Retired NBA star Jermaine O’Neal is suing DFW International Airport over what he says are unrealized aspirations for a retail and entertainment district where the basketball player built his Drive youth sports complex Nation.
In the lawsuit filed this week in Dallas County Court, O’Neal said he invested $14million in building the Drive Nation training academy – which has helped train young stars of the NBA such as Cade Cunningham and Tyrus Maxey – but the airport never delivered. build a flourishing development around it.
That leaves sports complex attendees with few nearby options, even though the airport benefits athletes and families from around the world, attorney Victor Vital said. Vital said the damages amounted to at least $10 million.
“They basically sold them a bill of goods,” said Vital, an attorney at Barnes and Thornburg in Dallas. “The lawsuit was brought by Drive Nation because DFW Airport lured them into the lease with empty promises.”
DFW airport spokesman Brian Brooks said the airport was aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment further.
O’Neal spent 18 years in the NBA, drafted by the Portland Trailblazers, then became a basketball star with the Indiana Pacers. He was a six-time NBA All-Star and a three-time All-NBA player before retiring in 2014. Even without ties to North Texas, he moved to Southlake after his career ended and opened the Drive Nation Basketball Complex in 2017, a 91,000 square foot Training Center featuring multiple basketball courts and hosting tournaments and practice for youth teams.
O’Neal claims he hasn’t recouped anything from his $14 million investment in Drive Nation, funded by the $168 million he earned during his nearly two decades in the NBA.
The facility prospered and grew to accommodate youth volleyball training as well as a charter school focused on student-athletes. The Drive Nation youth basketball travel team, which participates in the Nike Elite program, hosted a handful of NBA players, including Cunningham from the Detroit Pistons, Maxey from the Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic guard RJ Hampton and a handful of top college players.
In the lawsuit, O’Neal said he nearly located the Drive Nation complex in Keller to be the anchor point for a development there, but was lured by the business development chief of the DFW airport, John Terrell, with the promise of being the center of a mixed-use development. which would include hotels, restaurants and retail and would be located next to one of the busiest airports in the world.
Drive Nation signed a lease on the property to pay the airport $145,000 to $445,000 per year for 40 years on 16 acres, about half of which is undeveloped but can be used for sporting events.
But six years after opening, Drive Nation is surrounded by industrial warehouses, with dim hopes of creating a retail-friendly neighborhood.
“That promise couldn’t have been further from the truth: Today, Drive Nation’s multimillion-dollar sports facility sits on an island, surrounded by a sea of warehouses and a single Whataburger connected to a gas station,” the lawsuit said. “It’s a far cry from the mixed-use development that DFW has pledged to entice Drive Nation into signing the lease.”
The lawsuit even says O’Neal’s team contacted Terrell with former MGM Resorts executive Alex Yemenidjian about a desire “to bring legal gambling to the area,” but nothing came of it. never led to the talks. Gambling is not legal in Texas.
There’s a nearby Hyatt Place hotel with a Starbucks and Whataburger attached to a gas station in the area, but none of that is located in the “Passport Park” development the airport started when Drive Nation was negotiating, according to the lawsuit.
O’Neal also had a deal to sell Drive Nation, but that fell apart when DFW did not extend the terms of the 15-year lease, according to the suit.
“The focus is not so much on Drive Nation as it is on the intended beneficiaries of the sports complex, which are young athletes and their families,” Vital said. “The tournaments at the Drive Nation complex are important events in the lives of these young athletes and their families and they should be able to eat and celebrate nearby when they are here.”