Professional Bull Riders Accuses Dr. Phil of ‘Orchestrating' Merit Street Bankruptcy and Forming New Company to Avoid Paying Creditors
PBR filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas seeking to compel production of documents from Merit Street and McGraw's Peteski Productions to determine whether Merit Street filed the bankruptcy case 'in bad faith.'
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'All evidence presently suggests that Phillip C. McGraw ('Dr. Phil') orchestrated this Chapter 11 Case to avoid menacing litigation against PBR and jumpstart Envoy Media Co. ('Envoy'), a brand-new media venture he founded the day before Debtor filed this case, with the Debtor's remaining assets free and clear of any legacy encumbrances and obligations he made on the Debtor's behalf,' PBR said in the Aug. 6 filing.
McGraw's Merit Street filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 2 and sued former partner Trinity Broadcasting Network. The complaint alleges that TBN, the Christian broadcasting company that was Merit Street's distribution partner, reneged on its obligations and instead 'abused its position as the controlling shareholder.'
PBR inked a content agreement with Merit Street last year but pulled the programming in November 2024, alleging Merit Street failed to pay PBR contractually guaranteed rights fees. PBR is now part of TKO Group, parent company of WWE and UFC, after Endeavor (TKO's majority owner) swapped PBR and other assets into TKO last fall.
PBR, Merit Street's largest creditor with a $181 million debt claim against McGraw's company, argued that converting the Merit Street case to Chapter 7 bankruptcy — in which a company's assets are liquidated to repay creditors — 'is in the creditors' best interests and has formally requested that relief from this Court.' Under the Chapter 11 reorg petition, McGraw's Peteski Productions is the designated debtor-in-possession lender.
'Peteski and Dr. Phil cannot untangle themselves from this case and the discovery PBR seeks. They are inextricably intertwined, participated in key conduct that led to the Debtor's insolvency, and ultimately decided to file for bankruptcy,' PBR said in the filing.
McGraw on July 14 announced a new company: Envoy Media Co., 'focused on news, entertainment and citizen journalism,' which he said will provide live news and original programming with an emphasis on user-generated content on a national scale. 'As always, my commitment and that of the Envoy network team is to focus on real people, facing real challenges, seeking real solutions,' Dr. Phil said in a statement announcing the company's formation. PBR alleges that McGraw formed Envoy Media Co. on July 1, immediately prior to Merit Street's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
Entertainment law firm Manatt, with a team led by Manatt Entertainment group partner Christopher Chatham, handled the strategy and negotiations for Dr. Phil's Envoy Media Co., the firm said in a July 16 statement.
Among the materials PBR seeks are 'all documents and communications' referenced by TBN's lawyers in a court hearing including 'the emails where Dr. Phil referenced his 'eleventh-hour poker strategy' and 'gangster move' to take over Merit Street Media.' According to PBR's motion to compel, to date Merit Street has produced just over 1,600 pages of documents while Peteski Productions has produced none. PBR's 116-page filing is available at this link.
PBR said documentation it has requested could reveal that Merit Street engaged in 'depleting, diverting, siphoning, or fraudulently transferring assets, overspending, abandoning its business, leaving no assets to protect, preserve, or reorganize, breaches of fiduciary duties on behalf of its director(s) or shareholder(s), and/or filing the bankruptcy without the requisite corporate authority.'
Attorneys for Merit Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bankruptcy court has scheduled an Aug. 19 hearing in the matter to determine whether to convert the case to Chapter 7 as PBR requests, dismiss it as requested by TBN (Merit Street's former majority shareholder) or approve debtor-in-possession financing as Merit Street requests.
On Thursday (Aug. 7), lawyers for Merit Street filed an opposition to PBR's motion to expedite the hearing on PBR's emergency motion to compel production of documents from Merit Street. The filing said PBR's motion to compel 'is premature because PBR filed it without meeting and conferring with Merit Street. Indeed, PBR's motion to compel seeks numerous documents that Merit Street had already produced before PBR filed its motion — something Merit Street could have explained if PBR had properly met and conferred with Merit Street.' According to Merit Street, the parties 'continue to meet and confer regarding PBR's document requests' and 'no hearing should occur until that process has an opportunity to run its course.'
Dr. Phil rose to fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey's talk show before launching his own daytime show with the backing of Winfrey's Harpo Productions. He officially launched Merit Street Media in April 2024 with TBN as its key distribution partner. In August 2024, Merit Street laid off 38 employees, representing more than one-third of its staff, and in June 2025 had placed an additional 40 staffers on 'summer hiatus,' according to a report by WFAA, an ABC affiliate in the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area.
PBR's filing was reported earlier by Debtwire.
Pictured above: Dr. Phil speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York City
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