Great band with Bad Management

I have a confession, I’m a boy band fan and one of my favorite bands of all times is the “Backstreet Boys.”  I’ve been following their career since I was 8 years old, yet I’ve never been able to see them live because I grew up in a place where they’ve never performed live. I do, however, have my hopes high because in 2013 I will finally be able to enjoy one of their live concerts.  The Backstreet Boys have sold over 130 millions records worldwide and they are the best selling boy band of all times. The band members are Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough, AJ Mclean and Kevin Richardson.

An interesting fact about them is that they got the name "Backstreet Boys" from an Orlando flea market called the Backstreet Market. – IMDB.

Let me tell you a little bit about their story. A manager named Lou Pearlman formed the group in Orlando, FL in 1993. He posted an ad on the Orlando Sentinel and it was a big boom; a lot of young performers responded to this. The first member was AJ, after him Nick and Howie and Kevin, who was working at Disney at that time, joined the group. The last to join in was Brian, who actually had his audition over the phone because he was living in Kentucky. The good news at that time was that the BSB were born, the bad news was the horrible manager who signed them.

Lou Pearlman was a terrible business manager. Pearlman took advantage of the huge success that the boys were having at that moment and paid himself like if he was a formal member of the band. He also went on to pay the members of the band a very low percentage of the money they were making while his company was earning millions. In 1997, Brian Littrell hired a lawyer due to irregularities and they filed a lawsuit against Pearlman.

"The Orlando Sentinel said that the boys only received $300,000 from their $10 million summer European tour. Pearlman allegedly argued that he invested $3 million in 1993 alone, and wanted a return on his rather risky investment. He contended his deal with the Boys was fair.”

The case was finally settled out of court, it is for this reason I’m not able to present the exact terms of the agreement. We can all agree that this is clear example of what ¨bad management¨ represents; that “manager” took advantage of the Backstreet Boys because they were new to the business and had no idea of what was going on.

In present time, Pearlman is in a federal prison facing a 25-year sentence due to a big scheme that defrauded investors for more than $300 million.

Despite of this rather discouraging obstacle, the Backstreet Boys have remained at the top, keeping their place as the best boy band ever! I’m very excited to say that next year they will be celebrating their 20^th anniversary and the tour will be epic. As you can imagine, I couldn’t be more anxious and happy at the same time because I will finally get to see them live!