in a 2005 judgement<\/a>, \u201cbut he most definitely is not some hapless na\u00eff whose irreproachable business practices are undermined constantly by an unremitting string of bad luck.\u201d<\/p>\nCremily was Delaportas\u2019 latest venture. Under his leadership, the company hired employees in rapid succession, many leaving comfortable jobs in the food and beverage industry, drawn to Cremily\u2019s offer of high salaries, the promise of future company equity and a beautiful Scottsdale office.<\/p>\n
Multiple Cremily employees stressed that Delaportas had a charming side, and could come across as gentle and caring. He also carried a darker persona that flashed when his temper flared, employees said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to describe him (is) like a Sour Patch Kid,\u201d one Cremily worker said. \u201cLike sour and then sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cremily\u2019s early advertising materials featured the so-called \u201cauthentic French frozen yogurt\u201d with the Eiffel Tower in the background. It was billed as a company that would give away 100 percent of profits to \u201cempower girls globally.\u201d The products were said to be made with the help of top chefs and nutritionists, using sheep\u2019s milk to keep the yogurt lactose and keto-friendly.<\/p>\n
Toward the bottom of its marketing deck, Cremily touted \u201clong-term partnerships\u201d with some of the top sports arenas in the world. Company materials featured logos for the Diamondbacks and Angels, and also the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics and more. The Red Sox had a one-year partnership with Cremily that ended after the 2022 season. A Mets representative did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives from TD Garden also declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Early in the company\u2019s existence, its employees traveled to New York to pitch Madison Square Garden; soon, their logo lit up on each side of its famous scoreboard.<\/p>\n
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\n Madison Square Garden put Cremily\u2019s name up in lights, despite suing Steven Delaportas only a few years before.<\/p>\n
The company was in its infancy, without any track record or online footprint. Any true scrutiny, or a background check into Delaportas and his extensive history of being sued, including the 2016 MSG lawsuit, might have sunk his chances with MSG executives. But Cremily won over teams and venues with a story worth drooling over.<\/p>\n
Madison Square Garden did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverywhere you look you saw that 100 percent (profits) were going back to girls,\u201d said one of the employees who made the pitch. \u201cIt\u2019s a little cup. It\u2019s healthy, it\u2019s keto. It makes a ton of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of Cremily\u2019s salespeople had impressive track records. Cremily hired Brendan Cunningham, a well-respected sports marketing professional, away from the Diamondbacks. His background helped build trust in the negotiations with MLB teams.<\/p>\n
Cremily employees would go into ad meetings with an \u201cendless amount of money to spend,\u201d a different marketing employee said. Whatever number the team asked for, Cremily was willing to shell out.<\/p>\n
\u201cFive million, $10 million, whatever,\u201d an employee said, noting all Delaportas wanted was additional perks. \u201cWe\u2019re like, \u2018Cool man. This is what we want. We\u2019ll pay for it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Diamondbacks gave away T-shirts featuring the Cremily logo at a game that year. Ballparks in both Phoenix and Anaheim had stands in the concourse featuring Cremily products. But as the company\u2019s spending mounted, so did the questions.<\/p>\n
Employees\u2019 perspectives on where things went wrong varied. Some believed the initial plan for the business was genuine. Some believed Schuyler was naive to Delaportas\u2019 tactics and merely a passive investor. Others say she can\u2019t be separated from the ultimate demise of the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe let that vampire in,\u201d Manny Rosales, a former Cremily employee, said of Schuyler. \u201cThen he just ran the company into the ground with zany ideas that didn\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Angels eventually wrote in a legal filing: \u201cCremily is a fake shell entity for its alter ego, Le Nid Consortium International, and the founder and principal of both, Kylie Schuyler.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a prior legal filing, Schuyler wrote in a declaration that Cremily was \u201ca privately-held corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Angels declined further comment. The Diamondbacks did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Like Delaportas, the company could appear polished from the outside. But inside the company\u2019s Arizona headquarters, the atmosphere was far from organized.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months in was when I knew, wait a minute,\u201d one former employee said. \u201cThese costs don\u2019t make sense. The finances don\u2019t make sense. Then comes that multimillion dollar deal with the Angel Stadium, and we all just sat there like, \u2018Hold on. We haven\u2019t earned a single dime of revenue. And yet we just went and spent how much on a contract?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At its peak, Cremily had more than 50 employees in sales, IT, social media and more. Many had left cushy jobs in the corporate beverage industry. First based in Tempe, Ariz., Delaportas moved to a pristine new office nearby in the heart of downtown Scottsdale. The company, though, hardly had enough workers to fill the building.<\/p>\n
