We’re only one month into the 2019-2020 NBA season and the Sacramento Kings recently have been in the news for the wrong reasons. An ESPN report revealed that the Kings’ former chief revenue officer, Jeff David, stole in excess of $13 million from the organization. The bulk of the funds were stolen over the course of a single NBA season.
It turns out David had formed a fictitious sports consultancy, Sacramento Sports Partners. During the Kings’ negotiations with two of their largest sponsors, David developed a scheme to cause payments (which should have been made to the Kings) to be directed to Sacramento Sports Partners. Unbeknownst to the rest of the Kings’ leadership team, David altered the terms of a 20-year, $110-million naming rights agreement to cause a $9-million upfront payment to be paid to Sacramento Sports Partners. He also caused another sponsor to make a $4.4 million upfront payment to Sacramento Sports Partners as part of a 10-year, $28 million sponsorship arrangement.