Two Texas Sports Moguls Fight Over the Corpse of a Soccer Team Neither Could Save

Austin Bold FC is dead — franchise terminated in 2024 after three missed seasons. Now its former and current owners trade fraud claims over a team that once may have been worth $40M and sold for $2.5M.

Austin Bold FC no longer exists. The USL Championship franchise, which played from 2019 to late 2021, was terminated by the league in July 2024 after repeated breaches and an inability to field a team. What remains is a lawsuit between two men who each claim the other destroyed the asset: Bobby Epstein, the team's creator and co-founder of Circuit of the Americas, and Donnie Nelson, the former Dallas Mavericks general manager who bought 80% of the club in 2021 through his family corporation Amerock for $2.5 million.

The chronology is damning for both sides. Epstein built the team but sold it as Austin FC's MLS arrival made the lower-tier club financially unviable. Nelson bought with plans to relocate to Fort Worth, but the promised stadium never materialized. The team sat dark for the entire 2022, 2023, and most of 2024 seasons while Nelson's group met with officials in Arlington, Fort Worth, and Mansfield — all without securing a venue. Meanwhile, Epstein says Nelson still owes him roughly $2 million from the original purchase, with only about $1 million of the $2.5 million sale price ever paid. The mutual fraud allegations are symmetrical and ugly. Epstein claims Nelson's group was negligent, may have intentionally scuttled the franchise, and cut him out of separate Dallas-area soccer deals negotiated directly with the league. Nelson's side countersues, alleging Epstein embezzled money, illegally transferred team assets, instructed employees to backdate legal documents, and held an unauthorized members meeting in May 2024 to seize control of the club. A state District Court judge has already dismissed the embezzlement and intentional misconduct claims against Epstein; the case has been moved to Texas Business Court in Austin. The franchise's final months read like a hostage negotiation. By May 2024, the USL sent a warning letter threatening termination. A potential $11 million sale to Jonah Football Holdings was on the table, but required a forbearance agreement signed by July 18, 2024. Christie Armstrong, Amerock's CEO, said she felt strong-armed and did not sign. She testified that Jonah had been "spooked" by the league's warning letter. The deal collapsed. The franchise died. Epstein values the franchise at up to $40 million. Nelson's side calls that figure "fanciful." The gap between these numbers tells you everything about the dispute's real character — this is not a disagreement about facts but about what the asset could have become versus what it actually was. A USL Championship franchise without a stadium, without a roster, and without three consecutive seasons of play is not worth $40 million by any market measure. But the question of who destroyed whatever value did exist is genuinely contested. Both sides now seek summary judgment, each arguing the other lacks evidence. Neither Epstein, his attorneys, nor Amerock's attorneys responded to requests for comment. There is currently no USL Championship team in either Austin or Fort Worth — the two cities that were supposed to benefit from this franchise's existence. The case is a textbook study in what happens when a sports asset falls into a governance vacuum. No league intervention could save a franchise whose owners were fighting over the steering wheel while the vehicle was heading off a cliff. The value that once existed — jobs, entertainment, community identity, a potential $11 million sale — evaporated because two parties could not execute a relocation or agree on who owed what to whom.