County’s Default, RADDSports’ Lawsuit On Hold  For Now

Pasco County and RADDSports failed to settle their differences over the management of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus at a November mediation, and have decided to pause efforts to reconcile those differences for 60 days until a second mediation can be held in February 2023.

A lawsuit, filed by RADDSports on Nov. 15, now hangs over the negotiations, as well.

The two sides issued a joint statement on Dec. 12, which was signed by RADDSports’ chief operating officer Anthony Homer and Pasco’s chief assistant county attorney David Goldstein, acknowledging the lawsuit and the lack of a settlement at the initial mediation session on Nov. 28, but stated that the two sides were still trying to resolve their issues.

“The parties have now agreed to place their disputes on hold for 60 days while they continue to work towards a definitive resolution,” the joint statement says. “There has been no judicial determination of whether RADDSports is or is not in default of the (contract).”

Homer says RADDSports wants that judicial determination, which is why the company filed the suit.

“What we are suing for is a declarative action,” Homer says. “We simply want a judge to look at the county’s allegations, compare it to the contract and to essentially declare whether or not we are in default (as the county claims). That’s it.”

Goldstein declined comment.

After receiving a letter of default from Pasco County on Nov. 4, and receiving no response to its defense of the claims in the letter, RADDSports filed the suit, which claims that the county has long sought to undermine the management company’s efforts.

“Now, under the pretense of a default, the county is trying to terminate a 20-year contract with false claims in order to take over operations at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus,” Homer says.

“We’re not asking for damages, we’re not asking to renegotiate the contract,” he adds. “We’re perfectly happy to live within the terms of the agreement that we committed to at the beginning of this for the next 18 years. All we’re asking is for a judge to determine whether or not we are in default, and if we are not, we go back to business.”

While Homer hasn’t ruled out another suit for damages if the county proceeds with terminating the management company’s contract, RADDSports did agree to suspend its lawsuit during the current 60-day break in talks.

Both sides are still communicating, however, as well as collecting information and fulfilling public records requests that they expect will bolster their arguments on Feb. 7 when they meet again.

The two sides are at odds over how the sports facility, which opened in July of 2020 but officially opened in January 2021, is being run and the results of those early efforts.

On Oct. 25, the county’s Board of County Commissioners (BOC) approved a Notice of Default, originally written by Florida Sports Coast director Adam Thomas, which also included approval of roughly $3 million to take over management of the sports campus from RADDSports.

The county claims that RADD has focused too heavily on local events and did not promote tourism and overnight hotel stays – including failing to properly market the facility and not working with the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel, which is located on the same campus.

The default letter received by RADD, which Homer says was different than what the BOC initially approved, was delivered to RADDSports on Nov. 4. Homer delivered a point-by-point rebuttal to the default claims at the following BOC meeting on Nov. 8.

Homer says that RADDSports asked the county to withdraw its claim of default, but was met with silence from the five county commissioners.

The suit was filed because “Pasco County basically left us in purgatory,” Homer said, after putting the accusation of default in the public domain.

RADDSports claims it has not only promoted tourism and met all of the other requirements laid out in the contract, but actually has exceeded the number of room nights in the company’s agreement with the county and has spent $1.5 million of its own money to do so.

It says the county also paid consultants roughly $35,000 to produce data on RADDSports’ tourism efforts, and that data only confirmed that the management company has met expectations. 

In addition, Florida Sports Coast is accused of attempting to turn other local businesses against RADDSports, with false accusations that those businesses refused to sign off on.

Homer says he is “optimistic” that the next mediation session will produce an agreement that both sides find satisfactory.

“We want the same thing the county wants,” he says. “The more people we bring into the building is better for us, and also better for them. It is unclear to us right now exactly what the county’s expectations are, since they are claiming we are in default, yet their own data they paid an outside company for confirmed that we are doing exactly what we said we would. In fact, their vendor said we were doing better than even we had estimated. So, there’s an alignment of interests to be found. Hopefully we can all agree on some objective metrics and move forward.“

First-Ever RADDSports Charity 5K Runs To Fund-Raising Success! 

Fresh off last year’s successful golf fund raiser at Lexington Oaks Golf Club, the RADDSports Charity 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization is now 2-for-2.

The charity, which is the nonprofit arm of RADDSports, the private partner of Pasco County responsible for the sports programs at the county-owned Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, hosted more than 100 runners and their families at its first-ever Charity 5K, 1K, Kids Run and Family Fun Festival.

The run and festival were held at the Sports Campus on June 18. RADDSports president and Charity Board chair Richard Blalock says that he is proud that the event raised enough proceeds to provide scholarships for more kids who can’t afford RADDSports’ programs.

“This is still all about changing the culture and helping young athletes, regardless of their ability to pay, participate in our programs,” Blalock said. “Plus, it was a fun day for everyone who came out to participate.”

In addition to the various runs, RADDSports’ sponsors, vendors and business partners had booths at the event. Final fund-raising totals for the RADDSports Charity 5K & Festival had not yet been tabulated at our press time.

