The NBA vetted and approved a $300 million sponsorship deal between the LA Clippers and Aspiration in 2021, months before the green banking company signed a separate deal with Kawhi Leonard that triggered a salary cap-circumvention investigation, multiple sources told ESPN. The league’s approval process occurred before Aspiration signed a four-year, $28 million endorsement agreement with Leonard in April 2022.
Two sources with direct knowledge of the arrangement told ESPN that the Clippers submitted the 23-year agreement to the NBA for approval before its announcement in September 2021. League rules require such review because the deal contained a jersey patch component, the sources said.
The agreement also included signage in the team’s Inglewood arena, which was under construction at the time. Owner Steve Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration in September 2021, the same month the Clippers announced their sponsorship deal with the company.
The NBA is investigating whether the Clippers and Ballmer violated league rules by circumventing the salary cap to compensate Leonard. Commissioner Adam Silver initially said he had “never heard of the company Aspiration before,” then later revised his comments to say he was “aware of the brand.”
“Teams vet their own sponsorship partners and negotiate their own sponsorship agreements,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement to ESPN. “Given the jersey patch’s inclusion on player jerseys and its level of exposure across game telecasts, the league reviews and approves jersey patch arrangements pursuant to league rules that are intended to avoid potential brand issues or conflicts with league partnerships.”
The 2021-22 league operations manual specifies that a team “must notify, and obtain the approval of, the NBA” before entering into a jersey patch arrangement. The manual states that “a team cannot announce any Patch arrangement unless the applicable Patch Sponsorship Agreement, Jersey Patch and announcement have been approved in advance by the NBA.”
The Aspiration logo never appeared on Clippers jerseys despite being scheduled to debut in the 2023-24 season. The Clippers terminated their sponsorship agreement with Aspiration in early 2024 after Bloomberg News reported the company was under Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation.
Aspiration filed for bankruptcy in March with reported debt of $170 million. The company said it owed the Clippers $30 million, the most of all its creditors.
In August, Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud. Federal prosecutors said Sanberg defrauded investors and lenders out of $248 million by fraudulently obtaining loans and falsifying financial statements.
“These were guys who committed fraud,” Ballmer told ESPN. “Look, they conned me. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage.”
The league hired law firm Wachtell Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate whether the Clippers circumvented salary cap rules. Sources familiar with the process suggested the probe could take months and may not conclude until after the 2026 NBA playoffs.
Per the collective bargaining agreement, Silver must present any potential evidence to a neutral arbitrator appointed by the NBA and National Basketball Players Association. The arbitrator would then decide whether to grant Silver authority to punish the Clippers or determine insufficient evidence exists for discipline.
“The burden is on the league if we’re going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,” Silver told reporters in September. “I think as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges.”
Ballmer told ESPN he denied having knowledge of the endorsement contract Aspiration signed with Leonard or directing the company to do so. NBA rules prohibit teams from involvement in negotiations between sponsors and players, though teams can make introductions.