Sports Journalist Tim Livingston Investigates 2007 NBA Betting Scandal in ‘Whistleblower’ Podcast

Former NBA referee Tom Donaghy was in the middle of a major scandal that led to his arrest on charges related to a mob-backed betting scheme and accusing him of betting on NBA games that he officiated. The scandal, which is considered the biggest in NBA history, is now the focus of a new podcast from Tenderfoot TV: Whistleblower. The podcast will debut on Thursday, and PopCulture.com has an exclusive clip of the first 10 minutes of the premiere episode.

In the clip, sports journalist and host Tim Livingston reveals why he wanted to investigate the scandal. Livington, who is based in Los Angeles, said in the clip he’s been trying to make this podcast for eight years, but that for “reasons that will soon become clear, it’s been pretty much impossible to make.” Livingston added that the story starts in 2012, five years after the NBA Betting Scandal. He wrote an article about how Donaghy “messed up” and “broke the law,” and also addressed the “elephant in the room. […] According to Donaghy, the NBA was fixing games.”

The clip also features former NBA player Rasheed Wallace, who talks about one incident he had with Donaghy. “The ref called a foul on me,” Wallace said. “Donaghy is way on the other side of the court and he hits me with a [technical foul]. It shocks everybody because I didn’t dispute the call, so he gave me a [technical foul] saying I threw the ball at him. I’m like ‘The man is less than four feet from me. If I really want to hit him, I could really hit him.’” Wallace then says Donaghy called another technical foul on him, which led to Wallace being ejected from the game. Once the game was over, Wallace confronted Donaghy about the foul called on him.

“I said ‘Donaghy, I’m going to get my money back for that bulls— tech you called.’ He said, ‘What?’ and I said ‘You heard me.’” Wallace proceeded to say that’s when Donaghy came at him, which then led to a call from NBA security. Wallace told league security that Donaghy was ‘making it too obvious’ that he was cheating. Wallace was suspended for seven games, costing him $1.2 million. However, Wallace then said he got a call from NBA legend Joe Dumars years later telling him that he was right about Donaghy.

“When I started investigating this scandal eight years ago, I knew there was more to the story,” Livingston said in a press release. “Now, having reached the end of the road almost a decade later, I can’t believe how deep it goes. I’m incredibly thankful to Donald Albright and the Tenderfoot TV team for giving us the platform to tell this story and bring the truth to light.” New episodes of Whistleblower will be released every Thursday on all podcast platforms.