salary

ITV viewers first saw Jenny ‘The Vixen’ Ryan join The Chase back in 2015 as she’s quickly became a fan favourite over the years.

It looks as though Jenny Ryan may have given away how much The Chase’s Bradley Walsh makes on the ITV show.

In an exclusive clip for this Sunday’s episode of Beat the Chasers, (Sunday 14 September), it shows the long-running host address the beloved quizzers, after one of the ITV stars recently touched on Mark Labbett’s ego.

Sharing a stat, he commented: “Last series, we gave away £700,000!”

Despite the audience sounding visibility impressed, Bradley couldn’t help but take a swipe at their losses.

The 65-year-old continued: “More to the point, when I say we gave away, I mean you lost £700,000!

“Now, what would you have done with that £700,000 had we not lost it. When I say we, I mean you.”

Jenny was the first to respond to Bradley’s question as she decided to put a different spin on his outlook.

She replied: “I have to think about it positively rather than negatively. By catching contestants, the chaster saved the show £20 million. Or as ITV calls it, two-thirds of a Bradley!”

Her fellow quizzers laughed at her remark, although Bradley ignored the probe and addressed Shaun Wallace instead.

Known as The Dark Destroyer, he told Bradley it was obvious what he’d do with the money, had they not lost.

He said: “A first copy edition of Chasing the Dream by Shaun Wallace!” Taking a cheeky jibe at his co-star, Darragh Ennis replied: “700,000 copies more like!”

Paul Sinha explained that if there was that much extra money in the budget, they could afford to have Shane Ritchie host instead of Bradley.

Although it seemed as though the ITV presenter took the comment in good humour as he burst out laughing before giving him a round of applause.

Looking into the camera, he said: “Come on over, Shane! You can do it mate.”

Beat the Chasers airs Sundays at 8pm on ITV1

NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday pulled back the reins as allegations swirled about the Clippers circumventing the salary cap by orchestrating an endorsement deal for star forward Kawhi Leonard.

Silver, speaking to the media after a previously scheduled meeting of all 30 team owners in New York, said an NBA investigation would need to uncover clear evidence that the Clippers violated rules for owner Steve Ballmer to be punished.

“The burden is on the league if we are going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,” Silver said. “I think, as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges. …

“I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety.”

The Clippers and Ballmer are under league investigation after it was alleged last week on the podcast of Pablo Torre that Leonard was paid $28 million for a do-nothing endorsement role by Aspiration, a sustainability firm that had agreed to a $330-million sponsorship deal with the Clippers and had offered $1 billion for naming rights to the arena that instead became the Intuit Dome.

Aspiration turned out to be a fraudulent company, and co-founder Joseph Sanberg has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders.

Silver said he would hesitate to take action against the Clippers if even a shred of doubt about the situation remains following the investigation, which will be conducted by a law firm experienced in probing wrongdoing by sports franchises, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.

“Bringing in a firm that specializes in internal investigations adds a level of expertise and creates separation between the league and the investigation of a team,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert and a visiting professor at Harvard. “The investigators have a background in prosecutorial work, insight into what documents to request and questions to ask.”

McCann and other legal experts said the investigation would center on whether Ballmer’s $50-million investment into Aspiration was a quid pro quo for the firm to turn around and give Leonard $28 million in cash and $20 million in Aspiration stock to essentially do nothing.

Ballmer is embarrassed by the allegations and about his apparent infatuation with Aspiration — which entered into a $330-million sponsorship arrangement with the Clippers and was nearly awarded naming rights to what became the Intuit Dome, only to be revealed as a fraudulent company run by scam artists.

McCann said the investigation would need to uncover concrete evidence that Ballmer or someone else representing the Clippers directed Aspiration to make the deal with Leonard. The only evidence presented on Torre’s podcast was hearsay — an audio clip of an anonymous former Aspiration employee saying that someone else in the company told them the endorsement deal “was to circumvent the salary cap, LOL. There was lots of LOL when things were shared.”

