The issues between Gordon Ryan and Toehold have taken a new turn, as this time the brand has accused him of promising a million-dollar investment but the ‘transaction never materialized’. It’s not uncommon for partnerships between athletes and brands to fall through for a variety of reasons of course, but it isn’t very often that it becomes public knowledge like this. Ryan and Toehold have been working together for several months now, with Ryan announcing that he would become a part-owner and promoting the brand heavily on his social media accounts. Although things seemed to be going well for both parties, it all exploded just a few days ago.
Ryan revealed that he would no longer be working with Toehold and accused one of the owners of giving him ‘the run around’ and ‘lying to (Ryan) for over a year’. The brand remained quiet at first and have refrained from giving a public statement, but they did respond to one of Ryan’s fans via direct message. That fan must have shared the screenshot with Ryan and he had now decided to go public with it, and share further information too. In the first few messages, Toehold gave the following response to Ryan’s claims:
“As you may recall, Gordon (Ryan) publicly announced several months ago that he intended to invest $1 million in our company. Unfortunately that never transaction never materialized. Despite months of effort on our end, we never received the funds, nor did we receive a signed contract to formalize the agreement. This all ended about five months ago – Gordon is only now choosing to bring it up. The claim that we owe him money is completely unfounded and honestly quite comical, which is why we’ve chosen not to engage with it publicly.”
The brand then went on to claim that this isn’t an isolated incident either, although they didn’t specify what other brands had apparently given them cause for concern:
”Ultimately, this is my fault, as I had received multiple warnings about entering into a partnership with Gordon before hand, as this pattern of behaviour appears to be consistent with past business dealings. We wish Gordon nothing but the best in the future. I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in, and I hope this provides some clarity on the matter.”
These statements certainly put a new spin on the breakdown of the relationship between Toehold and Gordon Ryan, and it’s always tough to tell which side is telling the truth in situations like this. Fortunately, Ryan has saved some screenshots of conversations between him and one of the Toehold owners and he shared them as well. These messages also shed more light on the situation, as Ryan says he ‘dropped Future (previous sponsor) on the assumption that we are doing something’ and then chasing payment for sponsorship. This falls in line with Ryan’s original accusations and seems to support his claims.
The owner later says that he is ‘shutting down the headquarters and putting Toehold on life support’ and when Ryan asks for further clarification on what is next for the business, he’s met with the simple response of ‘bankruptcy’. These messages are dated in October 2024, which is immediately before the brand claims that their partnership with Ryan came to an end. The final screenshot is of a message that Ryan receives in February 2025, where the owner says that he owes him an apology. This probably won’t be the last update that Ryan shares about the situation, as he claims that he has ‘100s of receipts’.
Gordon Ryan shared the screenshots of his dealings with Toehold and their claims that he backed out on a million-dollar investment in a pair of recent posts to his official Instagram account:
