September 25, 2020 • 48 mins
The world of professional sports is a multi-billion dollar industry -- and even the most ardent fans may not know what actually happens away from the bright lights and cheering crowds. Join Ben and special guest, journalist Tim Livingston, the creator of Whistleblower, as they dive into the strange, twisting tale of one of the NBA's biggest conspiracies -- a gambling scandal that rocked the industry and, disturbingly, may have repercussions that continue throughout the sport in the modern day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Welcome to the show they
(00:26):
called me, Ben, Mike and Patriots Matt and Noel lare
on adventures, but we'll be returning very soon. We're joined
as always with our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand
most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We're
diving into a strange one today, fellow conspiracy realist. It's
(00:49):
a story that you may be familiar with if you
are if you are a huge fan of sports. It's
a story that you may've heard a headline about, but
you've never seen it fully explored. We're diving into a
world of gambling. We're diving into the uh depths of corruption,
(01:12):
into the heights of financial shenanigans and ethics violations. It's
a mystery that is being unraveled that occurred here in
the US, uh not too long ago. What are we
talking about? Well, to answer that question, we're going to
(01:32):
defer to an expert, as we always tried to do.
You know that we want to bring you primary sources,
people with experience and expertise in the field, and that's
why today I am over the moon to welcome to
the show our guest, the sports journalist, writer and creator
(01:52):
of the Whistleblower podcast, Tim Livingston. Tim, thanks for coming
on the show today. Thanks for having me Ben So you,
you and I have talked a bit off air about
this story, which as the podcast is still coming out.
Whistle Blower is a term that I think a lot
(02:14):
of people understand nowadays in the West. But whistle blower
the podcast is diving into a very specific mystery. Could
you tell us just briefly, I want to be careful
not to spoil too much, just briefly what whistle blower
is about. How this story begins. The story begins with
(02:38):
a former whistle blower, and not the one that we
know about now. He has nothing with Russia or China
or anywhere else. Um. He's a former NBA referee named
Tim Donnahe and Tim Donnahe for sports fans. Sports fans now,
Tim Donnahe as the most disgrace official in American sports history.
I think he has that title and Whoever, in second place,
(03:01):
it's a pretty distant second. Tim Donnage. He is looked
upon um as a pariah, and rightfully so. However, when
he got into trouble, he blew the whistle on That's
where we're going with us, Ben. He blew the whistle,
the proverbial whistle on a much bigger systemic issue um
(03:22):
within the NBA, and that issue was a culture of
refereeing in which players, coaches, and team personnel we're fraterizing
with referees, creating relationships with referees where just referees as
the police of this game, we're not being policed at all.
(03:43):
And it led to, in my opinion, corruption on an
unbelievable scale, both with Donnie himself and with other referees
at the time. And so that's what we dive into.
It's okay, the narrative has always been Donnie he was
a rogue criminal. It was just this guy, he is
the only one. And for me, I just never believed it.
I've watched so many NBA games that something just didn't
(04:07):
feel right. And so that's where we dive in from
is what happened? What what happened with Donnahe himself. And
then part two is what happened with his with his
former employer, what happened with the NBA, Well, what actually
happened behind the scenes. What now can we look at
thirteen years ago and peel back layer by layer and
understand at a much deeper level. And that's where this
(04:29):
story gets really crazy because thirteen years later, more people
are willing to talk um, more information has come to
light that might have trickled into the into the news
at some point, but that even the most ardent sports
fans don't really know. And so that's where we're going
with this, and that's the crux the podcast. So one
thing that is fascinating to me about this is your
(04:49):
inspiration because it sounds like you, you know, being a fan,
very familiar with the bones of the story, at least
the head lines we saw reported back in uh oh,
back in two thousand and seven. I believe it started
started really the rubber really started hitting the road. But
(05:11):
it sounds like you had uh a tingle of your
spider sense almost right, a discrepancy. Something was rotten in Denmark.
There was a glitch in the matrix. One thing that
fascinates me about this is Uh, there's there's a line
in the very beginning of the first episode where you
(05:33):
talk about how referees are supposed to be kind of shadows, right,
almost nonentities on on the court. Referees don't get noticed
until they make a call that you don't like. Right,
isn't that how how it usually works out? Exactly? And
what a what a weird profession? Right, you get booted
(05:54):
up by thousands upon thousands of people every single night.
You only get noticed when you mess up. You get
no act glades when you're the best of what you do,
and being the best of what you do means that
you're invisible, means that people have no idea, no idea
who you are. It means that the game they just
watched was they watched it without any inkling that there
(06:16):
was that there were officials, right, it was just the
players playing the game. And that means that you did
the best job you could have done. The game was
being played in its purest form. However, for basketball fans,
we know that every single game that we've ever watched,
there's been at least three or four times you're going
to scream with the TV that that call was bull right,
that's we all do as sports fans. We can't help it.
(06:38):
We're we're all couch coaches or whatever you wanna call us.
And in the NBA, that's that's what exists on a
on every single night. And for me as a fan
growing up, I love basketball. I played basketball my entire life,
and so I've been cognizant of the effect that a
(06:59):
referee can have on a game since I was five
years old. And when I was a kid, I used
to a really bad temper and I used to scream
at referees. I used to get so mad at referees
when they didn't make the call that that I thought
was right, in rectly right. These guys are getting paid
ten dollars an hour back in the early nineties, and
they don't want to be there, and the last thing
they wanted some little act screaming at him. I was
(07:20):
that kid. And then as I got older, I realized
that these are human beings that you can manipulate them, right,
that if you're nice to them, if you chat with
him before the game, if you make them feel special,
they are going to give you the benefit of more calls.
So I've been fascinated by by that by the ability
to influence a referee for my entire life and for
(07:42):
this story though I having played basketball my whole life
and having been in love with the sport forever, watching
some of these games that took place in the early
two thousands and mid two thousand's, before this scandal came out,
before it was exposed that Donnie he Before Donnie he
exposed the idea. I can't say that he exposed everything, right,
he he just gave us an inkling of the culture
(08:05):
and of how things operated behind the scenes. When that
all came out, it made sense to me, and because
I watched some of these games, some of those games
were not right there. They weren't officials having a bad day.
In my opinion, there was no way there was There
was motive, There was something behind it, and that's what
we're exploring in this podcast. Ben that you mentioned, I'm
(08:26):
pretty transparent about, like that's where I'm coming from, not
coming from I'm a journalist, but also i have eyes
and I've watched these games, and so I'm not shy
about the fact that I'm entering this investigation with bias
because you can't tell me the two thousand to Western
Conference Finals were three officials just having a bad game.
(08:48):
I don't, I won't believe you. It didn't happen. It
wasn't just one or two bad calls. It was an
incredible amount in an entire game, and especially in an
entire fourth quarters worth of egregious miss calls. And for me,
that's where I approached this investigation, where something was something
was amiss, What was it? How did it work? And
that's what we really explore on the podcast. You've raised
(09:10):
a fascinating point here. It's it's something that I immediately
thought of when when you and I were first talking
off every few weeks ago about whistle lower and you
were telling us some of the nuts and bolts of
of the situation, which are frankly disturbing. I started thinking
about the tremendous paradox that that's inherent and being a referee,
(09:35):
one of the most powerful people on the court is
one of the uh least compensated. They're making peanuts, you know,
you get what is it? I think it's an average
of a hundred and fifty thousand on the low end
per year to a little over five hundred thousand or so. Uh,
(09:56):
And that's like depending on how you break down the math.
That's what some of the players are making, you know,
that's like a fraction of what they're making in a game.
And so I could see very easily, um, the opportunity
for someone who is unethical to uh, whether through carrot
(10:17):
or stick, incentivize the referee to make a little bit
more scratch. And we know you know this. This reminded
me a little bit of the uh the conspiracy theories
regarding Michael Jordan's and gambling, right, which is which is
something we've explored the past episode of I'm Ted talking
(10:38):
a little bit here, but I wanted to outline that
because I think a lot of people, myself included, to
be transparent, didn't really consider the discrepancy there the fact
that like, you know, I'm I'm making two grand for
the whole year. That's what I'm gonna make unless I'm
(10:58):
moonlight right, uh somewhere else. And these folks that I'm
calling that I'm making calls on no matter what happens
to them, win or lose. They're they're multimillionaires. So it
doesn't seem like it would take much for the push.
But okay, so so the idea of rigged sports. It's
(11:22):
it's tremendously controversial because any fan of sports, uh, any
fan of any sport wants the rules to be followed right. Ostensibly,
we want the game to be competitive, we want the
athletes at the top of their abilities, and we want
the rules followed so that a win is a real
win and not invalidated, uh and not turning into some
(11:45):
like mafia esque uh. Con job, could you tell us
a little bit about what Doneghie was going through that
that pushed him to this like before? Like okay, so
he clearly was a crooked ref right, there's no question
about that. Is that no question? And to your point,
(12:06):
think about it, right, if going back to the Michael
Jordan Bulls, think about how much power referee has Michael
Jordan's Scottie Pippen stuff from the court. A referee could
give both of them two technical fouls for no reason
right when they walk on the court, eject them both
from the game, and the Bulls have to play the
rest of the game without Michael Jordan Scottie Pippen. No
referee has ever done that and probably ever. Well, that's
(12:28):
that's a little bit too obvious. But think about how
much power referee has right, because he can also call
two tiki tach fouls on Scottie Pippen and two tikki
tach fouls on Michael Jordan's and forced them to watch
the rest of the for the first quarter from the bench.
