Tiffany Michelle Sponsor Scandal

November 5th, 2008

Tiffany Michelle has been the recipient of a lot of negative press lately due to her actions on recent ESPN World Series of Poker broadcasts. The recent backlash is just the latest in a nasty saga that started back at the beginning of the Main Event. Tiffany Michelle as many know was an on camera personality for Pokernews.com. For years she has been seen interviewing many of the worlds top poker stars. Tony G and Tiffany Michelle were friends and he thought that she had the potential to be a huge stars. As he noted in his blog, he invited her over to a celebration that he was having and talked about putting her into the $1,000 Rebuy Event at the 2008 WSOP.

At his meeting, Tiffany Michelle convinced Jeffrey Lisandro to try and talk Tony into putting her into the Main Event. Tony outright said that he didn’t feel like that she was skilled enough to be playing on such a large field. Finally, a compromise was reached between Jeff and Tony. Tony would put up $6,000 and Jeff would put up $4,000. Tony would retain any rights to market Tiffany Michelle and while she played, she was to represent PokerNews. It even stated such in her contract. Tony also said in his blog that Tiffany heard what he said and she knew what the agreement was.

As the Main Event progressed, Tiffany Michelle started showing up at the WSOP wearing UltimateBet gear. She had so much gear on that it obscured and even covered the PokerNews patches that she was wearing. This was relayed back to Tony G in Russia. Tony then contacted Tiffany Michelle, who basically told him at that time that all contact needed to go through her manager. She had hired Kathy Lymberopoulos to manage. Tony G was naturally furious. Later, after Tiffany Michelle had busted out the Main Event, PokerNews made a statement regarding the matter.

They stated that “without any consultation with PokerNews, Tiffany went ahead and signed a sponsorship deal with Ultimate Bet.” “We believe, that based on advice from her agent that the contract may have loopholes; she went and made a deal with an online gaming operator that completely contradicted the trust that we had put in her, both as an employee and as a sponsored player. As an organization we felt completely sabotaged by Tiffany, her agent and Ultimate Bet.” “We are currently seeking legal council on this entire situation and potential damages to PokerNews.”

Tiffany Michelle came out with her own statement and part of that said, “I have a written contract that has been reviewed by legal counsel – and it is very clearly a non-exclusive contract meaning that while I was expected to wear the Pokernews logo – I was in no way prevented from wearing any other logo. Furthermore Pokernews did not possess any power to make, advise or negotiate any kind of logo or sponsorship deal that came about via my playing the main event.” “I am a grown woman and I can decide for myself who I choose to associate myself with. That should not be Tony G’s decision.”

Here she is giving an interview:

In the end Tony G took the high road. He stated, “I have never sued anyone and I don’t like using my energy on negative things. The court would be the one that decided if she broke a contract with me but I don’t like using my energy on negative things. I believe that the time it would take for me to go after her and the hard feelings that would build because of it, that I would lose so much of my good energy that I am not going to prosecute her.”

Tiffany Michelle made a huge mistake in many people’s eyes. First, if she would have let Tony G represent her, right now she would be sponsored by PokerStars.com and would have an endorsement of no less than $1 Million in tournament buy-ins. Instead, she signed with UltimateBet.com. UltimateBet is going through a huge scandal involving superuser accounts and evidence of wrongdoing is pointing back to the founder of the company, Russ Hamilton.

Before the WSOP episodes on ESPN, Tiffany Michelle’s reputation had already been severely damaged. In poker, nothing is as important as your word. Once you have been pegged as a person that goes back on their word, it is hard to recover from that. Just look at Jamie Gold and all the sponsorship opportunities that he lost as a result of his decisions. Tiffany Michelle may have put herself in a bigger hole. Not only did she go back on her word with PokerNews, but she is associated with a site that is under investigation of cheating. This may be a near fatal combination for her poker career.