Sisense, a sublandlord, eventually filed suit, alleging Le Nid owed $200,879.08 in unpaid rent for the Scottsdale office. The case was settled out of court in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just collecting paychecks and sitting around,\u201d one employee said.<\/p>\n
Another employee described their work as a \u201cghost job,\u201d saying they watched YouTube clips for hours on end. Cremily gave that employee a raise and doubled the size of their department.<\/p>\n
When they did work, multiple employees said it was solely for the purpose of showing Schuyler things were happening. They created ad shoots and social media campaigns, but Delaportas rarely let those projects see the light of day.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Delaportas) wanted to play-work,\u201d said a former employee, \u201cto pretend that there was business happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every now and then, there would be a glimmer of hope. The company, multiple employees said, cycled through different frozen yogurt formulas as they struggled to ramp up production. Some of them were awful. But at least one small-batch sample was right on the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter four months, everyone was like, \u2018OK, is this gonna fold or not?\u2019\u201d an employee said. \u201cThen we tasted the product and it was like, \u2018Holy s\u2014. If we can sell this, we\u2019re all gonna be millionaires.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But scaling and reproducing the product was a constant issue. When one employee inquired about the lack of sales, they said a vice president, Eddie Ennesser, told them that they were still \u201csorting out some kinks.\u201d Ennesser, who had left a high-ranking job with Coca-Cola, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Former employees said something was always holding up production. And when the sporting venues questioned the lack of product at their ballpark stands, former employees said there was either an excuse or no reply.<\/p>\n
When pleas to Cremily executives were ignored, representatives from the Diamondbacks and Angels would reach out to other employees directly. In most cases, those employees were also in the dark.<\/p>\n
The company, they said, sailed about like a ghost ship with no real direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought it was a bad company that was still trying to find itself, or was maybe overbuilt (and) wasn\u2019t ready for this stuff,\u201d said a former Cremily employee. \u201cIt was like walking around an empty mall. It was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the middle of 2023, the cracks started turning into chasms.<\/p>\n
According to court filings, Cremily\u2019s operations at the ballparks were plagued with problems.<\/p>\n
Multiple former employees said Cremily could not produce product to scale, leaving teams with \u201cuntenable delays\u201d and subsequently providing the Angels and Diamondbacks with product that was not made by Cremily. The Angels argued in a court filing Cremily was \u201cfraudulently passing (third-party) ice cream off as its own\u201d and knew it didn\u2019t have a viable ice cream formula. An ex-marketing employee even said he was asked to create Cremily labels for generic ice cream.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It was) just ice cream,\u201d the employee said. \u201cAnd they were selling that as authentic French frozen yogurt, that was also keto.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of Cremily\u2019s cross-complaint, Ennesser, in a legal filing, placed the fault on the Angels, writing the team selling non-Cremily products was the Angels\u2019 choice, and \u201ca liability to our brand.\u201d He said he raised the issue with an account representative, but it wasn\u2019t resolved.<\/p>\n
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\n As the Diamondbacks celebrated, Cremily was there \u2014 though by that point, Cremily was allegedly selling generic ice cream under the Cremily label at Chase Field. (Chris Coduto \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
In a Cremily court filing, the brand highlighted a 2022 email from Cunningham to the Angels stating that \u201cnone of the soft serve machines are working properly.\u201d In court documents, an Angels employee alleged the ice cream\u2019s thickness often broke ballpark machines. Employees said there were often issues with freezer burn.<\/p>\n
Negative reviews started flowing quicker than soft serve. One employee filmed a video of their attempts to thaw the ice cream. At times, the actual Cremily product was rock hard and difficult to eat.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe took it home, and literally set it on the counter,\u201d the employee said. \u201cHe was stabbing it with the knife. The knife wouldn\u2019t even go through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, employees said it became apparent Cremily was generating little to no revenue. Once Schuyler\u2019s husband started questioning the lack of return on his investment, the layoffs began in droves.<\/p>\n
By July 2023, a whistleblower began sending mass emails to company employees from anonymous accounts. In addition to including embarrassing allegations about Cremily executives, the whistleblower said they wanted to expose the reason for the layoffs, tying them to Delaportas\u2019 fraudulent track record. Someone had finally done some digging.<\/p>\n