And if you're betting against the spread, that's hugely advantageous
if you're a referee and you have money on the game, right,
(12:48):
so against the bulls in that game. So a referee
has incredible, an incredible amount of power. And for those
for sports fans who don't want to believe that there's
any possible option in sports, just using basketball as an example,
the referees, to your point, make one sometimes as much
as the guys who are yelling at them, screaming their
(13:11):
face night after night after night. How can they not
over time or immediately create How can there not be biased? Right?
These guys aren't robots or humans. And with guys that
have ego like Tim donnahe that And again I don't
think Donnie He's the only referee that was fixing games
(13:31):
over the course of history basketball. I think that would
be incredibly naive to believe that. The question for me
is how many were there and how high up did
it go. So an episode two, we interview Michael franziz
Uh you might have seen in Netflix's Fear City, one
of the most brilliant members of the Mafia all time,
a guy who was running schemes that we're making millions
(13:51):
of millions of dollars a day and just a very
He was a criminal, but he was a damn good one.
And he talks about how he had two NBA referees
on his payroll in the nineties that weren't Tim donnahe right,
So there's just this is one monster with two NBA
refs on his payroll that we're not the guy that
we're focusing on. And that gives you an idea of
(14:14):
a This is what Franzy says. It was easy to
fix a game. It's not hard when it's against the spread.
It's hard if you need one team to win, right.
So some of the games that I'm referencing from the
playoffs and finals where there was the foul discrepancies. You know,
there's one team is shooting sixty free throws, there are
teams shooting thirty. That that's where it gets egregious and
(14:35):
as fans you know, those are the games that we
still talk about this day because we a lot of
us don't feel that those are on the up and up.
But when it comes just to the spread, that's easy.
If the Bulls are supposed to win by by ten
and you got a bet on the other team to
to cover that spread for you know, if the Bulls
need to win by nine or less for you to
(14:55):
win your bet, Yeah, I called two quick fouls in
Michael Jordan's put on the bench, and you're probably in
really good shape for the rest that that right there
probably affects the point spread by three or four points immediately.
And if the Bulls are up by eleven and in
the fourth cor start calling more fouls than Bulls and
and you as a referee can really dictate whether the
(15:16):
Bulls went by eight points or twelve points. So that's
exactly and that's where that's where it gets interesting. And
that's where we as fans have to look at the
system and look at how easy it is for these
guys who manipulate a game and put in The NBA
has put in checks and balances since Donnie. They've done
an okay job of improving the system. There are a
(15:38):
lot more referees who are anonymous, who are invisible, who
do a great job. However, there are still referees that
have been refereeing for five plus years who one of them.
Scott Foster was Donnie's best friend and him and Tim
Donna he talked a d thirty or four times on
the phone at the height of the scheme from October
(15:58):
two thousand and six to March two thousand seven, on
the phone that Donna he used as what the FBI said, Uh, Donnie,
he used this phone for gambling, primarily for gambling related purposes.
And Scott Foster's the top official in in the NBA, right,
So there's all this circumstantial evidence that points to Scott
Foster and Donnie He having a relationship that minimally needs
(16:19):
to be explored further. Um and this guy's being when
we watched the NBA Finals this year, Scott Foster is
gonna ref two of those games. And that's the guy
that that I'm supposed to trust has integrity, and then
I'm supposed to trust you know, it's going to create
an even playing field for both these teams and not
let his ego or bias or anything else infiltrate. Yeah, okay,
I don't We're we got a long way to go. Um,
(16:42):
But yeah, when it comes to the scandal this time
in two thousand and seven, I think it went and
this is what we explored in the podcast. I believe
that it went really, really deep, and it's really fascinating, um,
what Donnie he was doing. And then it's also for
me on the conspiracy side, way more interesting, Um, what
the league, what the NBA was doing to make this
problem go away. So yeah, let's let's explore a couple
(17:06):
of those points. So first off, to me, it's still
you probably hear me laughing in the background, folks, It's
still hilarious to me when when you Tim we were
first telling us in our earlier conversations about a gambling phone,
Like I've heard of a burner phone, but I've never
(17:26):
known someone who gambles, uh so frequently that at some
point they're like, I need a different phone for this.
And it's like several burner phones and this one was
like primarily the gambling phone, but he hit Donnighie himself.
There were so many tentacles he was betting with at
least two people that we know about that. We're part
(17:47):
of the scandal that were the FBI found at least two.
We speculate that he was probably betting with three, four
or five other people, right, Hey, Ben, can you place
you know this is the pick tonight? Put five or
bucks on the bulls for me and kick me back,
you know, three hundred um, Just bring the cash next
time I see you. That that's where it gets crazy,
(18:09):
and you gotta wonder with if you look at Donnie's
phone records, think about how easy it is for that
money to move with without a trace, if it's just cash,
if it's if it's at levels that aren't in the millions,
which are what was being bet on on donna He's
games and the professional betting markets. When Tim Donnie reft
a game, there were millions of dollars being moved by
(18:30):
the mafia, by the Gambino crime family, and by various
professional betting syndicates on each game that he refereed. Tim
Donnie referee two hundred sixty games over the course of
the scheme. So you do the math where they're hundreds
of millions wagered in one on Tim Donnie's games by
organized crime and other shady outlets at least, right, we
(18:50):
know it's hundreds of millions where they're billions maybe, And
that's crazy. That's one referees games. So now expand that
there's fifty three referees in the NBA, and let's look
at college. College is even easier. M hofficers playing Northeastern.
Anybody watching that game, Anybody's gonna notice if a couple
of grands placed here and there and and all over
the country and Northeastern shoots sixty two free throws and
(19:13):
Hofstra only shootsies five, probably not. So that's where again,
as basketball fans, I think the big thing I would
love to see from our podcast is just a demand
for better checks and balances, demand for greater transparency, and
just a demand that our game, the game that we
love is, is improved from from an officiating standpoint. Because
(19:38):
we're still not there yet, And we'll pause here for
a word from our sponsor before we return to examine
this strange tale of conspiracy, corruption and sports with Tim Livingston,
and we're back. This is to me one are the
(20:01):
roots of the dilemma? First though, I have to ask,
and there's a question a lot of our fellow listeners
are wondering now the the process you described is so subtle, right,
and it's so easy to make, uh, you know, to
to make ten million dollars through a series of relatively
(20:24):
innocuous seeming bets instead of one big ten million pot.
This stuff being so easy to miss. It makes me
wonder how someone got wind of this. How did this
guy go from being, you know, one one of the
top most established referees in the business to this pariah
(20:46):
to this person who was I believe I believe one
of the descriptions use is uh is scapegoated, right, like
NBA wanted a bad guy. So to answer your question, UM,
Donnie he was Donnie. He was betting on his own games,
so we can assume if he's betting in his own games.
(21:07):
I think we proved pretty definitively in the first couple
episodes that Donnie he was fixing any game that he
bet on and was refereing, obviously, right, I mean his
the FBI made him admit that he at least subconsciously
might have manipulated games that he was referring and had
money on. Um. But I think we proved again without
(21:28):
a real I don't think there's any doubt after the
first couple episodes of our podcast that Donnie he knew
what he was doing and then he was fixing those games.
So Donnie, he is fixing games for four years. And
what I think is interesting in two thousand and seven
when he got caught, if it wasn't for the scheme
getting too big, if it wasn't for this guy, Jimmy
Bob Bob Batista, Donna, he's not really friend from high school,
(21:52):
but a guy that he grew up with and known
his entire life and became a professional gambler, if it
wasn't for Jimmy Batissa getting involved. Jimmy Jimmy Batista is
um at the time, addicted to pills, cocaine, and everything
else under the sun that you could smoke, swallow or
um in hale in any in any way. I'm trying
to think, I haven't done drugs in awhile, So this
(22:12):
is I hope my wife is listening for that reason too,
for the fact that I started over how to how
to do drugs. But Batista was an admitted addict. I
mean he went to rehab towards the end of the scheme.
And if it wasn't for Batista being in that state
and um, he went into debt. He was he was
getting he's winning of his picks, which is a professional gambler.
(22:35):
That's how you print, That's how you make, that's how
you go buy an island. Right, you're printing money, like
you know, invest It's like, hey, invest in Apple. There's
gonna be coming in Google. That's gonna I p o
on like two thousand three. Invest in You know it's
it's not fair. You're not playing on an even playing field.
But Batista, Um, because of his addiction and because of
his hubris, went into debt and started talking and he
(22:58):
mentioned it to too many people. The scheme got too big,
there was too much money moving, and ultimately it just
came down to him, um, talking to a informant. It
was an informant for the Gambino crime family, and Um,
they caught it on a wire tap and boom, your
FBI is like, wait what you have a referee in
your in your pocket. Um, And they started listening and
(23:20):
they started, you know, they did their due diligence and
their the FBI. They figured it out and a week
or two and and Donnie he was the guy, and
they knew. What's interesting, Ben, to your point is if
Donnie he kept it relatively small, if it was what
he was doing the first couple of years with a
couple of friends, and the circle was small, circle was tight,
would he still be refereeing in the NBA today? And
(23:43):
I believe the answers yes, Unequivalentally, I think if a
referee was doing this today, we'd have no real way
of knowing. It's just it's completely undetectable, and that's a problem.
