TMZ Sports first reported that Nate Diaz and Leslie Smith are being sued by their former management group for nonpayment of commissions and conspiring with an attorney to break management agreements.
The lawsuit claims that the defendants owe them more than $1 million in damages and that they were never paid for their work on the UFC 202 fight with Conor McGregor.
Sam Awad is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Awad represented Diaz this past April at a NSAC Commission hearing which reduced his fine and suspension from his UFC 202 press conference.
The lawsuit, obtained by TMZ and MMA Junkie note that Ballengee signed Diaz as a client in the summer of 2014 on recommendation from his brother Nick who was an existing client. The lawsuit alleges that Diaz would pay based upon the same terms as Nick’s contract with the company.
If the Ballengee Group name sounds familiar, Jeff Borris is a member, he is the individual heading up the Professional Fighters Association. Smith had a falling out with Borris after initial support for the organization.
The Ballengee Group was launched in 2014 by oil company entrepreneur James Ballangee. He hired baseball agents and attorneys away from CSE, Perennial Sports & Entertainment and MVP Sports Group.
Payout Perspective:
This will be an interesting lawsuit to follow as we may see the inner-workings of the commission structure for Diaz and maybe Smith. It always amazes me that a lot of the fighter-agent relationships are dependent on the fighter paying the agent after-the-fact instead of the payment going into some sort of trust account from which the agent can take its payment and leave the rest to the fighter. The inclusion of Awad likely means that the fighters will defer to him as the reasons for nonpayment.
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