A Denton man thought he was doing the right thing helping out his favorite high school football team.
Edgar Garcia bought a season sponsorship promoting his business, Be Green Lawn Care.
He says he got a call asking him to sponsor the football and cheer teams at Denton's Braswell High School, where his daughter is enrolled in school.
The caller was from Richland Hills-based Touchdown Sports, which promised to hang banners with Garcia's company's logo in the stadium and pass out T-shirts with his landscape company's name on the back.
"My daughter is in band so I went to every single game," said Garcia.
"I never saw anybody wearing the T-shirts or people out there, like cheerleaders throwing T-shirts out to the crowd," he said.
There's a good reason why.
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"I didn't personally do any dealings with Touchdown Sports," said Mario Zavala, the community relations director for Denton ISD.
Zavala said Touchdown sent samples to the school looking to do business.
The school declined.
Zavala said the school mailed back the samples and thought it was all over, but business owners kept calling the school asking about their banners and T-shirts.
"We reached out to the company again and said we're not interested in doing business, we're not moving forward," said Zavala.
Garcia planned to call Touchdown Sports about all this.
"They called me first, asking me if I wanted to renew or become a sponsor again for the 2017 season," he said.
Touchdown Sports told NBC 5 Responds that one of the coaches agreed to pass out the shirts, but the principal said no. Touchdown Sports said they already made a deal with Garcia at that point and promised to find a way to make it up to him, but he didn't hear back.
Touchdown Sports' offices were cleaned out when our news crew stopped by.
They did answer email, saying we never gave them Garcia's phone number – which we had, but we sent it again.
Right now, at least two districts confirmed similar complaints about unapproved sponsorships being sold by Touchdown Sports.
Football season is long over and Garcia is starting his busy season in the landscaping business without the advertising he paid for or any real help to his daughter's school's sports team.
Sponsorship deals for athletics do exist and are big business in North Texas.
Touchdown Sports has them with other schools in the area.
If someone contacts you, be sure to ask specifically how your money is helping the team. Also, talk to school administrators to make sure the company is really paired up with the school.