So that's a big problem. And so Donna Hee And
if you listen to Tommy Martine, who was the middleman
between Donnie and Batista, Tim Martinez says, they're having the
(24:04):
time of their lives. They were making gobs of money,
and there were criminals, but they never thought they'd get caught.
And when criminals don't think they're gonna get caught and
think that they're just gonna make this kind of money
and live this kind of lifestyle forever, um, they have fun.
And so Donnie he eventually realized the FBI started knocking,
and he quickly went and confessed everything, became a cooperator,
(24:28):
because that's how he only got fifteen months in prison
from all this, But that's what's interesting. Could this have
gone on in perpetuity? And again I think the answer
is yes, And does does it go on today? Which
it seems like there's I don't know, no, no for
everybody listening. Of course, Uh, the the entirety whistleblowers is
(24:52):
not out yet. The story is ongoing and you should
check it out today. Uh. But having listened to the show,
what I can say is I am per like I
live in the world of conspiracies, man um, and they're
there are a ton of conspiracy theories. They're just easily
easily debunked or disproven or don't add up. But I
(25:14):
would say, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is
an actual conspiracy. Donnie conspired to do these things. And
as I was listening, you know, one thing that struck
me is to I massively appreciate you saying at the
very top, look, I'm a journalist. I came in with it.
(25:36):
I'm convinced something is up here, something's amiss, because as
I was listening, I ended up completely agreeing. So there
might not be like, uh, the FBI's equivalent, There might
not be something that meets the FBI's equivalent of a
smoking gun or a fire with Foster with some other
close relationships. But there's a lot of smoke. You show
(26:00):
a lot of smoke in this show, and it makes
me think that the the money and the opportunity is
probably too good for some people to walk away from
for a number of reasons, like human ego, like you said,
but also just the financial aspect. I wanted to ask,
you know, as an outsider, I, like many people, many
(26:23):
of our fellow listeners, am not a professional referee. How
well did these guys all know each other? That's that's
one of the big questions I think a lot of
people have. Is it like a clock in, clock out job?
Are you like, once you get in the rarefied air
of being a professional NBA referee, don't you kind of
(26:45):
know of all the other people in that sphere? Absolutely? Um,
these guys have all been working together for forever. They
exist in a very strange bubble and right now, for
those that are actually in Orlando, that's a funny term
to use. Can during that the NBA right now is
in a literal bubble. But referees is only about fifty
(27:05):
five NBA referees reffing per season. Um, most of them
for the most part. I mean it's some of them
only last two or three years and get canned. Um.
The ones who make it though, they referee forever. They're
in the league for five, sometimes twenty five plus years,
and they become synonymous with the show. And that's what's interesting, right,
(27:27):
And that's what we what we're exploring, is how much
of this is entertainment and how much of basketball professional
basketball is legitimate competition And where did those lines blur?
But the referees all know each other very well for
the most part. Some of them hate each other. Some
of them think that, um, you know, referee X might
think referee wise the worst referee ever, and you know
(27:48):
he's a show off and he makes the game all
about himself, and you know those some of those things
came to light actually after Donneghee scandal, the NBA commissioned
its own report. You know, like we're gonna we're gonna
really nail down and look at our system and look
at our culture and and fix what's wrong, right, and
we're gonna pay a lawyer to do it. So this
(28:09):
lawyer is going to be he's an independent. He's been
completely independent this investigation is not going to try and
um you know, cast cast out on some of the
more salacious things that have been um alleged during the scandal.
This is an investigation we can all trust. And so
the Pedalos report, which is the NBA report that I'm
(28:30):
referring to after after Donnie's scandal, it still says it
looks at NBA referee relationships and it talks about some
of this stuff. Right, how some of these guys look
at Dick Pavetta, who's the most senior official during this time,
and think that he was far too um how do
we say, how should I say? I mean intertwined in
(28:50):
the game, that he made the game about himself, right,
which Corey, my definition of what makes a good referee
is exact opposite thing that you should do. Dick Pavetta,
Corny and Donnie had an American Airlines pilot that he
would call after every game to and this again according
to Donna, I can't prove this in our talk with
with um, excuse me, the stewardess American Airline stewart ists,
(29:11):
but he used to call a stewart as friend of
his after every game and to get a report on
how much airtime he got during that game. So if
that's true, that's really bad, right, that's really really bad.
But but another interesting thing been to your point, fifteen
or so referees again tight fraternity, not that many. Fifteen
hail from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, hail from the greater Philadelphia area, which,
(29:35):
over the course of of refereeing in the eighties and nineties,
two thousand's and and now in a lot of referees
hail from this one area of Philadelphia and which, as
we find out in the podcast, is a gambling hotbed.
And that's where Donna he's from, and Steve Jaffey and
Joey Crawford and if you know NBA referees, I could,
I could go on and on, but they all hail
(29:56):
from this one area in and around Philadelphia. So it's
it's certainly suspicious. It's not really a meritocracy. It's incredibly Donna,
he's a product of nepotism. His uncle was an NBA referee,
his father was a college referee. So yeah, all these guys,
it's gotten better, I think referees now, it's it's definitely
(30:16):
more of a meritocracy as far as I can tell um,
but really at the time it was who you knew
and who your dad was or who your uncle was.
I mean, that's an insane because we know that nepotism
often wins the day over meritocracy and any number of
fields or pursuits. But the appeal of the appeal of
(30:40):
sports in general is the idea that through one's own
hard work, focused practice, and natural talent, you can leave
everything else of that's outside of the court off the
court when you play the game. And for that not
to be the case, it's got to be just a
profound punch in the gut, you know, especially for a
(31:03):
lot of kids who, like you, were growing up living, breathing,
loving basketball, you know. Uh, and now to find that
this may very well be rigged. I mean, it's understandable
that people would say, well, this is a bad apple situation, right,
this is a bad actor. It's a one off in
(31:23):
the NBA. You know, as you've explored, the NBA goes
into crisis mode kind of and their pr and their
damage control. But one of the big twists that comes about,
there are two big twists I think that that are
going to be startling is first, the NBA's damage control,
(31:44):
their pr their report it uh, it didn't do the
best job persuading people that this was a one off.
And uh, I think Donna, Donna Gi himself didn't agree
with with their findings. And I know this because of
another big twist in our story, which is Tim, you
(32:07):
talked to him. Everybody should look if you're not familiar
with this character. We want to establish this. Tim Donneghie
is alive today and you, Tim have had like multiple
conversations with him, multiple And this is we start off.
And what I'll say now that we're a little farther
because people have asked me since we started, when we
(32:28):
started this podcast, the reason I had access to Donnie
is because Donnie and I were very friendly. I'm the
only when I was writing for The Post Game, which
was a Yahoo site, I'm back in. I'm the first one,
I think, the only person, at least you know, according
to Google search results, which I've done. You know, I've
Google searched this ardently over the past eight years. I
(32:51):
think the only one who said that publicly right that
I believe what Tim Donnie He's saying about about the
culture of the NBA. I said in so many words. Donnie.
We know Donna he is, He's not the best guy,
but he's also I think he's a scapegoat for a
bigger systemic issue. And I think that the reason I'm
the only one to have written those words um or
(33:12):
something far more eloquent in my actual article hopefully UM there.
I think the reason I'm the one who was able
to say this is because I wasn't employed by the NBA. Right.
If you're an NBA beat writer and you believe what
Tim Donna he's saying, you can't say that. You're not
going to get access to any locker room, You're not
going to get access to any player, You're gonna become
a prior. You can't say that. And most crime reporters,
(33:34):
and I'm sure a lot of the stories that you
guys explore, um from a journalistic perspective, you know, crime
in sports is not usually something we look at for
that crime reporters look at. Most crime reporters don't gravitate
towards sports to say, oh, um, what's this, what's the
deal here, what's the scandal here, what's the corruption here? Um? So,
I just as a freelance sports writer without any ties
(33:55):
to the NBA, found myself in this very odd position.
And then after I wrote the article Tim Donnie, he
reached out to me and said, thank you so much
for writing this, and that's where we became friends and
now after. But look, at the same time, I'm a journalist, right,
So I did my research that I've done. I've investigated
this story over that basically from that day, over the
(34:15):
course of eight plus years, and what I found when
it comes to Donnie he is that he in fact
is lying about a lot of things, in my opinion,
and because of that, we were forced to reveal those
things over the course of podcast. So Tim Donnie, I
don't think it's my friend any longer been unfortunately or
not unfortunately, I don't really care. But Tim, Tim Donnie
(34:36):
is no longer um doesn't like me anymore, and that's
fine because I still liked him. I've no I have
no issue with Tim, and all I want is to
find the truth at the heart of the scandal, at
the heart of this conspiracy. Because I really appreciate you
saying that it's not conspiracy theory. There's no theory. It's
really just a question of how deep the conspiracy goes.