LOL typically is used in written communication, so if the allegation was made in an email or text, the next step for investigators would be to interview the person who wrote it and determine whether Ballmer was involved.

The investigation presumably will examine all of this. Silver tends to be methodical when conducting a probe and is expected to act on what can be proved, not on the perception of wrongdoing. But he also is charged with protecting and growing franchise values. Anything that could damage the integrity of the league would be a huge concern to him and team owners.

“Silver has quite a few very interesting relationships to protect and to nurture: other owners, his corporate sponsors, the media networks that are distributing the content,” said David Carter, a USC professor of sports business and principal of the Sports Business Group. “Everybody attached to the league is interested in getting to the bottom of this. So he has to balance different stakeholder interests and he is very good at doing that.

“So I have a feeling he will — working with the law firm — get to the bottom of it and then decide to what extent if any punishment is warranted. He’ll do that with the intent of making sure he’s protecting the interests of the other owners.”

Leonard joined the Clippers in July 2019 on a three-year, $103-million contract after leading the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title. The 6-foot-7 forward from Moreno Valley signed a four-year, $176.3-million extension in 2021, when Aspiration made its sponsorship deal with the Clippers and Ballmer invested and became a minority owner in the company.

After signing a three-year, $153-million extension a year ago, Leonard will have been paid or is under contract for $375 million in career salary over 14 years with three teams.

The NBA looked into allegations that the Clippers paid Leonard or his representative and uncle, Dennis Robertson, a side deal when he first joined the team in 2019. No wrongdoing was found, although this week the Toronto Star reported that Robertson made demands of the Raptors in 2019 “that line up almost perfectly with what Leonard reportedly got from Aspiration.”

The Star reported that Robertson demanded $10 million a year in sponsorship income but that Leonard didn’t want to do anything for the money. The Raptors rejected the demand, and Leonard signed with the Clippers.

Should the Clippers be found guilty of circumventing the salary cap, they could be forced to forfeit draft picks and be fined heavily. Ballmer and other team executives could be suspended, and perhaps Leonard’s contract could be voided.

Silver will proceed carefully.

“The goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety,” he said. “In a public-facing sport, the public at times reaches conclusions that later turn out to be completely false. I’d want anyone else in the situation Mr. Ballmer is in now, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.”

At the heart of the uproar over allegations that Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers received millions in undisclosed payments from a tree-planting startup is a National Basketball Association rule that caps the the total annual payroll for teams.

According to a report by Pablo Torre of the Athletic, bankruptcy documents show that the tree-planting startup Aspiration Partners paid Leonard $21 million — and still owes him another $7 million — after agreeing to a $28 million contract for endorsement and marketing work at the company.

The report claims there is no evidence to show that Leonard did anything for Aspiration Partners, whose initial funding came in large part from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Torre alleges that the payment to Leonard was a way to skirt the NBA salary cap and pad his contract.

The Clippers have forcefully denied that they or Ballmer “circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration.”

Still, the NBA said it was launching an investigation into the matter.

The salary cap is a dollar amount that limits what teams can spend on player payroll. The number is determined based on a percentage of projected income for the upcoming year. In 2024-25, the salary cap was $140.6 million.

The purpose of the cap is to ensure parity, preventing the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players. Teams that exceed the cap must pay luxury tax penalties that grow increasingly severe. Revenues from the tax penalties are then distributed in part to smaller-market teams and in part to teams that do not exceed the salary cap.

The cap was implemented before the 1984-85 season at a mere $3.6 million. Ten years later, it was $15.9 million, and 10 years after that it had risen to $43.9 million. By the 2014-15 season it was $63.1 million.

The biggest spike came before the 2016-2017 season when it jumped to $94 million because of an influx of revenue from a new nine-year, $24 billion media rights deal with ESPN and TNT.

Salary cap rules negotiated between the NBA and the players’ union are spelled out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Proven incidents of teams circumventing the cap are few, with a violation by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 serving as the most egregious.

