Things got a little dramatic in Missouri this week. The Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation involving Matt Miller, following concerns tied to a car crash and what officials are calling “questionable dealings.” That phrase alone already sounds like the opening scene of a true crime documentary nobody asked for.
When government offices start “looking into things,” you already know the paperwork is about to multiply like rabbits in springtime.
Now, to be clear, no one has been convicted of anything. No courtroom drama has officially begun, but the phrase “investigation opened” always has a way of making even the calmest Monday feel like a season finale cliffhanger.
Miller was critically injured in a car accident in Missouri earlier this month, an accident that resulted in the amputation of his left arm. His family launched a GoFundMe to cover medical costs, which quickly drew donations from sports media figures including Pat McAfee, Mina Kimes, and Adam Schefter. But the fundraiser also drew renewed attention to a Reddit thread cataloging the payment complaints of participants in Miller’s fantasy football leagues.
Multiple individuals told Koo and Kleen that they received overdue payments only after the thread gained traction and after ESPN employees had reportedly been contacted about the issue, raising questions about the timing of those repayments relative to the network’s own awareness of the situation. Awful Announcing has received evidence that Miller did make payments owed in both the days before and after the accident and the subsequent GoFundMe effort.
At this stage, everything remains under investigation. No final conclusions have been announced. No verdicts have been reached. It is, for now, a very official “we are looking into it” situation.
Much of the scrutiny of Miller centers on the framing of these leagues and other ventures as being tied to his charitable efforts. Miller has said his 417 Foundation started in 2013, inspired by his mother’s work with low-income preschoolers in Joplin. Public incorporation records instead show the foundation wasn’t formally established in Missouri until December 2018, and it received a cease-and-desist notice about a year later. The foundation has never filed a Form 990 with the IRS, its website is no longer active, and its social media account stopped posting in 2021, even though Miller continued advertising 417 Foundation fantasy leagues as recently as May 2022. In recent years, Miller has described his charitable efforts as being tied to a new nonprofit.
“The Missouri Attorney General’s Office encourages consumers who believe they have been misled to contact us,” the office said in a statement to USA Today Sports. “Attorney General [Catherine] Hanaway takes consumer protection very seriously, and we will work diligently to uncover the facts.”
So while officials do their work, the rest of the world will continue doing what it does best: refreshing pages, reading too much into every update, and pretending they are legal experts after watching one crime show.