(34:56):
And that's what our podcasts about, and that's what unfortunately,
for third teen years, people in my world, in the
sports world, have been too hesitant to investigate for for
reasons that are completely rational. If you're an NBA writer,
you want a job, You've got a future family. I
get it. Um. At the same time, this is the
darkest moment in the history of basketball, and to make
(35:18):
this sport better and you need to understand its fault
and why, you know what needs improving, and so that's
where this journey kind of kicked off from. UM. But yeah,
Tim Donnie is is a central part of our story. UM,
and I think what's interesting for myself and the audience
is deciphering what's true and what's not true. Let's pause
(35:38):
for a brief word from our sponsor before we return
with more and the still developing tale of whistle Blewer
with Tim Livingsteon, and we're back. These shows, both both
(36:00):
a Blower and stuff they want you to know, have
have something in common, which is pursuing the truth, even
when pursuing the truth is not a popular or even
safe thing at times. One thing that stands out to
me that surprises me that I haven't thought about really
until exploring whistle Blower and until speaking with you, is
(36:23):
the idea that the NBA could wield such profound, pervasive
influence over what is supposed to be objective reporting. So
is it true that the NBA can just stone wall
or black ball blacklisted journalists or can they can they
(36:45):
shut down in silence a story? Or is it more
that the journalists themselves are kind of proactively self selecting
and avoiding things they think will get them in trouble.
That's a great question. And again, the media side of
this is super, super interesting and something that we explore
in the second half of the podcast. So I don't
want to give away too many spoilers, but I will
(37:06):
say that, in my opinion, during the David Stern era
of the NBA and David Stern, for those who don't know,
is the commissioner um from David Stern is and this
is what where If you're just if you're listening to
Whistleblower right now, you haven't heard this um, or you're
we're about to start revealing in episodes five, six and seven,
(37:27):
which you're coming out over the next um, you'll have
heard five and six and seven are about to come out.
But the NBA was an entity you did not mess with.
And that is not me saying that. That's other journalists
that I've spoken with. Murray Weiss, a former New York
Post reporter who broke the story in the NBA, said
those words very clearly, right, you're you're about to hear
(37:49):
You're about to hear Murray Weiss say that right where
people warned him, don't mess with the NBA, don't mess
with David Stern. David Stern did not mess around. David
Stern was a monarch, he really was, and he was brilliant,
and he's a fascinating character in this that we really,
um are going to die going to dive into his psyche,
(38:10):
going to dive into how he ran the league and
the way he ran the league. It's it's it wouldn't
work in but it worked very well in the nineties
and early two thousand's. He was not a social media
era a guy. He said things that would just be
absolutely destroyed with the way we disseminate news and at
the speed with which we disseminate news today. But the
(38:31):
n B a in my estimation, in my opinion, um
which hopefully at this point your your audience um values
at least somewhat as somebody who has spent eight years.
If you guys don't. If you think I'm an idiot,
that's fine as well. But my opinion is that, yes,
the NBA was somebody was was a company, right, was
(38:52):
a was a thing that you did not mess with
and that people were very scared of. And it wasn't
just they would go to great lengths to make stories
like this go away. And we explore with the Donnaghie
scandal the great lengths that they made for this story
to go away, and it's fascinating. Now. I do have
to say I've been personally impressed by the uh, the
(39:15):
the thoroughness of the reporting, especially when you know in
a very real way you're telling a story that doesn't
want to be told right even in the modern day.
And one thing we have to let you know, Uh,
if you're listening to the show today, is that me
and Matt and Noel and Mission Control and Doc Holiday
(39:38):
code named Doc Holiday. Uh. Tim, Tim isn't giving us
a preview of the episodes. So all the stuff that
that you just said, Tim with my question, it's it's
stuff that I have to wait for the next episode
to hear, which I think is it's fantastic. I just
want to say that, you know, uh, unlike some players
(40:01):
of the n B AH, we're not getting special treatment here,
so we we are listening along with you folks. Perhaps
one way to close today's episode, before everybody goes and
checks out whistleblowers for ourselves, is to go back to
to something that you post that I think is um
(40:22):
of crucial importance here. So the there's this idea of
checks and balances, right and and how best to institute them,
But it seems so complicated. It seems like it's a
very tall order. Do you have things like checks and
balances that you think would mitigate this problem? I mean,
(40:46):
is there a solution? Because I you know, I'm not
an expert. I'm not like the King of Referees or
anything like that. And I was I was thinking through
this and um, yeah, I don't know it out smart
at me. It's just so easy to get away with,
you know. Yeah, And I think the first step is
right now, the referees are employed by the NBA, So,
(41:07):
for example, during the David Stern era, David Stern somewhat
facetiously replied during a Dan Patrick interview in two thousand
and four about his dream NBA Finals matchup. He said,
Lakers versus Lakers is the league. That's that's what the Lakers,
that's what the league wants to see. And as the Lakers, like,
I grew up a Lakers fan, right the Lakers. I
(41:28):
got the l A had on UM and I it's
interesting because the Lakers were for ratings, which the NBA
cared a lot about. The NBA makes a majority of
its money via via television. UM. The TV contracts they've
signed over the last twenty years have just gone up
by the billions UM. It's gone from hundreds of millions
(41:50):
to billions to multibillions. And last year the NBA did
almost nine billion dollars in revenue. So, if you're valuing
the NBA as a company there give or take a
thirty five billion dollar company, they're a huge corporation. They're
very very powerful corporation. And so the first thing you
need to do is make the referees. You need to
(42:11):
create a separate employment agency. You can't have the NBA
employee referees because if the Lakers are playing whichever team
in the Western Conference Finals, and that referee has in
his head that David Stern, his boss's boss's boss's boss
is rooting for the Lakers to reach the next game.
That's a problem, right, So that's step one is and
(42:33):
Phil Jackson, former Lakers coach, the one who suggested that first,
or at least I mean, I'm sure a lot of
people had suggested before Phil Jackson, but I think Phil Jackson,
Ovan time NBA champion, he's he knows, he's a smart guy.
He knows his teams have been privy to different officiating
than a lot of other a lot of other teams.
And that's one anecdote that Donnie he provides and in
(42:56):
our opening episodes where Phil Jackson or he calls Michael
Jordan or travel and Michael Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson
flip out and Phil Jackson, you know, Donnie, he says,
you watch the same training tapes as I do. And
Phil Jackson says, yeah, they might want that call to travel,
but not on Michael Jordan's. So it's the same kind
of bias and um talent discrimination that exists throughout the league,
(43:20):
and a call, the right call should be the right
call every single time, and it's not. In the NBA.
There's biases and different rules for different players, and it's
it's not an even playing field. And to get there,
the first step is to create make referees part of
a different organization that has no ties with the NBA.
And that's that's step one, and that's a big step.
(43:42):
Do I think it's gonna happen. I don't know. I
don't think anytime soon, because definitely during the David's Turn era,
I think the NBA enjoyed having that control and I
think they giving that up would be something that they
would really really have to be pushed into a hole
to do. But that's the that's the first step in
(44:02):
the solution. And then you've got to make sure that
that agency, that organization is is run well and run
with integrity. But right now, the NBA, um having control
essentially over the employment of its officials creates a conflict
of interest. Um, it's too wide a chasm to overcome. Yeah,
(44:22):
this is you know, this is reminding me of all
those memes where you see like a tiny hero standing
up against some gigantic colossus in the on the horizon.
That's an enormous conflict of interest. And you know what
what I like about this point to and what I
like about I called some of my friends who are living, breathing,
(44:49):
God bless them for their optimism Atlanta basketball fans, and
uh so they so so. Uh you know a lot
of think a lot of folks here or somehow familiar
with the problem you're addressing just at the very offset
of Whistleblower, and it's this I think. You know, if
(45:14):
you love basketball, then of course you feel like there's
been several terrible calls as you said, to two, three,
four per game. So I think a lot of our
listeners are already excited to see, uh it's very real
proof that that they weren't just being you know, uh,
(45:35):
sore loser fans or something like that. Uh And and
so we turn it over to you, folks. Don't don't
take my word for it. Do check out whistle Blower.
It's available wherever you find your favorite podcast on any platform.
As we said, we actually waited a little bit on
this interview because we didn't want to have the interview
(45:58):
here while episode one just out, because there's so much
stuff on the horizon that we can't get talk about
and and Tim, thank you for being patient with me.
I know you totally caught me trying to slide in
getting a little more info. I guess I'll just have
to wait to wait till next week. But I appreciate
Ben now is great. Um, I can talk about this
(46:18):
stuff all day, So after episode ten comes out, I'll
come back on and we can dive even deeper. But
to appreciate it, it's a lot of fun. And yeah,
check out Whistleblower. I think you guys will like it.
In the meantime, Tim, for anyone who would like to
learn more about your ouball work, where can they find
you online? I'm on Twitter at Tim likes sports. UM
(46:41):
to handle that, I think I've got that. I'm gonna
stick with UM because I still like sports after even
after learning about all the terrible things that that I've
happened in the world that I love. So Yeah, Tim
likes sports on Twitter and UM that's where you can
that's from most active on the social media's can you
can also find Tim on the No Chill podcast if
(47:06):
you are like me, waiting for the end of whistle Blower.
In the meantime, while you're on the internet, You can
also find stuff they don't want you to know. We're
on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter. If you
have listened to our multiple episodes about big data and
you are still on Facebook, then check out our check
out our group page. Here's where it gets crazy. You
(47:27):
can leave us a phone number if you don't SIP
the social needs one eight three three st d w
y t K. Let us know if you want us
to use your name on air or not. We can't
wait to hear your input, your feedback on whistle blower.
