NBA player Draymond Green has sued his partner in a fitness center franchise venture for breach of contract, alleging that Thomas Shumaker and 1620 Capitol LLC had failed to pay more than $1 million in costs since 2021.
The Golden State Warriors forward and former Michigan State University star partnered with Shumaker in 2018 to develop Blink Fitness franchises in Michigan and Illinois, according to the complaint, which was filed in Oakland County Circuit Court on Dec. 10.
“When that venture soured, however, Defendants disappeared, leaving Plaintiffs to clean up the mess,” the complaint said.
The case was moved to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Tuesday, at Shumaker’s request.
Attorneys representing Green and Shumaker did not respond to messages sent Tuesday evening seeking to discuss the case.
Green did not immediately respond to a message sent to the Warriors organization on Wednesday. Shumaker did not respond to messages sent by text and email.
At the start of the venture, [Green told GQ magazine](https://www.gq.com/story/draymond-green-gym-owner) that getting in the fitness business was “organic to me.”
Growing up in Saginaw, “we didn’t really have gyms like that,” he told the magazine in 2018. “I didn’t know what a piece of cardio equipment was until I got to college. Being able to add a value-based gym with low rates to a city like Detroit, possibly to Saginaw, that’s very important to me.”
He opened Blink Fitness gyms in Warren and Redford Township the following year with Shumaker and other partners.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The two Detroit-area gyms closed for good in 2021. A Blink location that Green opened with Shumaker in Evanston, Illinois, remains open.
Since 2021, Green has paid close to $2.2 million in obligations and settlement payments, the complaint said, but Shumaker “has refused to contribute” despite a contractual obligation to do so.
Green is seeking the $1.1 million he alleges Shumaker owes along with interest, attorney’s fees and other costs the court deems appropriate.
He is also asking the court for a declaratory judgement that he is entitled to all the distributions payable by the company he and Shumaker formed, GS Fitness, and is entitled to exercise Shumaker’s voting and membership rights related to that company.