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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe owner of a downtown hotel is asking a Marion County court to enforce a settlement agreement it reached with a developmental football league that has failed to pay a nearly $1 million bill from its stay in Indianapolis last spring.
The agreement between Crowne Plaza Union Station owner B&D Associates LP and The Spring League LLC would require the league to pay about $850,000—most of its outstanding $996,422 balance—by March 2023, or run the risk of being liable for the full amount.
B&D, in a filing in Marion County Superior Court, said that while those terms were reached by both parties in early June, Spring League officials have not formalized the agreement, even after several requests.
Because of those delays, the hotelier is asking the court to enforce the deal, which calls for the league to pay its debts in three tranches of about $283,333 on Sept. 15 and Dec. 15, 2022, and March 15, 2023.
The agreement would also release the Spring League from additional claims by B&D, give the company access to reports on the league’s operations and assets, limit the league’s cash spending and put a stay on any judgment against the Spring League “unless and until TSL defaulted on its payment obligations.”
The Spring League faces one other pending lawsuit from its time in Indianapolis, which ran from April to June 2021: a $235,000 claim from the Capital Improvement Board, which operates Lucas Oil Stadium and other facilities used by The Spring League. That suit was filed within a few days of the hotel’s, in November 2021.
Another, in which Butler University was suing for more than 33,000 in unpaid bills for use of its facilities, was decided in the school’s favor in December 2021.
It’s not clear what the status of The Spring League is today, but it did not hold any contests in 2022 and hasn’t updated its website since mid-2021. Its CEO, Brian Woods, is the co-founder and president of football operations for the revived United States Football League that had its first season last spring.
An attorney for The Spring League on Wednesday told IBJ: “There are discussions and we expect to get it resolved.”
Representatives for B&D declined to comment.
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Date in the first line of paragraph 6 must be 2021 rather than 2022…since the lawsuit was filed in November 2021.