How deep do you think this goes? How high? And
(47:47):
why do you think this conspiracy breaches? If you don't
like phones, get it real friends, text and you don't
like social media, there's one way you can always contact us.
We have a good old fashion email address where we
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(48:24):
Don't want you to Know is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Welcome to the show they
(00:26):
called me, Ben, Mike and Patriots Matt and Noel lare
on adventures, but we'll be returning very soon. We're joined
as always with our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand
most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We're
diving into a strange one today, fellow conspiracy realist. It's
(00:49):
a story that you may be familiar with if you
are if you are a huge fan of sports. It's
a story that you may've heard a headline about, but
you've never seen it fully explored. We're diving into a
world of gambling. We're diving into the uh depths of corruption,
(01:12):
into the heights of financial shenanigans and ethics violations. It's
a mystery that is being unraveled that occurred here in
the US, uh not too long ago. What are we
talking about? Well, to answer that question, we're going to
(01:32):
defer to an expert, as we always tried to do.
You know that we want to bring you primary sources,
people with experience and expertise in the field, and that's
why today I am over the moon to welcome to
the show our guest, the sports journalist, writer and creator
(01:52):
of the Whistleblower podcast, Tim Livingston. Tim, thanks for coming
on the show today. Thanks for having me Ben So you,
you and I have talked a bit off air about
this story, which as the podcast is still coming out.
Whistle Blower is a term that I think a lot
(02:14):
of people understand nowadays in the West. But whistle blower
the podcast is diving into a very specific mystery. Could
you tell us just briefly, I want to be careful
not to spoil too much, just briefly what whistle blower
is about. How this story begins. The story begins with
(02:38):
a former whistle blower, and not the one that we
know about now. He has nothing with Russia or China
or anywhere else. Um. He's a former NBA referee named
Tim Donnahe and Tim Donnahe for sports fans. Sports fans now,
Tim Donnahe as the most disgrace official in American sports history.
I think he has that title and Whoever, in second place,
(03:01):
it's a pretty distant second. Tim Donnage. He is looked
upon um as a pariah, and rightfully so. However, when
he got into trouble, he blew the whistle on That's
where we're going with us, Ben. He blew the whistle,
the proverbial whistle on a much bigger systemic issue um
(03:22):
within the NBA, and that issue was a culture of
refereeing in which players, coaches, and team personnel we're fraterizing
with referees, creating relationships with referees where just referees as
the police of this game, we're not being policed at all.
(03:43):
And it led to, in my opinion, corruption on an
unbelievable scale, both with Donnie himself and with other referees
at the time. And so that's what we dive into.
It's okay, the narrative has always been Donnie he was
a rogue criminal. It was just this guy, he is
the only one. And for me, I just never believed it.
I've watched so many NBA games that something just didn't
(04:07):
feel right. And so that's where we dive in from
is what happened? What what happened with Donnahe himself. And
then part two is what happened with his with his
former employer, what happened with the NBA, Well, what actually
happened behind the scenes. What now can we look at
thirteen years ago and peel back layer by layer and
understand at a much deeper level. And that's where this
(04:29):
story gets really crazy because thirteen years later, more people
are willing to talk um, more information has come to
light that might have trickled into the into the news
at some point, but that even the most ardent sports
fans don't really know. And so that's where we're going
with this, and that's the crux the podcast. So one
thing that is fascinating to me about this is your
(04:49):
inspiration because it sounds like you, you know, being a fan,
very familiar with the bones of the story, at least
the head lines we saw reported back in uh oh,
back in two thousand and seven. I believe it started
started really the rubber really started hitting the road. But
(05:11):
it sounds like you had uh a tingle of your
spider sense almost right, a discrepancy. Something was rotten in Denmark.
There was a glitch in the matrix. One thing that
fascinates me about this is Uh, there's there's a line
in the very beginning of the first episode where you
(05:33):
talk about how referees are supposed to be kind of shadows, right,
almost nonentities on on the court. Referees don't get noticed
until they make a call that you don't like. Right,
isn't that how how it usually works out? Exactly? And
what a what a weird profession? Right, you get booted
(05:54):
up by thousands upon thousands of people every single night.
You only get noticed when you mess up. You get
no act glades when you're the best of what you do,
and being the best of what you do means that
you're invisible, means that people have no idea, no idea
who you are. It means that the game they just
watched was they watched it without any inkling that there
(06:16):
was that there were officials, right, it was just the
players playing the game. And that means that you did
the best job you could have done. The game was
being played in its purest form. However, for basketball fans,
we know that every single game that we've ever watched,
there's been at least three or four times you're going
to scream with the TV that that call was bull right,
that's we all do as sports fans. We can't help it.
(06:38):
We're we're all couch coaches or whatever you wanna call us.
And in the NBA, that's that's what exists on a
on every single night. And for me as a fan
growing up, I love basketball. I played basketball my entire life,
and so I've been cognizant of the effect that a
(06:59):
referee can have on a game since I was five
years old. And when I was a kid, I used
to a really bad temper and I used to scream
at referees. I used to get so mad at referees
when they didn't make the call that that I thought
was right, in rectly right. These guys are getting paid
ten dollars an hour back in the early nineties, and
they don't want to be there, and the last thing
they wanted some little act screaming at him. I was
(07:20):
that kid. And then as I got older, I realized
that these are human beings that you can manipulate them, right,
that if you're nice to them, if you chat with
him before the game, if you make them feel special,
they are going to give you the benefit of more calls.
So I've been fascinated by by that by the ability
to influence a referee for my entire life and for
(07:42):
this story though I having played basketball my whole life
and having been in love with the sport forever, watching
some of these games that took place in the early
two thousands and mid two thousand's, before this scandal came out,
before it was exposed that Donnie he Before Donnie he
exposed the idea. I can't say that he exposed everything, right,
he he just gave us an inkling of the culture
(08:05):
and of how things operated behind the scenes. When that
all came out, it made sense to me, and because
I watched some of these games, some of those games
were not right there. They weren't officials having a bad day.
In my opinion, there was no way there was There
was motive, There was something behind it, and that's what
we're exploring in this podcast. Ben that you mentioned, I'm
(08:26):
pretty transparent about, like that's where I'm coming from, not
coming from I'm a journalist, but also i have eyes
and I've watched these games, and so I'm not shy
about the fact that I'm entering this investigation with bias
because you can't tell me the two thousand to Western
Conference Finals were three officials just having a bad game.
(08:48):
I don't, I won't believe you. It didn't happen. It
wasn't just one or two bad calls. It was an
incredible amount in an entire game, and especially in an
entire fourth quarters worth of egregious miss calls. And for me,
that's where I approached this investigation, where something was something
was amiss, What was it? How did it work? And
that's what we really explore on the podcast. You've raised
(09:10):
a fascinating point here. It's it's something that I immediately
thought of when when you and I were first talking
off every few weeks ago about whistle lower and you
were telling us some of the nuts and bolts of
of the situation, which are frankly disturbing. I started thinking
about the tremendous paradox that that's inherent and being a referee,
(09:35):
one of the most powerful people on the court is
one of the uh least compensated. They're making peanuts, you know,
you get what is it? I think it's an average
of a hundred and fifty thousand on the low end
per year to a little over five hundred thousand or so. Uh,
(09:56):
And that's like depending on how you break down the math.
That's what some of the players are making, you know,
that's like a fraction of what they're making in a game.
And so I could see very easily, um, the opportunity
for someone who is unethical to uh, whether through carrot
(10:17):
or stick, incentivize the referee to make a little bit
more scratch. And we know you know this. This reminded
me a little bit of the uh the conspiracy theories
regarding Michael Jordan's and gambling, right, which is which is
something we've explored the past episode of I'm Ted talking
(10:38):
a little bit here, but I wanted to outline that
because I think a lot of people, myself included, to
be transparent, didn't really consider the discrepancy there the fact
that like, you know, I'm I'm making two grand for
the whole year. That's what I'm gonna make unless I'm
(10:58):
moonlight right, uh somewhere else. And these folks that I'm
calling that I'm making calls on no matter what happens
to them, win or lose. They're they're multimillionaires. So it
doesn't seem like it would take much for the push.
But okay, so so the idea of rigged sports. It's
(11:22):
it's tremendously controversial because any fan of sports, uh, any
fan of any sport wants the rules to be followed right. Ostensibly,
we want the game to be competitive, we want the
athletes at the top of their abilities, and we want
the rules followed so that a win is a real
win and not invalidated, uh and not turning into some
(11:45):
like mafia esque uh. Con job, could you tell us
a little bit about what Doneghie was going through that
that pushed him to this like before? Like okay, so
he clearly was a crooked ref right, there's no question
about that. Is that no question? And to your point,
(12:06):
think about it, right, if going back to the Michael
Jordan Bulls, think about how much power referee has Michael
Jordan's Scottie Pippen stuff from the court. A referee could
give both of them two technical fouls for no reason
right when they walk on the court, eject them both
from the game, and the Bulls have to play the
rest of the game without Michael Jordan Scottie Pippen. No
referee has ever done that and probably ever. Well, that's
(12:28):
that's a little bit too obvious. But think about how
much power referee has right, because he can also call
two tiki tach fouls on Scottie Pippen and two tikki
tach fouls on Michael Jordan's and forced them to watch
the rest of the for the first quarter from the bench.
