I have no doubt that you know crew/team members, you’ve gotten a lot right. But this post isn’t quite accurate. Barney knew people were interviewing, including MTJ. No one was sneaking around. Barney even released Cole & Jazzy from their contracts so they could interview. Also, there was no “strict” budget in place. Joe Garone, team president, wanted that to happen. But Barney was more of the mindset to find the full funding (or at least come close) or call it quits. He truly believed TRD would step up despite being told (for months) they wouldn’t.
This isn’t on MTJ. Yes, JGR definitely didn’t want much to do with the 78 anymore, and certainly screwed them with pricing, but Barney is definitely not without blame as well. He was absolutely horrible at building the kinds of relationships that might have prevented this whole thing, starting with 5hr. Ask your team member friends how many times Barney went out to visit them at their HQ? Or invited them out to Denver to wine & dine & thank them. In case they aren’t sure of the answer, it’s 0. That was a factor in them leaving. There’s A LOT of blame to go around here.