Cremily first sought to block the emails, then called the police and eventually sued an employee named Mical Heminger, alleging he was the sender. Heminger declined comment for this story, and that the case was settled out of court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was like an episode out of \u2018Gossip Girl,\u2019\u201d said one employee who received the emails.<\/p>\n
At least one of those emails urged Cremily employees to contact Schuyler and share their experiences of working for Delaportas.<\/p>\n
In interviews with The Athletic, many former employees painted Schuyler as a victim of Delaportas\u2019 scheme. Some also believe she failed to address the company\u2019s obvious issues.<\/p>\n
According to their lawsuit, the Angels sent invoices to Cremily in July, August and September of that year and never received payment. They were owed $401,700, and, through a law firm, sent notice demanding payment on Nov. 6, 2023.<\/p>\n
In a court filing, the Angels said Delaportas explained the lack of payment through a text message that read, \u201c(Unfortunately) our VP of finance\/controller was sent to the hospital last week and will not be back until this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
By August 2024, the Diamondbacks filed suit, alleging Cremily failed to make its second, third and fourth payments for the 2024 season, accruing a past due balance of $358,053.78.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe misrepresented himself to me,\u201d said Malcolm Stogo, an ice cream developer that Delaportas hired, offering him a lucrative future with the company. \u201cHe promised me the moon and delivered me a quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the fall of 2023, one already laid-off Cremily employee was at Chase Field, watching the Diamondbacks play with a former coworker. Even though he was no longer with Cremily, the Diamondbacks had just sent him an invoice for an unpaid bill.<\/p>\n
Watching the game, he took a moment to appreciate the irony of everything that was still in front of him. The giant Cremily popsicle, the pool tiles.<\/p>\n
The most recognizable parts of the ballpark still represented a company on the brink of collapse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go, \u2018Dude,\u2019\u201d the ex-Cremily worker said, \u201c\u2018they\u2019re not paying the bill.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In Ancramdale, New York, there\u2019s a small family farm that\u2019s been in business for more than 80 years. On Fridays, Ronnybrook Farms offers a free ice cream stand. On summer weekends, the farmers drive to New York City to sell their product at markets.<\/p>\n
On May 1, 2022, the farm entered into a five-year partnership to produce Cremily products. Cremily promised the farm a minimum of $40 million in sales by the final year of the deal.<\/p>\n
Rick Osofsky, the man who oversees the business, said he dreamed that the partnership would be his lasting legacy.<\/p>\n
By late 2023, the payments stopped, threatening Ronnybrook Farms\u2019 entire business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m basically begging that you send it along to us,\u201d Osofsky wrote to Delaportas in emails shared with The Athletic. Delaportas lambasted the farmer for threatening to cut off service due to nonpayment. \u201cYour conduct,\u201d Delaportas wrote, \u201cwas wrong. \u2026 (You) breached our agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronnybrook sued Cremily after it fell $196,434.22 behind on payments. The ordeal nearly ruined everything the family built. The sides ultimately settled out of court.<\/p>\n
When asked if Delaportas was a scam artist, his former attorney, Greg Shanaberger \u2014 who himself was named in a 2008 lawsuit alongside Delaportas \u2014 said: \u201cI would not disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like the duck test. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and smells like a duck, it\u2019s probably a duck,\u201d Shanaberger said.<\/p>\n
Cremily touted its stated aim of helping women and girls in its marketing and ballpark signage. But, business associates said, the company ended up harming the very people it was supposed to be helping.<\/p>\n
The Super Girl Surf in Orange County is an annual event that features sports, performances and merchandise sales, with proceeds assisting women and girls. In 2023, Cremily was represented at the festival as a sponsor. When it came time to pay the bill for its booth and subsequent advertising, Cremily ghosted, organizers of the event said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reached out to (Schuyler) directly,\u201d said the event\u2019s director, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely. \u201cI figured, she probably doesn\u2019t know. She\u2019s a champion for women and she\u2019ll get it straightened out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reached out to her four times, and she never even gave me the courtesy of a single follow-up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The director declined to share the cost of Cremily\u2019s sponsorship.<\/p>\n
When things go wrong with Delaportas\u2019 various ventures, incidents in Delaportas\u2019 past indicate things tend to get ugly.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Welch, once of the band Korn, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
David Williams, Welch\u2019s current manager, said Delaportas had access to all of Welch\u2019s finances and racked up massive debts through various business entities.<\/p>\n