And if you're betting against the spread, that's hugely advantageous
if you're a referee and you have money on the game, right,
(12:48):
so against the bulls in that game. So a referee
has incredible, an incredible amount of power. And for those
for sports fans who don't want to believe that there's
any possible option in sports, just using basketball as an example,
the referees, to your point, make one sometimes as much
as the guys who are yelling at them, screaming their
(13:11):
face night after night after night. How can they not
over time or immediately create How can there not be biased? Right?
These guys aren't robots or humans. And with guys that
have ego like Tim donnahe that And again I don't
think Donnie He's the only referee that was fixing games
(13:31):
over the course of history basketball. I think that would
be incredibly naive to believe that. The question for me
is how many were there and how high up did
it go. So an episode two, we interview Michael franziz
Uh you might have seen in Netflix's Fear City, one
of the most brilliant members of the Mafia all time,
a guy who was running schemes that we're making millions
(13:51):
of millions of dollars a day and just a very
He was a criminal, but he was a damn good one.
And he talks about how he had two NBA referees
on his payroll in the nineties that weren't Tim donnahe right,
So there's just this is one monster with two NBA
refs on his payroll that we're not the guy that
we're focusing on. And that gives you an idea of
(14:14):
a This is what Franzy says. It was easy to
fix a game. It's not hard when it's against the spread.
It's hard if you need one team to win, right.
So some of the games that I'm referencing from the
playoffs and finals where there was the foul discrepancies. You know,
there's one team is shooting sixty free throws, there are
teams shooting thirty. That that's where it gets egregious and
(14:35):
as fans you know, those are the games that we
still talk about this day because we a lot of
us don't feel that those are on the up and up.
But when it comes just to the spread, that's easy.
If the Bulls are supposed to win by by ten
and you got a bet on the other team to
to cover that spread for you know, if the Bulls
need to win by nine or less for you to
(14:55):
win your bet, Yeah, I called two quick fouls in
Michael Jordan's put on the bench, and you're probably in
really good shape for the rest that that right there
probably affects the point spread by three or four points immediately.
And if the Bulls are up by eleven and in
the fourth cor start calling more fouls than Bulls and
and you as a referee can really dictate whether the
(15:16):
Bulls went by eight points or twelve points. So that's
exactly and that's where that's where it gets interesting. And
that's where we as fans have to look at the
system and look at how easy it is for these
guys who manipulate a game and put in The NBA
has put in checks and balances since Donnie. They've done
an okay job of improving the system. There are a
(15:38):
lot more referees who are anonymous, who are invisible, who
do a great job. However, there are still referees that
have been refereeing for five plus years who one of them.
Scott Foster was Donnie's best friend and him and Tim
Donna he talked a d thirty or four times on
the phone at the height of the scheme from October
(15:58):
two thousand and six to March two thousand seven, on
the phone that Donna he used as what the FBI said, Uh, Donnie,
he used this phone for gambling, primarily for gambling related purposes.
And Scott Foster's the top official in in the NBA, right,
So there's all this circumstantial evidence that points to Scott
Foster and Donnie He having a relationship that minimally needs
(16:19):
to be explored further. Um and this guy's being when
we watched the NBA Finals this year, Scott Foster is
gonna ref two of those games. And that's the guy
that that I'm supposed to trust has integrity, and then
I'm supposed to trust you know, it's going to create
an even playing field for both these teams and not
let his ego or bias or anything else infiltrate. Yeah, okay,
I don't We're we got a long way to go. Um,
(16:42):
But yeah, when it comes to the scandal this time
in two thousand and seven, I think it went and
this is what we explored in the podcast. I believe
that it went really, really deep, and it's really fascinating, um,
what Donnie he was doing. And then it's also for
me on the conspiracy side, way more interesting, Um, what
the league, what the NBA was doing to make this
problem go away. So yeah, let's let's explore a couple
(17:06):
of those points. So first off, to me, it's still
you probably hear me laughing in the background, folks, It's
still hilarious to me when when you Tim we were
first telling us in our earlier conversations about a gambling phone,
Like I've heard of a burner phone, but I've never
(17:26):
known someone who gambles, uh so frequently that at some
point they're like, I need a different phone for this.
And it's like several burner phones and this one was
like primarily the gambling phone, but he hit Donnighie himself.
There were so many tentacles he was betting with at
least two people that we know about that. We're part
(17:47):
of the scandal that were the FBI found at least two.
We speculate that he was probably betting with three, four
or five other people, right, Hey, Ben, can you place
you know this is the pick tonight? Put five or
bucks on the bulls for me and kick me back,
you know, three hundred um, Just bring the cash next
time I see you. That that's where it gets crazy,
(18:09):
and you gotta wonder with if you look at Donnie's
phone records, think about how easy it is for that
money to move with without a trace, if it's just cash,
if it's if it's at levels that aren't in the millions,
which are what was being bet on on donna He's
games and the professional betting markets. When Tim Donnie reft
a game, there were millions of dollars being moved by
(18:30):
the mafia, by the Gambino crime family, and by various
professional betting syndicates on each game that he refereed. Tim
Donnie referee two hundred sixty games over the course of
the scheme. So you do the math where they're hundreds
of millions wagered in one on Tim Donnie's games by
organized crime and other shady outlets at least, right, we
(18:50):
know it's hundreds of millions where they're billions maybe, And
that's crazy. That's one referees games. So now expand that
there's fifty three referees in the NBA, and let's look
at college. College is even easier. M hofficers playing Northeastern.
Anybody watching that game, Anybody's gonna notice if a couple
of grands placed here and there and and all over
the country and Northeastern shoots sixty two free throws and
(19:13):
Hofstra only shootsies five, probably not. So that's where again,
as basketball fans, I think the big thing I would
love to see from our podcast is just a demand
for better checks and balances, demand for greater transparency, and
just a demand that our game, the game that we
love is, is improved from from an officiating standpoint. Because
(19:38):
we're still not there yet, And we'll pause here for
a word from our sponsor before we return to examine
this strange tale of conspiracy, corruption and sports with Tim Livingston,
and we're back. This is to me one are the
(20:01):
roots of the dilemma? First though, I have to ask,
and there's a question a lot of our fellow listeners
are wondering now the the process you described is so subtle, right,
and it's so easy to make, uh, you know, to
to make ten million dollars through a series of relatively
(20:24):
innocuous seeming bets instead of one big ten million pot.
This stuff being so easy to miss. It makes me
wonder how someone got wind of this. How did this
guy go from being, you know, one one of the
top most established referees in the business to this pariah
(20:46):
to this person who was I believe I believe one
of the descriptions use is uh is scapegoated, right, like
NBA wanted a bad guy. So to answer your question, UM,
Donnie he was Donnie. He was betting on his own games,
so we can assume if he's betting in his own games.
(21:07):
I think we proved pretty definitively in the first couple
episodes that Donnie he was fixing any game that he
bet on and was refereing, obviously, right, I mean his
the FBI made him admit that he at least subconsciously
might have manipulated games that he was referring and had
money on. Um. But I think we proved again without
(21:28):
a real I don't think there's any doubt after the
first couple episodes of our podcast that Donnie he knew
what he was doing and then he was fixing those games.
So Donnie, he is fixing games for four years. And
what I think is interesting in two thousand and seven
when he got caught, if it wasn't for the scheme
getting too big, if it wasn't for this guy, Jimmy
Bob Bob Batista, Donna, he's not really friend from high school,
(21:52):
but a guy that he grew up with and known
his entire life and became a professional gambler, if it
wasn't for Jimmy Batissa getting involved. Jimmy Jimmy Batista is
um at the time, addicted to pills, cocaine, and everything
else under the sun that you could smoke, swallow or
um in hale in any in any way. I'm trying
to think, I haven't done drugs in awhile, So this
(22:12):
is I hope my wife is listening for that reason too,
for the fact that I started over how to how
to do drugs. But Batista was an admitted addict. I
mean he went to rehab towards the end of the scheme.
And if it wasn't for Batista being in that state
and um, he went into debt. He was he was
getting he's winning of his picks, which is a professional gambler.
(22:35):
That's how you print, That's how you make, that's how
you go buy an island. Right, you're printing money, like
you know, invest It's like, hey, invest in Apple. There's
gonna be coming in Google. That's gonna I p o
on like two thousand three. Invest in You know it's
it's not fair. You're not playing on an even playing field.
But Batista, Um, because of his addiction and because of
his hubris, went into debt and started talking and he
(22:58):
mentioned it to too many people. The scheme got too big,
there was too much money moving, and ultimately it just
came down to him, um, talking to a informant. It
was an informant for the Gambino crime family, and Um,
they caught it on a wire tap and boom, your
FBI is like, wait what you have a referee in
your in your pocket. Um, And they started listening and
(23:20):
they started, you know, they did their due diligence and
their the FBI. They figured it out and a week
or two and and Donnie he was the guy, and
they knew. What's interesting, Ben, to your point is if
Donnie he kept it relatively small, if it was what
he was doing the first couple of years with a
couple of friends, and the circle was small, circle was tight,
would he still be refereeing in the NBA today? And
(23:43):
I believe the answers yes, Unequivalentally, I think if a
referee was doing this today, we'd have no real way
of knowing. It's just it's completely undetectable, and that's a problem.