The Latest On The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus Of Pasco County!


Above is a 3D rendering of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County, which shows eight basketball courts that can be divided into 16 volleyball courts. Source: RADD Sports. 

After years of staring at renderings and blue prints and imagining what the new sports complex in Wiregrass Ranch will actually look like, general manager and RADD Sports CEO Richard Blalock’s vision is now coming into focus.

The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County is no longer just a large patch of cleared land, it has gone vertical, and the current schedule is looking towards a July 10, 2020, completion.

After three failed efforts since 2001 to build an athletic complex on the property located northeast of the Shops at Wiregrass and two miles east of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., off S.R. 56, the 98,000-sq.-ft. indoor gymnasium is on its way.

Blalock, however, is not letting his excitement get the best of him. While the $45-million facility — which will share a campus with a full-service, Marriott-branded, 120-room Residence Inn hotel featuring a rooftop bar — is a big part of transforming the Wesley Chapel area — and Pasco County — into even more of a sports tourism hotbed, he intends to proceed slowly out of the gate.

“We’ve got people lined up that want to sign a contract now,” says Blalock. 


A drone photo of the progress on the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus. Photo by Charmaine George.

He is proceeding, though, like a quarterback with plenty of time on the clock. It’s not that he doubts the projection. But, he’s leery of Florida’s cranky wet weather that often slows down construction, most recently during Hurricane Dorian’s trip through the Atlantic.

“We had to take all of the cranes down,” says Jannah Nager, who was recently hired as RADD Sports’ director of marketing after working for more than four years as the marketing and events coordinator at the Pasco Education Foundation. She is the wife of Neighborhood News publisher Gary Nager.

With more bad weather lurking, it may not be the last time the cranes and other equipment have to be removed from the site for safety reasons.

“Everybody is beating us up, ‘When are you going to start booking events?,’” Blalock says. “But, I will not start booking events until after this hurricane season. Once the roof is on, or the side panels, I’ll be more comfortable.”

Blalock says a new facility in North Carolina jumped the gun on its opening and, thanks to Hurricane Dorian, had to postpone that opening.

“That’s the last thing we can afford to have happen here,” he says.

By October of 2020, Blalock says, he hopes to have events ready to go at the new facility, which broke ground in June of 2018. He hopes to book at least 25 events in the first 12 months the sports facility is running. Nager’s job is to help spread the word in the community while marketing the facility to sponsors.

“Jannah knows the community, she knows the people, she knows the ins and out, and she knows the politicians,” said Blalock. “We need somebody that knows community and is popular in the community. That makes our job so much easier.”

The primary sports at the new complex will be basketball and volleyball, and cheerleading is expected to be the third core sport at the facility, which can run eight basketball courts or 16 volleyball courts at any one time.

There also is room for multiple mats for wrestling and judo tournaments, with gymnastics also a possibility. Blalock said he even has been contacted by a youth soccer team in the United Kingdom that is interested in training for a few weeks at the new facility, which will have two outdoor soccer fields and plenty of room to train inside if the weather turns bad.

Local Use During The Week!

Weekend sports tournaments, however, will be just part of the big picture at the new facility.

Blalock says there will be plenty of sports programming for local athletes to participate in, too. He says there will be a three-tier system for each of its three core sports — Academy, Competitive and Development — which will allow opportunities for all level of athletes starting at the age of 9 and going all the way through high school 

Jannah Nager and Richard Blalock are just beginning to market the complex to local sponsors. 

The Academy will be for training elite athletes for travel teams, but will also include an educational component and require participants to maintain a certain grade-point-average. He says the sports will be programmed to not interfere with the local high school seasons.

“The ultimate goal is to change the culture of how these kids are trained,” Blalock says, adding that it is well-documented that youth sports are susceptible to being overrun by overzealous coaches and parents, as well as entitled athletes.

The Competitive program also will be in-house, with three days a week of practices and games — and the chance for advancement to the Academy level, Blalock says.

The Developmental program will be “quasi-recreational,” according to Blalock. Volunteer coaches will run the teams, although those coaches will have plenty of access to paid coaches on the complex’s paid sports staff to help develop more drills and gameplans.

The programming also will be competitively priced with the local market, according to Blalock.

For those who like sports but don’t play for whatever reason, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus will offer a Sports Administration & Hospitality program, where kids can gather data, travel with the teams and serve as managers.

And, now that ground has broken on a nearby 55-over community in Wiregrass Ranch (see story on pg. 8), more programming for older residents also may be in the offing, like pickleball and Rock Steady Boxing for those with Parkinson’s disease. There may even be room for some golf cart parking spots, Blalock says.

In addition to its youth and adult sports programs, the facility is able to provide space for conventions, banquets and other non-sports events.

Blalock and Nager are putting together sponsorship packages now, and also are accepting resumes for positions, although Blalock stresses that the actual hiring process is likely several months away. 

For more information about sponsorships and more, visit RADDSports.com or email Jannah@raddsports.com.