The Timberwolves made a secret agreement with free agent and former No. 1 overall draft pick Joe Smith, signing him to a succession of below-market one-year deals in order to enable the team to go over the cap with a huge contract ahead of the 2001-2002 season.

The NBA voided his contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, and stripped them of five first-round draft picks — two of which were later returned. Also, owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale were suspended.

Then-NBA commissioner David Stern told the Minnesota Star-Tribune at the time: “What was done here was a fraud of major proportions. There were no fewer than five undisclosed contracts tightly tucked away, in the hope that they would never see the light of day. … The magnitude of this offense was shocking.”

Current commissioner Adam Silver is just as adamant as Stern when it comes to enforcing salary cap rules, although the current CBA limits punishment.

According to Article 13 of the CBA, if the Clippers were found to have circumvented the cap, it would be a first offense punishable by a $4.5 million fine, one first-round draft pick, and voiding of Leonard’s contract. However, the Clippers don’t have a first-round pick until 2027.

Leonard, one of the Clippers stars, is extremely well compensated. He will have been paid $375,772,011 by NBA teams through the upcoming season, according to industry expert spotrac.com.

A former Aspiration finance department employee whose voice was disguised on Torre’s podcast said that when they noticed the shockingly large fee paid to Leonard, they were told that, “If I had any questions about it, essentially don’t, because it was to circumvent the salary cap, LOL. There was lots of LOL when things were shared.”

Aspiration Partners was a digital bank that promoted socially responsible spending and investments that, at one point, brought in a star-filled roster of investors that included Drake, Robert Downey Jr., and Leonardo DiCaprio. Founded in 2013, it offered investments in “conscious coalition” companies and offered carbon credits to businesses. The company was valued it at $2.3 million at one point.

But in August, the company’s co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, agreed to plead guilty to charges that he defrauded investors and lenders. Federal prosecutors accused Sanberg of causing more than $248 million in losses, calling him a “fraudster.”

Prosecutors alleged that Sanberg and another member of the company’s board, Ibrahim AlHusseini, fraudulently obtained $145 million in loans by promising shares from Sanberg’s stock in the company. AlHusseini allegedly falsified records to inflate his assets to obtain the loans, and Sanberg concealed from investigators that he was the source for revenue that was recognized by the company.

Sanberg had also recruited companies and individuals to claim they would be paying tens of thousands of dollars to have trees planted, but instead Sanberg used legal entities under his control to hide that he was making these payments, not the customers.

Aspiration, which was partially funded by Ballmer with a $50 million investment, filed for bankruptcy in March.

The company was expected to pay more than $300 million over two decades as a sponsor for the Clippers’ Intuit Dome, which opened in August 2024. But before the new arena opened, the Clippers said Aspiration was no longer a sponsor, just as the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission began looking into allegations that Aspiration had misled customers and investors.

During Aspiration’s bankruptcy proceedings, documents emerged citing KL2 Aspire as a creditor owed $7 million, one of four yearly payments of that amount agreed upon in a 2022 contract. KL2 is a limited liability company that names Leonard — whose jersey number is 2 — as its manager.

Aspiration was partially funded by a $50-million investment from Ballmer. It is not known whether Ballmer was aware of or played a role in facilitating the employment agreement between Aspiration and Leonard.

The Clippers issued a lengthy statement Thursday, attempting to explain why Leonard being paid by Aspiration was unrelated to his contract with the Clippers.

“There is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team,” the statement said in part. “Neither Steve nor the Clippers organization had any oversight of Kawhi’s independent endorsement agreement with Aspiration. To say otherwise is flat-out wrong.”

“The Clippers take NBA compliance extremely seriously, fully respect the league’s rules, and welcome its investigation related to Aspiration.”

In his reporting, Torre noted that Leonard’s contract with Aspiration included an unusual clause that said the company could terminate the endorsement agreement if Leonard was no longer a member of the Clippers.

Mark Cuban, part owner of the Dallas Mavericks, took to X.com to suggest that Torre’s reporting was faulty.

