Lawyer says comments from Colts' Pat McAfee show Hall of Fame Game fraud

Last week, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced an increased reimbursement package for fans who traveled to Canton, Ohio to see the Hall of Fame game, only to have it canceled due to field conditions.

But it may not be enough to stop a fraud claim.

Attorney Michael Avenatti, who has hinted at filing a claim that the Hall and the NFL defrauded fans, believes he’s found a smoking gun, so to speak, that the league and Hall officials knew the game wouldn’t be played but let the thousands of fans into the stadium anyway.

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Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee recorded a podcast the day after the game was supposed to be held, and said, among other things, that “There was a big ‘no tweeting’ policy, like nobody’s allowed to say (expletive)” among instructions given to teams after they were told of the cancellation.

McAfee was also asked to characterize Hall of Fame president David Baker’s comments and said, “This is gonna be a big (expletive) problem.”

Added McAfee: “They let everybody into the stadium. I think that was the issue. So they let everybody into the stadium before telling them it was being cancelled.”

In a statement to ProFootballTalk, Avenatti, who has previously sued the NFL over a seating error at Super Bowl XLV, wrote:

“This recording together with other evidence shows that there was a deliberate and collective effort to hide information from the fans until the last possible moment. The league and the Hall wanted to have as many fans enter the stadium as possible and spend money on concessions, etc. before being told the truth. In the law, this is called ‘fraud.’ It is one thing to defraud one person, but another to defraud thousands of people who make your business possible to begin with. The problem for the NFL and [Commissioner Roger] Goodell is that we have now have countless people and whistleblowers who are coming out of the woodwork and disclosing facts to us about what really happened with the game and the timeline. And none of its good for the NFL or Goodell. If they wanted to successfully defraud the fans out of their hard-earned money, they should have done a better job at covering it up and not involved so many people. The NFL now has a big, big problem. And that problem is they have been caught purposely deceiving their fans.”

The Hall of Fame’s reimbursement package includes all costs associated with buying a ticket to the game, any pre-paid parking fees, one night hotel stay, and other enticements, like being able to buy a ticket to the Hall of Fame game before the general public, but to Avenatti that’s not enough if the game was not called off until after fans had bought food, drinks and souvenirs inside the stadium.