LaMelo Ball's Team Replaced in Tourney After Reported $10K Appearance Fee Demand

LaMelo Ball's Spire Institute was replaced at the Hoophall Classic after an outside consultant reportedly requested a $10,000 appearance fee to have Ball and the school appear at the event, according to Adam Zagoria of Forbes.

Greg Procino, who organizes games for the Hoophall Classic, said the Spire Institute did not make the request:

"An outside 'consultant' who requested the change in terms did have certain financial requests. We did not pay them to participate and SPIRE decided not to honor the original agreement for Hoophall Classic. We replaced SPIRE with The Patrick School after the final conversation took place. Games are being cancelled with Spire unless the terms are acceptable to the outside consultant."

According to Zagoria, the outside consultant was Alan Foster, Ball Sports Group's managing director.

"Alan made certain requests and said LaMelo would not be playing if those requests weren't met," a source told Zagoria.

The Spire Institute's chief operating officer, Jeff Orloff, said he was made aware of the requests and that the matter was being investigated. 

"We have not and did not and will not ask anybody to pay us to play," he said, adding: "We're not represented by Big Baller Brand in any way so any conversation or deal outside of anything I would have done, we're not involved with. So if there was a conversation to anybody representing that they were Spire and wanted to be paid, we had nothing to do with it."

It isn't the first time the Spire Institute has seen games removed from its schedule. Oak Hill Academy and La Lumiere were two of the high school basketball powers to cancel games with Spire this season due to Ball having played professionally in Lithuania. 

Ball's college eligibility is also in question, given his stint playing professionally overseas and his association with revenue streams from the Big Baller Brand, the Ball in the Family show and the Ball Sports Group  partnership with FloSports Inc. to livestream Spire games.