South Dakotans can be corrupt just like everyone else. This week’s exhibit: Daktronics, paragon of homegrown South Dakota success, landed a big scoreboard deal by participating in the Los Angeles Clippers’ scheme to skirt the NBA’s salary cap and funnel millions of dollars to player Kawhi Leonard:
In a 35-page report written by an independent investigator on behalf of the NBA, the league said it found that the Clippers had “initiated, facilitate and induced” Daktronics and two other companies to pay multi-million endorsement deals to Leonard in order to secure business opportunities with the Clippers.
The report notes that Daktronics paid Leonard $8 million and ultimately did win the contract to supply the electronic signage, including a reportedly $100 million “halo board” at the Intuit Dome in LA, where the Clippers play home games [Bart Pfankuch, “Daktronics Part of NBA and SEC Inquiry into Team and Player,” South Dakota News Watch, 2026.09.04].
Daktronics says such corruption is “not uncommon”:
The report refers to the financial agreement as a “spend back” arrangement, “whereby Daktronics would provide some amount of business back to the Clippers, which Daktronics told investigators is not uncommon in its industry.”
“In May 2020, in a call with a senior executive of Daktronics, a senior Clippers’ executive specified the precise financial terms that the Clippers expected Daktronics to provide to Mr. Leonard in the endorsement agreement: $3 million per year for two years.”
The report noted that after prodding from the Clippers, Daktronics later increased the final payment to Leonard by an additional $2 million.
“In February of 2021, before the end of the first year of the Daktronics-Leonard endorsement agreement, the same senior Clippers’ executive approached Daktronics again. This time, the Clippers’ executive told Daktronics that, because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard, Daktronics should correspondingly increase the amount it would pay to Mr. Leonard. After some negotiation — and again based on its concern that failing to comply could jeopardize its business with the Clippers — Daktronics ultimately agreed to increase its second-year payment to Mr. Leonard by $2 million,” the report stated [Pfankuch, 2026.09.04].
If we believed the communal autohagiography peddled by guys seeking reëlection, we’d think South Dakota businesses succeed because of some unique “moral fiber” that’s “woven into the fabric” of our state. But Daktronics shows that South Dakota businesses will play the same sleazy games as other capitalist schemers just to make a buck.