So that's a big problem. And so Donna Hee And
if you listen to Tommy Martine, who was the middleman
between Donnie and Batista, Tim Martinez says, they're having the
(24:04):
time of their lives. They were making gobs of money,
and there were criminals, but they never thought they'd get caught.
And when criminals don't think they're gonna get caught and
think that they're just gonna make this kind of money
and live this kind of lifestyle forever, um, they have fun.
And so Donnie he eventually realized the FBI started knocking,
and he quickly went and confessed everything, became a cooperator,
(24:28):
because that's how he only got fifteen months in prison
from all this, But that's what's interesting. Could this have
gone on in perpetuity? And again I think the answer
is yes, And does does it go on today? Which
it seems like there's I don't know, no, no for
everybody listening. Of course, Uh, the the entirety whistleblowers is
(24:52):
not out yet. The story is ongoing and you should
check it out today. Uh. But having listened to the show,
what I can say is I am per like I
live in the world of conspiracies, man um, and they're
there are a ton of conspiracy theories. They're just easily
easily debunked or disproven or don't add up. But I
(25:14):
would say, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is
an actual conspiracy. Donnie conspired to do these things. And
as I was listening, you know, one thing that struck
me is to I massively appreciate you saying at the
very top, look, I'm a journalist. I came in with it.
(25:36):
I'm convinced something is up here, something's amiss, because as
I was listening, I ended up completely agreeing. So there
might not be like, uh, the FBI's equivalent, There might
not be something that meets the FBI's equivalent of a
smoking gun or a fire with Foster with some other
close relationships. But there's a lot of smoke. You show
(26:00):
a lot of smoke in this show, and it makes
me think that the the money and the opportunity is
probably too good for some people to walk away from
for a number of reasons, like human ego, like you said,
but also just the financial aspect. I wanted to ask,
you know, as an outsider, I, like many people, many
(26:23):
of our fellow listeners, am not a professional referee. How
well did these guys all know each other? That's that's
one of the big questions I think a lot of
people have. Is it like a clock in, clock out job?
Are you like, once you get in the rarefied air
of being a professional NBA referee, don't you kind of
(26:45):
know of all the other people in that sphere? Absolutely? Um,
these guys have all been working together for forever. They
exist in a very strange bubble and right now, for
those that are actually in Orlando, that's a funny term
to use. Can during that the NBA right now is
in a literal bubble. But referees is only about fifty
(27:05):
five NBA referees reffing per season. Um, most of them
for the most part. I mean it's some of them
only last two or three years and get canned. Um.
The ones who make it though, they referee forever. They're
in the league for five, sometimes twenty five plus years,
and they become synonymous with the show. And that's what's interesting, right,
(27:27):
And that's what we what we're exploring, is how much
of this is entertainment and how much of basketball professional
basketball is legitimate competition And where did those lines blur?
But the referees all know each other very well for
the most part. Some of them hate each other. Some
of them think that, um, you know, referee X might
think referee wise the worst referee ever, and you know
(27:48):
he's a show off and he makes the game all
about himself, and you know those some of those things
came to light actually after Donneghee scandal, the NBA commissioned
its own report. You know, like we're gonna we're gonna
really nail down and look at our system and look
at our culture and and fix what's wrong, right, and
we're gonna pay a lawyer to do it. So this
(28:09):
lawyer is going to be he's an independent. He's been
completely independent this investigation is not going to try and
um you know, cast cast out on some of the
more salacious things that have been um alleged during the scandal.
This is an investigation we can all trust. And so
the Pedalos report, which is the NBA report that I'm
(28:30):
referring to after after Donnie's scandal, it still says it
looks at NBA referee relationships and it talks about some
of this stuff. Right, how some of these guys look
at Dick Pavetta, who's the most senior official during this time,
and think that he was far too um how do
we say, how should I say? I mean intertwined in
(28:50):
the game, that he made the game about himself, right,
which Corey, my definition of what makes a good referee
is exact opposite thing that you should do. Dick Pavetta,
Corny and Donnie had an American Airlines pilot that he
would call after every game to and this again according
to Donna, I can't prove this in our talk with
with um, excuse me, the stewardess American Airline stewart ists,
(29:11):
but he used to call a stewart as friend of
his after every game and to get a report on
how much airtime he got during that game. So if
that's true, that's really bad, right, that's really really bad.
But but another interesting thing been to your point, fifteen
or so referees again tight fraternity, not that many. Fifteen
hail from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, hail from the greater Philadelphia area, which,
(29:35):
over the course of of refereeing in the eighties and nineties,
two thousand's and and now in a lot of referees
hail from this one area of Philadelphia and which, as
we find out in the podcast, is a gambling hotbed.
And that's where Donna he's from, and Steve Jaffey and
Joey Crawford and if you know NBA referees, I could,
I could go on and on, but they all hail
(29:56):
from this one area in and around Philadelphia. So it's
it's certainly suspicious. It's not really a meritocracy. It's incredibly Donna,
he's a product of nepotism. His uncle was an NBA referee,
his father was a college referee. So yeah, all these guys,
it's gotten better, I think referees now, it's it's definitely
(30:16):
more of a meritocracy as far as I can tell um,
but really at the time it was who you knew
and who your dad was or who your uncle was.
I mean, that's an insane because we know that nepotism
often wins the day over meritocracy and any number of
fields or pursuits. But the appeal of the appeal of
(30:40):
sports in general is the idea that through one's own
hard work, focused practice, and natural talent, you can leave
everything else of that's outside of the court off the
court when you play the game. And for that not
to be the case, it's got to be just a
profound punch in the gut, you know, especially for a
(31:03):
lot of kids who, like you, were growing up living, breathing,
loving basketball, you know. Uh, and now to find that
this may very well be rigged. I mean, it's understandable
that people would say, well, this is a bad apple situation, right,
this is a bad actor. It's a one off in
(31:23):
the NBA. You know, as you've explored, the NBA goes
into crisis mode kind of and their pr and their
damage control. But one of the big twists that comes about,
there are two big twists I think that that are
going to be startling is first, the NBA's damage control,
(31:44):
their pr their report it uh, it didn't do the
best job persuading people that this was a one off.
And uh, I think Donna, Donna Gi himself didn't agree
with with their findings. And I know this because of
another big twist in our story, which is Tim, you
(32:07):
talked to him. Everybody should look if you're not familiar
with this character. We want to establish this. Tim Donneghie
is alive today and you, Tim have had like multiple
conversations with him, multiple And this is we start off.
And what I'll say now that we're a little farther
because people have asked me since we started, when we
(32:28):
started this podcast, the reason I had access to Donnie
is because Donnie and I were very friendly. I'm the
only when I was writing for The Post Game, which
was a Yahoo site, I'm back in. I'm the first one,
I think, the only person, at least you know, according
to Google search results, which I've done. You know, I've
Google searched this ardently over the past eight years. I
(32:51):
think the only one who said that publicly right that
I believe what Tim Donnie He's saying about about the
culture of the NBA. I said in so many words. Donnie.
We know Donna he is, He's not the best guy,
but he's also I think he's a scapegoat for a
bigger systemic issue. And I think that the reason I'm
the only one to have written those words um or
(33:12):
something far more eloquent in my actual article hopefully UM there.
I think the reason I'm the one who was able
to say this is because I wasn't employed by the NBA. Right.
If you're an NBA beat writer and you believe what
Tim Donna he's saying, you can't say that. You're not
going to get access to any locker room, You're not
going to get access to any player, You're gonna become
a prior. You can't say that. And most crime reporters,
(33:34):
and I'm sure a lot of the stories that you
guys explore, um from a journalistic perspective, you know, crime
in sports is not usually something we look at for
that crime reporters look at. Most crime reporters don't gravitate
towards sports to say, oh, um, what's this, what's the
deal here, what's the scandal here, what's the corruption here? Um? So,
I just as a freelance sports writer without any ties
(33:55):
to the NBA, found myself in this very odd position.
And then after I wrote the article Tim Donnie, he
reached out to me and said, thank you so much
for writing this, and that's where we became friends and
now after. But look, at the same time, I'm a journalist, right,
So I did my research that I've done. I've investigated
this story over that basically from that day, over the
(34:15):
course of eight plus years, and what I found when
it comes to Donnie he is that he in fact
is lying about a lot of things, in my opinion,
and because of that, we were forced to reveal those
things over the course of podcast. So Tim Donnie, I
don't think it's my friend any longer been unfortunately or
not unfortunately, I don't really care. But Tim, Tim Donnie
(34:36):
is no longer um doesn't like me anymore, and that's
fine because I still liked him. I've no I have
no issue with Tim, and all I want is to
find the truth at the heart of the scandal, at
the heart of this conspiracy. Because I really appreciate you
saying that it's not conspiracy theory. There's no theory. It's
really just a question of how deep the conspiracy goes.
