Clippers nearly gave arena naming rights to fraudulent company

More details are emerging about a company that has paid millions of Los Angeles Clippers star, Kawhi Leonard, to bypass the NBA wage ceiling, including the team came closer in 2021 to the granting of denomination rights for its Arena Inglewood to aspiration partners.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has almost granted names to name to the company, but ended up choosing the Intuit Financial Service Company to adorn the place of $ 2 billion, said a familiar source with the case. Intuit, which has a net value of $ 186 billion and developed Turbotax, Credit Karma and QuickBooks, ended up paying $ 23 over 23 years for names.

Four years later, aspiration, a sustainable company that has also generated and sold carbon credits, is bankrupt. The co-founder Joseph Sanberg agreed to plead guilty of having defrauded several investors and lenders. Leonard is listed among creditors in the bankruptcy documents of aspiration, which raises whether its approval agreement of $ 28 million with the company bypassing the NBA salary rules.

One of the investors that Sanberg has fraud has been a ball, scored by Fortune magazine as the sixth richest person in the world, with a net value of $ 157 billion. The owner of the Clippers has invested $ 50 million in the aspiration, which in turn concluded a sponsorship agreement of $ 330 million with the team.

This week, athletics reported allegations that the aspiration agreed to pay $ 28 million in Leonard for a job without responsibility, in order to bypass the NBA wage ceiling. Ballmer was interviewed Thursday evening by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN and denied the participation of Leonard’s aspiration, but the NBA launched an investigation.

Ballmer said he had been “sold” by the company and that the Clippers did not bypass the NBA salary ceiling rules, which the team was accused of doing in a Pabcast report of Pablo Torre of athletics.

An airplane on the Inglewood dome.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ballmer told Shelburne that the aspiration offered more than bound for the dome’s name rights, and a clippers spokesman confirmed this account. However, Ballmer insisted that the Clippers did not violate the NBA rules against the launching of the salary ceiling, and the team had accepted a contract extension with Leonard and the sponsorship agreement with the aspiration before the player and the company met.

“We have finished with Kawhi, we finished with suction,” said Ballmer. “The transactions have all been locked and loaded. Then, they asked to be presented to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can present our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved. ”

The Clippers signed Leonard to a contract of $ 176 million over four years in August 2021, even if he recovered from a partially torn ACL to the right knee which kept him away all the 2021-2022 season. Ballmer said the suction sponsorship agreement was concluded in September 2021 and that the Clippers presented the suction to Leonard two months later.

“As part of our cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, we have produced SMS and emails,” said Ballmer. “It was part of the production of documents in their survey. We even found the email that made the first introduction [between Aspiration and Leonard]. It was in early November.

“Where could one of this bypass?

The Boston Sports Journal reported that Leonard had not appeared in promotional equipment as other endorships did because the suction leaders “saw no brand synergy with Leonard and chose not to use its services. Rather, they preferred to associate with influencers focused on the climate. ”

Ballmer could not explain why Leonard did no marketing or approval work for aspiration, telling Shelburne that he had never talked to the player about his agreement with the company.

“I don’t know why they did what they did and I don’t know how different it is, I really don’t do it,” he said. “And, frankly, all speculation would be crazy. They were guys who committed fraud. Listen, they gave me. I made an investment in these guys thinking that it was on the editing and they gave me. At this point, I do not have the capacity to predict why they did anything.”

The salary ceiling is an amount in dollars which limits what teams can spend on the wage bill of players. The goal of the ceiling is to ensure parity, preventing the richest teams from spending smaller markets to acquire the best players.

Cutting the ceiling by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited. The teams that exceed the ceiling must pay luxury tax penalties that become more and more serious. The income from tax penalties are then partly distributed to teams of smaller market and partly to teams that do not exceed the salary ceiling.

The NBA said that it would investigate the allegations presented by Torre. Ballmer said he is hosting the probe. If allegations were made against a team other than the clippers, “I would like the investigation league, take it seriously,” he said.

“We know the rules, and if something is not clear, we remember what rules are. And we make it absolutely clearly that we will respect these rules. ”

The ceiling was implemented before the 1984-1985 season at only $ 3.6 million. Ten years later, he was $ 15.9 million and 10 years later, he had increased to $ 43.9 million. In the 2014-15 season, it was $ 63.1 million.

The biggest peak came before the 2016-2017 season when it increased to $ 94 million due to an influx of income from a new media rights agreement of nine and 24 billion dollars with ESPN and TNT.

The wage ceiling rules negotiated between the NBA and the players’ union are stated in the collective negotiation (CBA). There are few teams proven by teams by the ceiling, with a minnesota Timberwolves violation in 2000 serving more blatant.

The Timberwolves have concluded a secret agreement with the free agent and the former recovery choice n ° 1 Joe Smith, signing it in a succession of transactions below one year to allow the team to review the Ceiling with a huge contract before the 2001-2002 season.

The NBA canceled its contract, inflicted a fine of $ 3.5 million in the Timberwolves and stripped them of five draft choices in the first round – two of which were then returned. In addition, the owner Glen Taylor and the managing director Kevin Mchale were suspended.

The NBA commissioner David Stern said at the time the Minnesota Star-Tribune: “What was done here was a fraud of major proportions. There were no less than five narrowly hidden unknown contracts, in the hope that they would never see the day.… The extent of this offense was shocking. ”

According to article 13 of the ABC, if the clippers had bypassed the ceiling, it would be a first offense liable to a fine of $ 4.5 million, the loss of a first -round choice and the cancellation of Leonard’s contract. However, the Clippers have no first round choice before 2027.