‘I’m on Team Ballmer,” Cuban wrote. “As much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap, First Steve isn’t that dumb. If he did try to feed KL money, knowing what was at stake for him personally, and his team, do you think he would let the company go bankrupt ? “

Torre responded by inviting Cuban on his podcast, “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”

FLORIAN WIRTZ will reportedly pocket a mammoth salary at Liverpool.

The Reds agreed a record Premier League fee for the Bayer Leverkusen and Germany midfielder earlier this week.

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The Merseysiders will pay the 2023/24 Bundesliga champions a whopping £116.5MILION for the 22-year-old.

Liverpool have fended off the likes of Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Real Madrid to land Wirtz, who has reportedly been handed a mammoth five-year contract.

And according to Sky Sports, the German will pocket a whopping £245,000 a week during his Anfield stay.

That works out to a whopping £12.7m a year, a fee which is nearly TWELVE TIMES what he currently earns at the BayArena.

A whooping £10.2m of that figure is guaranteed for the attacking midfielder, who will pocket the remaining £2.5m if individual and team performance targets are met.

Wirtz’s salary will make him the THIRD HIGHEST-PAID player at Anfield ahead of Andy Robertson, Alexis Mac-Allister, Allisson, Ryan Gravenberch, Federico Chiesa, Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez.

Only Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, who both inked new one-year deals with the Prem champions last season, will earn more than him.

Egyptian Wizard Salah currently takes home a staggering £400,000 a week, which works out to be a jaw-dropping £20,800,000.

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Dutch defender Van Dijk, meanwhile, earns an annual salary of £18,200,000 thanks to his £350,000 weekly wages.

Wirtz will be joined at Anfield by his former Leverkusen team-mate Jeremie Frimpong.

The Dutch defender became the Reds’ first signing of the summer late last month.

After the completion of his £29.5m move, the 24-year-old said: “Liverpool fans, I’m going to give my all.

“My energy, my work-rate. And hopefully, we can win together, we celebrate together, get everything together.

“I’m just excited to be here. Thank you guys for accepting me.

“And I won’t let you guys down and I’ll give you the energy that you guys want.”

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Reporting from Sacramento — When California updated its equal pay law in 2015, there was no shortage of fanfare. Women’s rights groups called it one of the toughest in the country. Gov. Jerry Brown, in a symbolic flourish, signed the new measure at a Richmond park named after feminist icon Rosie the Riveter.

But a state report released last fall underscored how far California has to go before its rhetoric matches reality when it comes to paying state workers. According to its findings, there is a 20.5% disparity in pay between female and male state employees — a wider gap than in the federal civil service and the private sector in California and nationwide.

The focus on the public sector pay gap is just one way the equal pay debate continues to reverberate through the state Capitol. Several measures this year offer new approaches to bring women’s earnings to parity with wages earned by male counterparts — in state government and the workforce as a whole.

“We are frankly at an ‘equal pay 2.0’ moment,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), author of the 2015 law.

As lawmakers plumb deeper into the pay gap debate, the challenge before them becomes more daunting. While the mantra “equal pay for equal work” sounds straightforward, experts say lagging female earnings are rooted in unconscious bias and persistent undervaluing of jobs held by women — phenomena not easily solved by legislation.

The effort to shrink the pay gap for California state workers illustrates how thorny the issue can be.

At a February legislative hearing on the gender pay gap in civil service, Richard Gillihan, the director of the California Department of Human Resources, offered a blunt assessment.

“We know we have work to do; we know we need to do a better job,” Gillihan said, adding, “20.5% is unacceptable to all of us.”

The report by California’sDepartment of Human Resources, which surveyed state worker pay in 2014, estimated that California wouldn’t close its gender pay gap until 2044.

Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) has offered one solution: Make sure California’s equal pay laws apply to the public sector. He’s pushing a bill that would make public employers subject to existing law, including a 2015 update that expanded its purview to “substantially similar” work, not just identical jobs.

