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 drawn widespread criticism from media industry insiders for its coverage of the Clippers’ salary cap scandal.
ESPN’s reporting included an August 17 story that cited three unnamed sources who 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 who said an argument that sponsorship introductions amounted to salary-cap circumvention would be “dead on arrival.”
That ESPN story, published before the ruling came down, set up an industry narrative pitting ESPN against Pablo Torre, the investigative journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting about Leonard’s ties to Clippers sponsors.
ESPN and Torre, a former ESPN employee whose podcast is part of The Athletic, were widely seen as presenting opposing narratives of the Clippers saga.
Online, it was “ESPN vs Pablo.”
The NBA announced on Wednesday, after a nearly yearlong investigation, that it found the Clippers and Ballmer had broken league rules by facilitating sponsorship deals with Leonard. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued the team a $30 million fine, fined Leonard $700,000, and suspended Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, from league activities for a year.
The LA Clippers said in a statement that they “vehemently reject the NBA’s findings,” which it said were “the result of a heavily biased investigation” by the NBA. Leonard said in a statement that he accepts “full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle.”
The NBA’s findings validated Torre’s reporting and framing while putting ESPN under the microscope. ESPN hasn’t issued any corrections to its reporting, but public relations pros say the overall framing of the story missed the mark. That’s because it strongly suggested the Clippers would avoid a severe penalty, shortly before the NBA handed down its biggest penalty ever.
“While it might be accurate in the wording, the substance of the story was very misleading,” said Brian McWilliams, the VP of LA-based public relations firm Spelling Communications.
ESPN has bet its future on its direct-to-consumer streaming product and prides itself on having strong relationships with its audience on TV and across social media. Hiccups like this could undermine that trust if fans think ESPN is taking it easy on leagues or teams, especially those with powerful owners, like Ballmer.
The sports giant now could “risk a lot of damage to the brand,” McWilliams said, adding that after the investigation, “fans see the outcome, which is starkly in contrast with ESPN’s reporting.”
“The audience just needs an explanation,” said Sam Gauchier, a New York-based brand and communications consultant.
An ESPN spokesperson said the company stands by its mid-August Clippers story and declined to comment further.
Weathering a PR storm
ESPN said in the August 17 story that it didn’t receive a response from the NBA before publishing.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass later said on social media that ESPN’s story “contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” which would “be made clear once the investigation is concluded.”
The ESPN story, which was framed in a way that seemed to contradict Torre’s reporting, included snippets of his findings but no statement from him. Torre said on Thursday that he gave ESPN a statement for the story that said he stood by his reporting and was looking forward to seeing the NBA’s findings. He said ESPN didn’t publish it.
After the NBA’s investigation and Torre’s public commentary about the situation, ESPN’s PR team must convince the public that the organization’s reporting practices reflect “not only the technical accuracies, but the overall expectation of truth that their readers have,” said Bradley Akubuiro, a partner at PR firm Bully Pulpit International.
ESPN also made waves when top NBA reporter Shams Charania — known for his scoops on player moves — said on TV Thursday that Leonard “did not have any knowledge” of the salary cap circumvention, before adding that Leonard “pocketed tens of millions of dollars” from Clippers sponsors.
Torre responded on X to a clip of Charania’s comments with a screenshot of Leonard’s signature on a purported copy of a contract with former Clippers sponsor Aspiration Partners.
McWilliams said insiders like Charania, who regularly break 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.”
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