
Drive Nation is also represented by Joshua Brandau of Barnes & Thornburg and Michael P. Cash of Liskow & Lewis.
Counsel information for the airport wasn’t available Tuesday.
The case number is CC-22-05534.