“If it’s good enough for the private sector, it should also be good enough for the public sector,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s measure was inspired by pay discrepancies he saw working in the Legislature, which is exempt from the rigid salary classifications that apply in most state work. A Sacramento Bee investigation in 2015 found women working in the state Assembly made 92 cents for every dollar men made; in the state Senate, it was 94 cents on the dollar. The findings prompted the Senate to give raises to more than 70 employees last year to close the gap.

“Female chiefs of staff make less than their male counterparts — that’s just plain wrong,” Cooper said.

It’s not entirely clear whether Cooper’s proposal is necessary; the state labor commissioner is currently reviewing claims filed by government employees under the Equal Pay Act. Supporters nonetheless cheer the proposal as eliminating any doubt that public sector jobs will be covered.

But for state workers outside the Capitol, the problems run deeper than men and women being paid unequally for doing the same job. State government jobs are classified into more than 3,500 positions, which strictly spell out salary.

“The issue that presents itself here is not as much one of disparate pay, but an unequal distribution of gender throughout the classification system,” said Joe DeAnda, spokesman for the California Department of Human Resources.

Women tend to work in sectors with lower salary ranges, such as administrative support or social work, while men tend to hold jobs with higher pay — particularly public safety jobs such as California Highway Patrol officer or firefighter. More than 61% of men in state government make more than $70,000, according to the Human Resources Department, while just 39% of women do.

Maia Downs, who works in Monterey Park as a state adoption specialist finding homes for neglected or abused children, said the salary range for her profession, which requires a graduate degree and is dominated by women, is significantly lower than those for jobs predominantly held by men.

“It’s sanctioned discrimination,” said Downs of the low salary ranges for female-dominated positions.

DeAnda said negotiations related to salary and benefits are hashed out during the collective bargaining process. Downs said attempts by her union, AFSCME Local 2620, to use gender as a reason for higher salary ranges were unsuccessful.

“California should be leading by example. And they are imposing these equal pay laws on private industry, all the while hiding behind the excuse of collective bargaining,” Downs said. “And then they wonder why their gender pay gap is so high.”

To close the gap, the state says it’s focused on recruiting women into higher-paid jobs and encouraging upward mobility to help women scale the salary rungs.

But overhauling the pay classifications to ensure women’s work is better compensated is a thornier matter. It means reexamining long-held customs that place a greater value on certain professions — particularly high-risk public safety jobs.

“Getting there is not just a matter of legislation,” said Lauri Damrell, an employment lawyer and the co-chair of the state’s Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. “It’s a matter of getting our cultural norms to catch up.”

That hasn’t stopped lawmakers from trying to tackle the pay gap issue — in both the public and private sectors. One bill this year by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) would require large employers to make aggregate pay data publicly available, such as the differential between the mean salaries paid to men and women by job classification.

Another, by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), would bar employers from seeking salary history from job applicants. Proponents argue that women often enter the workforce with lower salaries and are disproportionately hurt when prior compensation is used to determine their next job’s pay.

“One thing that bakes in inequity is when we base somebody’s salary on what they previously made,” she said.

Eggman, who was among the legislators who convened the hearing on state worker pay this year, said she hopes to tackle the lingering pay gap affecting jobs predominately held by women.

“We are certainly looking at if there is some way that we can get to a root of that,” Eggman said. “Clearly we have a lot more work to do.”

[email protected]

Follow @melmason on Twitter for the latest on California politics.

Pay gap between men and women in California is nearly $79 billion a year

California now has one of the toughest equal pay laws in the country

Updates from Sacramento

Staff at ITV are said to be growing angrier as the row over cuts on key shows such as Loose Women and Lorraine continues, with insiders fearing a drop in standards

ITV staff fury is growing as the row over sweeping cuts to Loose Women and Lorraine continues to rage. Recriminations are becoming increasingly bitter over the channel’s axing of 220 jobs, with insiders insisting viewers will notice a drop in standards.

