As NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was announcing that L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling would be banned from the league for life and fined $2.5 million for racist comments, another insurer has followed State Farm in washing its hands of the franchise.
Virgin America announced it was dropping its Clippers sponsorship, along with State Farm and CarMax.
Although CarMax was the first to drop its association with Sterling and the Clippers, State Farm was the first major insurer to cut ties. CarMax is best known as a used car dealership chain.
Other sponsors – Kia Motors America, Red Bull, Lumber Liquidators and Yokohama Tire – have suspended advertising and sponsorship activities.
State Farm has stated that it “will be taking a pause in our relationship with the organization.”
Transition CEO Steve Stoute, who represents State Farm, announced on ESPN’s Cowherd radio show earlier in the week that State Farm would not sponsor the Clippers as long as Sterling was owner. Stoute said sponsorship of individual players might continue, but not of the organization itself.
“I’m telling the brands, ‘Let’s pull sponsorship,’ starting with State Farm,” Stoute told ESPN. “When you have things like this taking place, somebody has to stand up.”
At the time, Stoute prophetically told ESPN that he expected more companies to pull their sponsorship in the next 48 hours. Soon afterwards, Commissioner Silver held a press conference, announcing Sterling had been banned for life from the NBA, and would be fined $2.5 million. (continued.)
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Sterling allegedly went on a racist rant to his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, in audio picked up by TMZ. In the audio—attributed by TMZ to Sterling—Sterling is very bothered by Stiviano’s public association with a number of black individuals, including Magic Johnson, ordering her never to bring black people to any of his games.
According to the audio, Sterling says he has nothing against minorities, but doesn’t want her to publicly “broadcast that you’re associating with black people.” He shouts, “In your lousy (expletive deleted) Instagrams you don’t have to have yourself with –– walking with black people.”
Now, TMZ has released more audio allegedly of Sterling, explaining that he doesn't think he's racist because he puts food on the tables of his black employees.
