The LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, who are currently under investigation for violations related to payments outside of the league’s salary cap, also received millions in a second undisclosed sponsorship deal, according to a report by the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”
The podcast, citing multiple anonymous sources inside the Clippers and the Intuit Dome project, reported that Leonard had a previously unknown deal with Daktronics, the company that manufactured the Intuit Dome’s Halo video screen and others in the sports world.
The Clippers have been under investigation by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, with a focus on a $28 million endorsement deal given to Leonard by Aspiration, a now-bankrupt environmental company and former Clippers sponsor, since September. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has maintained that he was defrauded by Aspiration and its co-founder, Joe Sanberg.
Sanberg was sentenced this past June to 14 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
Kawhi Leonard had a sponsorship with Clippers’ scoreboard operator
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Daktronics, by contrast, does not use public facing celebrity spokespeople or endorsers to promote the brand at all, apparently, and as one former Daktronics employee told us in a text message, I was told since it’s B2B and not a consumer product, it didn’t make sense to advertise that way. They’re the worldwide leader, arguably in jumbotron manufacturing, but this is where I do need you to know something else. And this is something that I initially heard on the phone from the first high-level source I’ve been talking to for the last 11 months. This was talked about just openly within the organization and from people working on the project, that Kawhi was a spokesperson for Daktronics. And it was just the biggest thing, it was just openly joked about within. People working on the project that knew about this, as it was 100% a way to circumvent the salary cap. And over months of vetting, the second high-level Clippers source, a former official, they also independently confirmed something else. Which is that this Kawhi deal was not only talked about by fellow higher-ups at the Clippers and Daktronics as a way to circumvent the NBA salary cap. Quote, I know Kawhi had a sponsorship with Daktronics, unquote. This second source was also told that Kawhi’s Daktronic sponsorship was a multi-million dollar deal, as my first source separately explained on tape. People at Electronics, people within the Clippers organization themselves, had told me about this multi-million dollar deal with Kawhi and Daktronics. They’re not a company that you would see a celebrity endorser for, you know, and then it wasn’t coming out of their end, that the Clippers were technically kind of funding it. You know, and that it was funneling money from the Clippers through Daktronics back to Kawhi. You know how many teams they work with, how many stadiums, they had their pick of the litter, and they went with Kawhi Leonard, who then never does anything. They don’t even put out a press release. Look, in fairness, maybe Daktronics would claim that there were. Private secret things, you know, the things behind closed doors and Because of that possibility, late last month. Sam Koppelman of Hunter Brook Media reached out to Daktronics directly. I got an email from someone who seemed to be a PR person, a marketing person at Daktronics. He then writes back to say, you know what, I’m not gonna call you, but let me introduce you to our VP. But that person was actually the general counsel of Daktronics. As soon as I mentioned the name Kawhi Leonard, I didn’t hear back directly from Daktronics, but within 30 minutes, I got an email from someone. From the domain name GFbunting.com. And so for this crisis coms guy to call back and say, quote, my understanding is Daktronics doesn’t have a deal with Kawhi right now. Another possible answer, by the way, might have been, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that’s not the answer I got from these professional crisis com strategists. When I followed up on it, what he said was, quote, I don’t know what the company wants to say or can say, given the Wachtel investigation and all that. Do you know how locked in you have to be for the name Wachtel to come? I mean, not like the investigation or that Wachtel. He knew the name of the firm. 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Torre’s latest podcast, released Thursday night, cites multiple sources who said that Leonard was a Clippers spokesperson for Daktronics. It’s unclear when the contract began and ended. One anonymous source told Torre that the contract was for “millions of dollars.”
When the podcast asked the company to confirm if Leonard had an endorsement deal, it referred them to a spokesperson for a crisis management firm who said, “My understanding is Daktronics doesn’t have a deal with Kawhi right now.” When asked for clarification, the spokesman said, “I don’t know what the company wants to say, or can say, given the Wachtell investigation and all that.”
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According to Daktronics’ website, the company produces video boards for several NBA arenas, including for the Phoenix Suns, Charlotte Hornets, Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies and Brooklyn Nets. A search for “Kawhi Leonard” returned no results on the company’s website.
A spokesperson for the NBA didn’t respond to The Athletic’s request for comment on the latest allegations. The Clippers have also not responded to a request for comment.
The investigation into the Clippers and Leonard has dragged on since last fall. As part of the investigation, the law firm is examining if Leonard had a previously unreported endorsement deal with another company, according to multiple sources who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
The results of that investigation are currently holding up a trade that would send Leonard from the Clippers to the Toronto Raptors, the team he left in free agency in 2019.
“The league did not pause the trade,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in July of the Clippers-Raptors deal. “The parties to the trade made a decision not to go forward given that the investigation remained open, and any possible impact on Kawhi or his contract was yet to be known. And so, they chose not to live with that uncertainty, but that was well-known before the trade was proposed. I don’t think there was any reason for people to believe that the status of Kawhi Leonard would change merely because he was traded. The investigation needs to run its course.”
Silver said earlier this summer that the investigation “can be wrapped up — and needs to be wrapped up — before next season.” If the NBA finds there was a violation of the CBA, it can fine the Clippers millions of dollars, strip them of first-round picks, penalize Ballmer and even void Leonard’s contract.
When Leonard became a free agent in 2019, his representatives, including his uncle Dennis Robertson, asked the Los Angeles Lakers for several impermissible benefits, according to multiple league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could candidly discuss the situation. Those included the use of private aircraft, a home, guaranteed off-court earnings and even an ownership stake in the team. The Lakers, according to those sources, informed Leonard’s team that those requests violated the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement and amounted to salary cap circumvention.
Leonard and the Clippers have maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.
“I think we’re going to be in the clear,” Leonard said after the Clippers season. “It’s not stressing.”
“We’re on the right side of this,” Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said in February.
“Pablo Torre Finds Out” is produced by Meadowlark Media and became part of The Athletic Podcast Network last September through a licensing deal.
Law Murray and Mike Vorkunov contributed to this story.