Many are blaming chief executive Carolyn McCall for the “death of daytime” and have criticised her for pocketing a massive £4million salary, including bonus, last year. There is also widespread anger that the cost-savings, which will radically change ITV ’s daytime schedule from January, were not delivered by Ms McCall to staff gathered in London’s Television Centre, on Tuesday.

A Good Morning Britain source said: “She could have walked the 400 yards to the studio to explain to folk in person.” But a channel spokeswoman said ITV Studios MD Julian Bellamy personally wanted to deliver the news: “It was really important to him that he shared this news directly in the way he felt appropriate. This is also very much in line with best practice HR given the sensitivity of the situation.”

They said ITV boss Kevin Lygo made the decision to shake-up the schedules. It comes as the channel was rocked by a series of other developments including:

• Claims that standards across Lorraine and Loose Women in particular will go into a “death spiral” leaving viewers short-changed.
• Outrage over stars on shows such as This Morning keeping their well-paid jobs while hundreds are sacked.
• Fears of strikes among heavily unionised GMB studio crew and technicians.

On screen, viewers will see huge changes to the daytime schedule. Lorraine is the worst hit. It will run for 30 weeks, not 50 weeks a year, and will be slashed from an hour to 30 minutes each day.

Loose Women will stay at the same running time but will also be cut to 30 weeks. This Morning will remain the same length and frequency. Meanwhile Good Morning Britain will be extended by 30 minutes, to run from 6am to 9.30am. For the 22 weeks of the year Lorraine is not airing, it will go on until 10am.

A source said: “It’s not a case of viewers seeing less of their shows… it’s impossible to see how the high standards will remain the same. Some staff believe Loose Women and Lorraine in particular will enter a death spiral… it’s just so sad. Just a handful of people will be working on each of those two programmes which has huge ramifications for how they are going forward.”

All the shows are now going to be made under one roof. An insider asked: “If that’s the case, will Loose Women really still have a live audience…will there be the capacity for that? Everyone doubts it, not least because of the manpower needed to oversee it. Also, there is a huge amount of background work which goes into securing guests… in the new climate how does that continue with barely any staff?”

ITV sources insist that they want “minimal change” for viewers. The source said: “It’s early days and we are currently consulting but we don’t want to alienate our viewers and it’s hoped there will be minimal change on screen. Daytime is hugely important to our viewers.”

The Loose Women panel, including Coleen Nolan, GK Barry and Frankie Bridge, are also expected to see shifts dwindle, especially those who live outside London and charge for travel and hotels. Glam squads are also expected to be axed with stars expected to use in-house make-up.

An insider said: “To be honest there is very little sympathy for stars having their glam squads cut among the rank and file staff, in fact there is a lot of anger that on the whole the channel’s biggest stars are all keeping their jobs – and their exorbitant salaries – while others suffer.”

They added: “It’s no secret that stars on This Morning such as Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley are on huge salaries. Many believe they should offer to take cuts, or at least when their contracts are next negotiated.”

On the whole, This Morning is unaffected by the sweeping cuts. It will remain in its 10am-12.30pm slot on weekdays although questions remain over whether standards will be maintained.

The current Good Morning Britain team was particularly hard hit – of the 133 staff who currently make the early-bird magazine show, hosted by Susanna Reid, Richard Madeley and Ed Balls, just 38 will make the move to ITN which will now produce the show.

One source on the show said: “Lots of the studio crew and technicians will be the hardest hit with ITN taking over their roles. A lot of them are unionised and there is a fear among ITV that industrial action could be an option.”

GMB will be re-homed within ITN’s Gray’s Inn Road headquarters in Central London. Staff working on all shows are expected to “carry on as normal” until the plans are formalised.

A source said: “It’s a mutinous atmosphere to say the least and far removed from the happy, cheery image that ITV Daytime usually evokes.” The Mirror revealed this week staff on Lorraine were particularly worried their main host could quit.

Contrary to reports she was happy to see her hours cut “to spend more time with her family”, insiders say she is devastated for the team on the show being decimated. “They are a tight bunch on Lorraine and the agony is palpable,” said one.

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