Bjornstad files suit against Blueprint; Is Oregon State next?
Former Dam Nation executive and Oregon State athletic department general manager has begun a lawsuit against Blueprint Sports NIL management firm
A lawsuit was filed Wednesday morning in federal court on behalf of Kyle Bjornstad, the co-founder and former owner of Dam Nation, an NIL collective working for Oregon State athletics.
The defendant is Blueprint Sports and Entertainment, LLC, which purchased Dam Nation, its subscriber base and its established relationship with OSU athletics from Bjornstad last July. Oregon State subsequently signed an agreement with Blueprint to handle NIL activities for the athletic department.
The suit charges Blueprint with breach of contract relative to the sale of Dam Nation to the Las Vegas-based company. It asks for compensation to Bjornstad of “no less than $155,000, plus additional default interest accruing daily, late payment charges and reasonable attorney fees.”
Purchase price for Dam Nation was $166,828.50, to be paid in 36 monthly installments of $5,000, including interest of five percent annually. According to the complaint, Blueprint signed a promissory note that if any installment was not paid within 10 days after its due date, the note shall be in default.
Blueprint made a $5,000 payment in August and then a payment of $20,091.50 in September, covering the company through the end of 2025. Oregon State’s contract with the company was terminated in December, following “scrutiny over the lopsided terms in favor of Blueprint when the terms of the contract were released to the public,” read the complaint.
In January, Bjornstad provided Blueprint with a notice of default for nonpayment. He has received no additional payments from Blueprint.
“Blueprint got exactly what it was bargaining for,” the lawsuit reads. “Then it made a deliberate business decision to stop paying.”
The scrutiny came after a September article by the website Sportico revealed that financial terms of Oregon State’s deal with Blueprint were heavily in favor of the NIL company. Bjornstad said he had negotiated a much better deal with another company, Lockerverse, but was told by OSU athletic director Scott Barnes that associate AD Brent Blaylock had arranged for a more advantageous agreement with Blueprint. Neither Barnes nor Blaylock would reveal the terms to Bjornstad, so he accepted the Blueprint deal.
In August, Bjornstad had been hired as general manager of Oregon State athletics to oversee NIL operations for the department. After reading Sportico’s account of the situation, Bjornstad resigned his position after only a month on the job.
Bonnie Richardson of Portland’s Allegiant Law LLP, who is representing Bjornstad, said she has spoken with attorneys for Blueprint owner Rob Sine multiple times with no resolution of the case. As a result of a clause in Blueprint’s contract with Oregon State, the school paid the company $280,000 for early termination of the multi-year deal.
“(Blueprint officials) got this money, but they refused to pay Kyle the $155,000 they owe him,” Richardson told me in an interview on Tuesday. “They could have done it over three years, and they just stopped paying. They got this money, they can pay and lick their wounds later, but they didn’t.”
A phone message on Tuesday left for Steven Pacitti, who is representing Sine in the case, wasn’t immediately returned. Bjornstad is prohibited from talking about the case because of a non-disclosure clause in the contract with Blueprint, Richardson said.
A jury trial, requested by Bjornstad, could take a year to surface, his attorney said.
“A lot of these cases last a year,” she said. “Maybe ours will last less than that, because our facts are so strong.”
How much might attorney fees be?
“It is a small amount right now,” Richardson said. “There might be a chance to get an early resolution through a summary judgement. You have to have all the facts undisputed. Once we go down the path, go through discovery, gather all the information, it is extremely expensive. Our fees in federal court would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. They would far exceed the value of the contract.”
Richardson said there is a possibility a second lawsuit will be filed against Oregon State under what she said was the “covenant of good faith and fair dealings” in its contract with Bjornstad to serve as athletic department GM.
Bjornstad, who worked as Barnes’ chief of staff for five years before running Dam Nation for three years, said he was undercut by both Barnes and Blaylock in statements to the media.
Bjornstad made his feelings public in a letter to Barnes that he posted on “X” in March, which read in part:
“I have largely remained silent while you and Brent have presented a false narrative to the media, and public, in regards to both the (Blueprint) situation and the general manager role. It is clear that you and Brent are attempting to make me the scapegoat for the deal with (Blueprint), a deal that you wanted all along, and negotiated prior, during and after the close of the (Dam Nation) acquisition. I even negotiated a better deal with Lockerverse on your behalf, and presented the offer to you. Even so, you would not even explore a potential deal with Lockerverse.
“You and Brent reiterated that the (Blueprint) deal would be best for both OSU's student-athletes, and (Dam Nation) members. I tried to save you from the situation in which you and Brent currently find yourselves…. It has gotten to the point where the comments made by both you and Brent have left me no choice but to set the record straight …”
Richardson said there are a lot of questions regarding Bjornstad’s brief employment as GM that remain unanswered.
“What was their motive when they entered into that contract with Kyle?” she said. “They put him into an impossible position where the only solution was for him to walk away. There goes his livelihood. He planned to work at OSU, and for not a lot of money. He loved Oregon State and still does. It was what he wanted to do. And now what is he going to do?”
The contract for Bjornstad, 43, as the OSU athletic department’s GM called for a $150,000 annual salary. Blaylock resigned in October, but has remained on the payroll at a $240,000 salary through this spring.
Richardson said she and Bjornstad were scheduled to have a meeting in Corvallis last week with Becca Gose, vice president and general legal counsel for Oregon State.
“(Gose was) very open to the meeting, but I had to cancel because of illness,” Richardson said. “We will get that scheduled again in the next two weeks. We don’t want to delay on this. What we really want to know is if they are going to stand up and acknowledge what their officials did to Kyle and the harm they caused him. They need to make things right.”
What would it take to make things right?
“Acknowledge that what OSU officials did to Kyle was wrong,” Richardson said. “They asked him to lie (about the Blueprint deal). He quit, then they put the blame on him — acknowledge that. Apologize. Say you’re sorry. And then compensate Kyle for the small contract they had with him.
“He probably would have been employed there for the rest of his career, but what’s a reasonable amount of time? Pay him for that. … acknowledge, apologize and pay. I always like to give the other side plenty of opportunity to find out how to make things right. Blueprint wasn’t willing to do that.”
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