Excellent point David, Jurors need to be unbiased... I feel several people in this discussion have come from an unbiased stand point and see A winner of a Media Bass tournament not being paid what they are owed, and the Owner after 2 months has not rectified it. While the jury is still out until the whole incident is resolved one way or another, i think it is fair that people have piled on. Pressure from your target audience has the ability to make people do the right thing or to fix a problem.

I feel bad for Tommy in all of this. He has a very loyal following so i doubt it will hurt him. I have fished his events every year and never had an issue.

I quit fishing media last year whenever they let professional guides fish their tournaments, when I believe the rules are against it. Theres no way to compete with those guys that are out there on the water everyday making a living. And also, these same guides brought 6 fish to the weigh in scale, and then culled from there, and nothing was said about it, no penalty, no dq. They won that tournament.

This thread and the other have been amazing reads and a reminder of just how fast it can derail here...

Here are some things based on experience that I know to be true.

1. Everyone here has an opinion but only a handful have any actual data/dealings with this specific issue
2. 90% of us commenting here don't fish the trail anyway and never will, so the optics are skewed
3. A bad TFF thread isn't the end of the world or the end for any business. It certainly doesn't help things but it's not an ender.
4. This will ultimately get resolved and we will all move on to the next thread

This is why I quit being a tourney director. Not worth the headache, drama or work for the money.

I agree Mark.
But I also know Gordon has an account on here cause he used to post. I would've liked to have seen him personally address the situation, not have Tommy do it.

Bad business practice by the owner of Media...plain and simple. There's no need to blame the lawyers or the legal process. Anyone who would allow their business and personal reputation to be tarnished over a couple thousand dollars probably deserves the negative ramifications that this situation will create. The owner isn't a victim here...this is a self-inflicted wound. He might not have created the original problem but his choices in how to resolve the issue are most certainly questionable and lack prudence.

I agree for sure but I'm guessing he has his reasons and it's his call to make (or his attorney's). I can also tell you that many times posting here and providing transparency doesn't stop the trolling and/or change anyone's mind once they've formed an opinion/position/stance. This is a tough crowd shrouded in anonymity, so you never really know who you're talking to, what their agenda is and everyone's just a little quicker to judge and rip people up behind a screen name my friend.

Here's what transpired from our end.

Spyder_Jig contacted us about posting. I asked if it had been at least two weeks since the tournament (an amount of time I felt would have been appropriate/reasonable to give an individual or organization to make good on a bounced check).

He informed us that the tournament was back in June.

He also informed us he was not satisfied with Gordon's efforts to resolve the situation.

In his frustration he has turned to social media to air his complaints. We are not the only form of social media that has been used to address this situation. Social media often helps resolve customer service issues. My wife and I have used Twitter a few times to help with a health insurance issue when we were having problems getting approval for something. Twitter was the only tool that got their attention and after we explained what happened on Twitter, we got a call within an hour. So airing something on social media definitely has its time and place.

Over the years, here on the TFF, we have learned to try and keep our opinions out of topics like these. One moderator did air his opinion and we reminded him that we need to leave our opinion out and do our best to remain unbiased as moderators.

We're going to go ahead and lock this one. One thread on the topic is enough at this point.