Welch was named as a defendant in the 2008 suit involving the business Fortitude Entertainment. In a court deposition, business associate Richard Gilmore testified that, when he and Delaportas would get in arguments about paying for elements of their business, \u201che would get all irritated with me and get up and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve is a control person,\u201d Gilmore said in court. \u201cHe has to control every aspect of what goes on. When he loses it, he loses interest and then it dies. \u2026 (He) was more excited about the deal-making than he was (with) actually making it work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many Cremily employees say that they experienced similarly explosive moments. One employee said that if Delaportas forgot you existed, the silver lining was you\u2019d at least have a job the next day.<\/p>\n
As cracks in the company became clearer to those who worked there, the job itself became more difficult. He\u2019d berate workers in his creative department for fulfilling his own assignments, only to later say \u201c\u2018Why did you even do this? This is nothing I ever approved.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Layoffs started happening in chunks, with Delaportas unsuccessfully reassuring those who remained that their jobs were safe, even as evidence started to mount that they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried every single day at work,\u201d an employee said. \u201cI would lock myself in the bathroom and cry. I was just so overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the product failed, employees were let go and the company crumbled, Cremily\u2019s grandiose visions descended into chaos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Diamondbacks lost out on $2 million,\u201d a Cremily employee said. \u201cBut all these people who lost out on their livelihoods because of Delaportas, that is the true crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Trash lay strewn at the site of Cremily\u2019s former headquarters in Arizona. (Sam Blum)<\/p>\n
On the side of an abandoned Arizona office building, thousands of plastic bottle caps lay strewn on the ground. Delaportas and his company vacated the building more than a month after being evicted for nonpayment. A giant poster of NBA star Shaquille O\u2019Neal still lies face down, building up a collection of dirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey left everything behind,\u201d the building\u2019s landlord said. \u201cThe building was essentially trashed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of the employees have struggled in the aftermath of Cremily\u2019s collapse. One took the experience off their resum\u00e9 entirely after a potential employer asked in a job interview, \u201c\u2018Aren\u2019t they a scam?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Delaportas, though, seems to have had no such problem since the company dissolved.<\/p>\n
After Cremily folded, Delaportas began a new venture in water. He became the CEO for Clean Bottling Co., and entered into an agreement in late 2023 with Alkaline88 to produce products for their brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cPower to you if you can live 100 lives in this one life we get,\u201d said a Cremily employee. \u201cBut at what point do you stop? Don\u2019t you get tired of keeping up with the lies you\u2019ve built around you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosales, the former marketing employee, said he is still not working.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteven kept me around to help them move the s\u2014 out of that office into their new office, then fired me afterwards,\u201d Rosales said. \u201cI guess I was cheaper than hiring an actual moving company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosales said he attempted to collect government assistance but was blocked because Cremily disputed that he was laid off, arguing to the state that he was fired for cause. Multiple employees said they were never technically terminated, only furloughed, and as a result, never received severance.<\/p>\n
Coworkers said Cunningham, the ex-Diamondbacks marketing executive hired for his credibility in professional sports, was unwittingly used as a tool to get in the door of pro sports arenas. He now works for the Chicago White Sox. Cunningham did not respond to interview requests.<\/p>\n
Litigation has followed Delaportas to his new business, with a financing company, separate bottling company and employee all suing for various reasons. The bottlecaps outside the old Cremily office were from that venture, and the Shaq poster was an Alkaline88 advertisement.<\/p>\n
Some who worked for Cremily have been able to move on. Others\u2019 careers have stalled.<\/p>\n
One employee, who had been with the company about 18 months before getting laid off, couldn\u2019t help but reflect one last time while packing and preparing to depart the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of the strangest things I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Athletic\u2018s Doug Haller contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 In the fall of 2023, the baseball world watched as Arizona Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,9003,2866,1334,12902],"class_list":{"0":"post-265851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","12":"tag-los-angeles-angels","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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