Steve Ballmer Suspended By Nba After Podcast Sparks Jumbotron Corruption Probe

Clippers’ Owner Steve Ballmer Suspended — The Basics

Last September, Steve Ballmer insisted on ESPN that the Clippers weren’t involved in any dodgy endorsement deal that paid Kawhi Leonard outside the salary cap. A year later, the NBA has handed Ballmer a one-year suspension and leveled steep penalties against the team — including forfeiting five future draft picks and a $30 million fine. Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker also faces a one-year suspension, and Leonard accepted a $700,000 fine plus a ban for his business manager.

The punishments stem from a 35-page report commissioned by the league and prepared by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The document pulls no punches, challenging key public denials from Clippers leadership and tracing a trail of payments tied to the team’s arena deals.

How a Podcast Turned Into a Probe

Pablo Torre Finds Out and the spark that started it

At the heart of this storm is a podcast — Pablo Torre Finds Out — which is cited in the report as the catalyst that kicked the inquiry into motion one year ago today. The episode made headlines by exploring murky fintech relationships and left a lot of people looking for answers about how outside payments to Leonard were structured.

"We were blindsided by conclusions rooted in gossip rather than the facts — this has cost the team millions and damaged reputations," a Clippers representative wrote in a letter to the league.

The podcast’s episode also put a spotlight on Aspiration, the fintech startup-turned-fraud that featured in early reporting and helped broaden the probe into endorsements and how they were being used to move money.

What the Wachtell Report Found

Official conclusions and the league’s language

The report describes a series of arrangements where third-party partners funneled money to Mr. Leonard beyond what the NBA allows in salary. Investigators concluded a number of Clippers explanations didn’t hold up under scrutiny. Their findings note that some public statements from team executives were at best inaccurate and, in other instances, clearly false.

Those conclusions helped shape the discipline — suspensions, fines, and pick forfeitures — designed to penalize both individuals and the franchise for failing to police and prevent these payments.

Scoreboards, 'Spend Back' Deals, and the Halo Board

How Daktronics fit into the picture

In spring 2020 Daktronics entered a bidding process to supply scoreboard and digital signage tech at the Clippers’ Intuit Dome. By May 2020 the team told Daktronics it was the preferred provider, but pushed for a "spend back" arrangement — essentially, business returned to the team as part of the deal.

Investigators say Clippers executives discussed accomplishing that spend back through an endorsement agreement with Kawhi Leonard. At one point, a Clippers executive reportedly told Daktronics exactly how much to pay Leonard — $3 million over two years — and later asked Daktronics to increase the payment in line with the team’s increased scoreboard budget.

The scoreboard itself, the so-called Halo Board, became emblematic of the whole mess — a massive, double-sided 44,000-square-foot 4K wraparound screen with a price tag reported to be over $100 million. The Intuit Dome’s total costs swelled to reportedly north of $2 billion, the kind of build that screams SoCal excess and big-tech-level spending.

Aspiration, Joe Sanberg, and the fraud that unspooled

From advertised virtue to criminal conviction

Aspiration, once billed as a green fintech fighting Wall Street greed, was thrust into the center of the investigation. Its cofounder, Joe Sanberg, who played a role in the endorsements, eventually pleaded guilty to a scheme that defrauded investors — a conviction that led to a lengthy prison sentence and nearly a quarter-billion dollars lost by investors.

Sanberg and the now-bankrupt remnants of Aspiration cooperated with investigators, and emails uncovered by the probe show the company’s founder telling colleagues that the Clippers were asking Aspiration to do payments tied to Kawhi Leonard. One message said the team would offset Aspiration’s costs by providing additional business back to the company — mirroring the spend-back language Daktronics described.

Other companies, inconsistent cooperation

Lockton, Boingo, and uneven answers

Investigators also turned up at least two other Clippers-affiliated companies that helped route roughly $18 million to Leonard. Lockton Insurance reportedly refused to cooperate with the probe. Boingo Wireless at first "purported to cooperate," investigators say, but then supplied inconsistent or non-credible information and ultimately stopped cooperating.

Daktronics and Aspiration, by contrast, were more helpful to investigators. That split in cooperation painted an uneven picture of who was transparent and who was stonewalling — an imbalance that investigators flagged in their findings.

Emails, consultants, and the $7 million mystery

How the numbers lined up

One curious thread in the report centers on a $7 million-a-year line item that matched Leonard’s endorsement payments. Ballmer and Zucker had said the figure came from a consultant’s study that calculated $28 million over four years was needed to offset the Forum’s carbon emissions.

Investigators, however, spoke with that consultant directly. The consultant told them the Clippers gave him a $28 million budget and asked him to figure out how to spend it — not that his study prescribed the $28 million figure as a need. Internal Aspiration emails echoed the connection to Leonard, with Sanberg apparently telling colleagues the Clippers were asking Aspiration to help with Kawhi.

Where things stand now — investigations and appeals

Even after a fraud conviction, reams of podcast coverage, and the report’s release, the story isn’t closed. Investigators are still probing whether a consulting agreement was a ruse designed to route funds to Leonard. The graft alleged in the report touches contracts, endorsements, and how teams steer third-party business to partners.

Ballmer’s legal team has said they’re looking into all possible remedies to challenge the penalties. Meanwhile, the Clippers have been firing off letters to the NBA, calling the probe biased and blaming "a podcaster’s baseless claims" for the mess — and pointing to the millions they say they’ve spent defending themselves and the reputation hit they’ve taken.

Final take — Malibu-style drama with big-league consequences

In classic LA fashion, this started with gossip on air and ballooned into a high-stakes league investigation that cost the franchise serious draft capital and the owner a year away from the sidelines. Between legal fights, internal emails, and a bankruptcy case, the fallout will be felt across the Clippers’ front office and their partnerships.

As one wag might put it — you have to pick your regrets. Is it trading away draft picks and a future star, or launching a product that didn’t win hearts? Either way, this chapter is a reminder that in SoCal, splashy arenas and mega scoreboards come with splashy risks.