In just 13 weeks PBR‘s (Professional Bull Riders) Dr. TV deal with Phil McGraw Merit Street Media noted that the league had severed ties with the newly formed network, which launched in April with the Christian-based Trinity Broadcasting cable network as its primary distribution partner.

PBR, whose ownership was transferred from Endeavor to TKO, announced the termination of the agreement on social media earlier this week, claiming that Merit Street had breached its contract but failed to pay rights fees. The league announced alternative TV distribution for its events while the two sides head to arbitration.

“Merit Street has agreed to resolve its differences with PBR in an ongoing confidential transaction. “Therefore, we are surprised that PBR publicly accuses us of violating our agreement when the facts are in dispute,” he said. “And we are surprised that PBR demands the immediate removal of its programs from our network while the controversy continues. Merit Street will defend itself vigorously in the lawsuit.”

One follow-up interviewPBR CEO Sean Gleason addressed an issue with Merit’s attitude.

“They committed a violation by not making their payments, we notified them of the violation and gave them the necessary remediation period and also some additional time,” he said. “They made some statements, we were ‘surprised’. We’ve been talking about this problem for five weeks and we can’t keep doing it if you don’t find a solution to it. “We subsidized a significant part of the production to provide our fans with the Teams Championship, for which we did not charge anyone, and allowed them to continue on Merit Street.”

Gleason claimed that during our 13 weeks on Merit Street PBR we reached 2.4 million viewers, representing “31% of the total content or viewing content.”

“We worked really hard to make sure it didn’t get to that point. We more than fulfilled our obligations. We were ready to make concessions, we offered, but they were flatly rejected, and at the end of the day, I don’t know what the logic is, but if you can’t fix it, you can’t fix it. You have to move on,” he said.

Merit Street Media in August dismissed almost a third of its employees.