(34:56):
And that's what our podcasts about, and that's what unfortunately,
for third teen years, people in my world, in the
sports world, have been too hesitant to investigate for for
reasons that are completely rational. If you're an NBA writer,
you want a job, You've got a future family. I
get it. Um. At the same time, this is the
darkest moment in the history of basketball, and to make
(35:18):
this sport better and you need to understand its fault
and why, you know what needs improving, and so that's
where this journey kind of kicked off from. UM. But yeah,
Tim Donnie is is a central part of our story. UM,
and I think what's interesting for myself and the audience
is deciphering what's true and what's not true. Let's pause
(35:38):
for a brief word from our sponsor before we return
with more and the still developing tale of whistle Blewer
with Tim Livingsteon, and we're back. These shows, both both
(36:00):
a Blower and stuff they want you to know, have
have something in common, which is pursuing the truth, even
when pursuing the truth is not a popular or even
safe thing at times. One thing that stands out to
me that surprises me that I haven't thought about really
until exploring whistle Blower and until speaking with you, is
(36:23):
the idea that the NBA could wield such profound, pervasive
influence over what is supposed to be objective reporting. So
is it true that the NBA can just stone wall
or black ball blacklisted journalists or can they can they
(36:45):
shut down in silence a story? Or is it more
that the journalists themselves are kind of proactively self selecting
and avoiding things they think will get them in trouble.
That's a great question. And again, the media side of
this is super, super interesting and something that we explore
in the second half of the podcast. So I don't
want to give away too many spoilers, but I will
(37:06):
say that, in my opinion, during the David Stern era
of the NBA and David Stern, for those who don't know,
is the commissioner um from David Stern is and this
is what where If you're just if you're listening to
Whistleblower right now, you haven't heard this um, or you're
we're about to start revealing in episodes five, six and seven,
(37:27):
which you're coming out over the next um, you'll have
heard five and six and seven are about to come out.
But the NBA was an entity you did not mess with.
And that is not me saying that. That's other journalists
that I've spoken with. Murray Weiss, a former New York
Post reporter who broke the story in the NBA, said
those words very clearly, right, you're you're about to hear
(37:49):
You're about to hear Murray Weiss say that right where
people warned him, don't mess with the NBA, don't mess
with David Stern. David Stern did not mess around. David
Stern was a monarch, he really was, and he was brilliant,
and he's a fascinating character in this that we really,
um are going to die going to dive into his psyche,
(38:10):
going to dive into how he ran the league and
the way he ran the league. It's it's it wouldn't
work in but it worked very well in the nineties
and early two thousand's. He was not a social media
era a guy. He said things that would just be
absolutely destroyed with the way we disseminate news and at
the speed with which we disseminate news today. But the
(38:31):
n B a in my estimation, in my opinion, um
which hopefully at this point your your audience um values
at least somewhat as somebody who has spent eight years.
If you guys don't. If you think I'm an idiot,
that's fine as well. But my opinion is that, yes,
the NBA was somebody was was a company, right, was
(38:52):
a was a thing that you did not mess with
and that people were very scared of. And it wasn't
just they would go to great lengths to make stories
like this go away. And we explore with the Donnaghie
scandal the great lengths that they made for this story
to go away, and it's fascinating. Now. I do have
to say I've been personally impressed by the uh, the
(39:15):
the thoroughness of the reporting, especially when you know in
a very real way you're telling a story that doesn't
want to be told right even in the modern day.
And one thing we have to let you know, Uh,
if you're listening to the show today, is that me
and Matt and Noel and Mission Control and Doc Holiday
(39:38):
code named Doc Holiday. Uh. Tim, Tim isn't giving us
a preview of the episodes. So all the stuff that
that you just said, Tim with my question, it's it's
stuff that I have to wait for the next episode
to hear, which I think is it's fantastic. I just
want to say that, you know, uh, unlike some players
(40:01):
of the n B AH, we're not getting special treatment here,
so we we are listening along with you folks. Perhaps
one way to close today's episode, before everybody goes and
checks out whistleblowers for ourselves, is to go back to
to something that you post that I think is um
(40:22):
of crucial importance here. So the there's this idea of
checks and balances, right and and how best to institute them,
But it seems so complicated. It seems like it's a
very tall order. Do you have things like checks and
balances that you think would mitigate this problem? I mean,
(40:46):
is there a solution? Because I you know, I'm not
an expert. I'm not like the King of Referees or
anything like that. And I was I was thinking through
this and um, yeah, I don't know it out smart
at me. It's just so easy to get away with,
you know. Yeah, And I think the first step is
right now, the referees are employed by the NBA, So,
(41:07):
for example, during the David Stern era, David Stern somewhat
facetiously replied during a Dan Patrick interview in two thousand
and four about his dream NBA Finals matchup. He said,
Lakers versus Lakers is the league. That's that's what the Lakers,
that's what the league wants to see. And as the Lakers, like,
I grew up a Lakers fan, right the Lakers. I
(41:28):
got the l A had on UM and I it's
interesting because the Lakers were for ratings, which the NBA
cared a lot about. The NBA makes a majority of
its money via via television. UM. The TV contracts they've
signed over the last twenty years have just gone up
by the billions UM. It's gone from hundreds of millions
(41:50):
to billions to multibillions. And last year the NBA did
almost nine billion dollars in revenue. So, if you're valuing
the NBA as a company there give or take a
thirty five billion dollar company, they're a huge corporation. They're
very very powerful corporation. And so the first thing you
need to do is make the referees. You need to
(42:11):
create a separate employment agency. You can't have the NBA
employee referees because if the Lakers are playing whichever team
in the Western Conference Finals, and that referee has in
his head that David Stern, his boss's boss's boss's boss
is rooting for the Lakers to reach the next game.
That's a problem, right, So that's step one is and
(42:33):
Phil Jackson, former Lakers coach, the one who suggested that first,
or at least I mean, I'm sure a lot of
people had suggested before Phil Jackson, but I think Phil Jackson,
Ovan time NBA champion, he's he knows, he's a smart guy.
He knows his teams have been privy to different officiating
than a lot of other a lot of other teams.
And that's one anecdote that Donnie he provides and in
(42:56):
our opening episodes where Phil Jackson or he calls Michael
Jordan or travel and Michael Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson
flip out and Phil Jackson, you know, Donnie, he says,
you watch the same training tapes as I do. And
Phil Jackson says, yeah, they might want that call to travel,
but not on Michael Jordan's. So it's the same kind
of bias and um talent discrimination that exists throughout the league,
(43:20):
and a call, the right call should be the right
call every single time, and it's not. In the NBA.
There's biases and different rules for different players, and it's
it's not an even playing field. And to get there,
the first step is to create make referees part of
a different organization that has no ties with the NBA.
And that's that's step one, and that's a big step.
(43:42):
Do I think it's gonna happen. I don't know. I
don't think anytime soon, because definitely during the David's Turn era,
I think the NBA enjoyed having that control and I
think they giving that up would be something that they
would really really have to be pushed into a hole
to do. But that's the that's the first step in
(44:02):
the solution. And then you've got to make sure that
that agency, that organization is is run well and run
with integrity. But right now, the NBA, um having control
essentially over the employment of its officials creates a conflict
of interest. Um, it's too wide a chasm to overcome. Yeah,
(44:22):
this is you know, this is reminding me of all
those memes where you see like a tiny hero standing
up against some gigantic colossus in the on the horizon.
That's an enormous conflict of interest. And you know what
what I like about this point to and what I
like about I called some of my friends who are living, breathing,
(44:49):
God bless them for their optimism Atlanta basketball fans, and
uh so they so so. Uh you know a lot
of think a lot of folks here or somehow familiar
with the problem you're addressing just at the very offset
of Whistleblower, and it's this I think. You know, if
(45:14):
you love basketball, then of course you feel like there's
been several terrible calls as you said, to two, three,
four per game. So I think a lot of our
listeners are already excited to see, uh it's very real
proof that that they weren't just being you know, uh,
(45:35):
sore loser fans or something like that. Uh And and
so we turn it over to you, folks. Don't don't
take my word for it. Do check out whistle Blower.
It's available wherever you find your favorite podcast on any platform.
As we said, we actually waited a little bit on
this interview because we didn't want to have the interview
(45:58):
here while episode one just out, because there's so much
stuff on the horizon that we can't get talk about
and and Tim, thank you for being patient with me.
I know you totally caught me trying to slide in
getting a little more info. I guess I'll just have
to wait to wait till next week. But I appreciate
Ben now is great. Um, I can talk about this
(46:18):
stuff all day, So after episode ten comes out, I'll
come back on and we can dive even deeper. But
to appreciate it, it's a lot of fun. And yeah,
check out Whistleblower. I think you guys will like it.
In the meantime, Tim, for anyone who would like to
learn more about your ouball work, where can they find
you online? I'm on Twitter at Tim likes sports. UM
(46:41):
to handle that, I think I've got that. I'm gonna
stick with UM because I still like sports after even
after learning about all the terrible things that that I've
happened in the world that I love. So Yeah, Tim
likes sports on Twitter and UM that's where you can
that's from most active on the social media's can you
can also find Tim on the No Chill podcast if
(47:06):
you are like me, waiting for the end of whistle Blower.
In the meantime, while you're on the internet, You can
also find stuff they don't want you to know. We're
on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter. If you
have listened to our multiple episodes about big data and
you are still on Facebook, then check out our check
out our group page. Here's where it gets crazy. You
(47:27):
can leave us a phone number if you don't SIP
the social needs one eight three three st d w
y t K. Let us know if you want us
to use your name on air or not. We can't
wait to hear your input, your feedback on whistle blower.
How deep do you think this goes? How high? And
(47:47):
why do you think this conspiracy breaches? If you don't
like phones, get it real friends, text and you don't
like social media, there's one way you can always contact us.
We have a good old fashion email address where we
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(48:24):
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