The Puck Stops Here

Frank D'Angelo is the president of Steelback Brewery. He is a pretty shameless self-promoter. In 2006, he made announcements that he is reviving the Ottawa Renegades of the CFL. This is despite the fact the CFL claims they only had informal conversations with him and there are no Ottawa Renegades on the 2007 CFL schedule. He claimed he was buying the Pittsburgh Penguins when Jim Balsillie withdrew his offer. This never seemed like a serious offer. He never made an offer and the Penguins were soon pulled off the market (all actions that suggest this was never more than a publicity move).

The most logical interpretation of all this is that Frank D'Angelo wants you to think that he is going to buy a sports team. Its good publicity for him. He got lots of press for these moves and the article always names his companies. He doesn't actually have to buy a team (and probably cannot afford one) and he still gets this publicity.

One blogger who has consistently called Frank D'Angelo on this scheme is Neate Sager from Out of Left Field. Frank D'Angelo has publicly fought with him trying to silence this criticism.

In what looks like a childish spat gone berserk or yet another way to get the Frank D'Angelo name in the press, he has filed a $2 million libel suit against Neate Sager. From what I see, there is nothing at all libellous in the Out of Left Field blog. It is not positive about Frank D'Angelo, but there is nothing wrong with that. It exposes him as a huckster getting free publicity by pretending to be buying up sports teams, despite the fact he doesn't actually buy any teams. That seems to be a correct interpretation of the situation. It certainly isn't libel and it certainly isn't worth $2 million. Its an annoying nuisance lawsuit. The biggest gain for D'Angelo is that he appears to be a strong man capable of hurting the little guy and he keeps his name in the press.

If this is a start of a trend, it will be an annoyance to the blogger, but in the end the people making nuisance lawsuits will go away with time and money wasted, but not without inconveniencing the blogosphere.