LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced a deal Friday in which it will provide a $100,000 annual sponsorship to each Aces player for this season and 2025. But the agreement has raised flags with the WNBA.
A league spokesperson confirmed to ESPN on Saturday that there is an open investigation looking into the deal with the Aces players. Alleged extra benefits were part of a league investigation of the Aces last season, as well, along with allegations made by Dearica Hamby, who is now with the Los Angeles Sparks, about the Aces trading her because she was pregnant.
Following her team’s 89-82 victory over the Sparks on Saturday, Aces coach Becky Hammon said that the tourism bureau reached out to all the individual players and agents and wanted to have a sponsorship deal with all of them, but that the Aces organization wasn’t involved in it.
“I’m going to put it to you real simple like this: Most of sponsorship people go after the top two people,” Hammon said. “[A’ja Wilson] is taken care of — she’s got plenty of stuff going on. [Kelsey Plum] has plenty of stuff. In this situation, from what I understand, is they wanted the whole team. So they went and called individuals, agents. I don’t know the details. I have nothing to do…
