The NBA’s landmark ruling against the Los Angeles Clippers for salary cap circumvention is causing a PR headache for the Worldwide Leader in Sports.
ESPN has received a lot of criticism from media industry insiders for its coverage of the Clippers’ salary cap scandal.
ESPN’s reporting included a August 17 story that cited three unnamed sources that said the NBA had “no evidence” that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay Kawhi Leonard. The story also quoted an anonymous source as saying that the argument that introducing sponsorship amounted to bypassing the salary cap would be ‘dead on arrival’.
That ESPN story, published before the ruling was handed down, set up an industry narrative that pitted ESPN against Pablo Torre, the investigative journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Leonard’s ties to Clippers sponsors.
ESPN and Torre, a former ESPN employee whose podcast is distributed by The Athletic, were widely seen as opposing narratives on the Clippers saga.
Online it was “ESPN vs Pablo.”
The NBA announced On Wednesday, after a nearly year-long investigation, it was found that the Clippers and Ballmer had violated league rules by facilitating sponsorship deals with Leonard. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver fined the team $30 million, fined Leonard $700,000 and suspended Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, from league activities for one year.
The LA Clippers said in a statement that they “vehemently reject the NBA’s findings,” which they said were “the result of a heavily biased investigation” by the NBA. Leonard said in a statement that he “accepts full responsibility for errors in judgment by people within my inner circle.”
The NBA’s findings validated Torre’s reporting and framing, while ESPN came under scrutiny. ESPN has not made any corrections to its reporting, but public relations professionals say the overall framing of the story missed the point. That’s because it was strongly suggested that the Clippers would avoid a major penalty shortly before the NBA handed down its largest penalty ever.
“While the wording may be accurate, the content of the story was very misleading,” said Brian McWilliams, the vice president of LA-based PR firm Spelling Communications.
ESPN has put its future on the line up direct-to-consumer streaming product and prides itself on having strong relationships with its audiences on TV and through social media. These types of issues can undermine that trust if fans think ESPN favors the perspective of certain leagues or teams, especially those with powerful owners like Ballmer.
The sports giant could now “risk a lot of damage to the brand,” McWilliams said, adding that after the investigation, “fans are seeing the outcome, which is in stark contrast to ESPN’s reporting.”
“The audience just needs an explanation,” says Sam Gauchier, a New York-based brand and communications consultant.
An ESPN spokesperson said the company is standing by the Clippers story from mid-August and declined to comment further.
Weathering a PR storm
ESPN said in the Aug. 17 story that it had not received a response from the NBA before publication.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass later said on social media that ESPN’s story “contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” which would be “clarified once the investigation is complete.”
The ESPN story, which was worded to appear to contradict Torre’s reporting, included excerpts of Torre’s findings but no statement from him. Torre said Thursday that he had given ESPN a statement for the story, saying he stood behind its reporting and looked forward to the NBA’s findings. He said ESPN didn’t publish it.
After the NBA’s investigation and Torre’s public comments on the situation, ESPN’s PR team must convince the public that the organization’s reporting practices “reflect not only technical accuracy, but also the general expectation of truth that their readers have,” said Bradley Akubuiro, a partner at PR firm Bully Pulpit International.
ESPN also drew criticism Thursday when top NBA reporter Shams Charania — known for his scoops on player moves — said on TV that Leonard “had no knowledge whatsoever” of the salary cap bypass, before adding that Leonard had pocketed “tens of millions of dollars” from Clippers sponsors.
Torre responded to X to a clip of Charania’s comments with a screenshot of Leonard’s signature on an alleged copy of a contract with former Clippers sponsor Aspiration Partners.
McWilliams said insiders like Charania, who regularly cover NBA news, “walk a very fine line between wanting to be first, wanting to be accurate and also wanting to maintain access, which can be revoked.”
