Cable TV anchor Stephanie Ruhle landed an interview with NBA star and Under Armour pitchman Steph Curry less than a month after touting the athletic brand following a negative analyst report downgrading its stock, according to court records.
The MSNBC host was working for Bloomberg TV at the time when she scored the sit-down with the Golden State Warriors sharpshooter as a “thank you” from under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, according to new details from an ongoing shareholders lawsuit against the company.
Court documents from a deposition unsealed last week shed more light on the ties between Plank, the 51-year-old Maryland-based billionaire who founded Under Armour, and the former business journalist, who currently anchors “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on MSNBC.
Plank called Ruhle, 47, a “confidant” that he gave a cell phone and secure email address through which she could communicate with him at all hours of the day, according to court records. She also flew several times on a private jet with Plank, the complaint said.
Another revelation from the deposition included Plank setting up the February 2016 interview between Ruhle and Curry, whose Curry Brand is part of a long-term partnership with the sports apparel giant.
In the 30-minute segment that aired on Bloomberg, Ruhle and Curry had a free-throw shooting contest, discussed the grueling NBA season and exchanged views about investing.
Ruhle — who worked at Bloomberg from 2011 until March 2016 before joining MSNBC later that year — also mentioned Curry’s relationship with Under Armour and the sales of his sneaker brand in China.
The interview came on the heels of Under Armour shares plummeting more than 8% on Jan. 11, 2016, after Morgan Stanley analysts issued a report the day before downgrading the stock to underweight due to sagging sales figures.
Plank wrote an email to Diane Pelkey, who was then his top communications officer, stating that the Curry interview was “a great thank you for [Ruhle] being the only member of media to get [Under Armour’s] back when [the Morgan Stanley report] came out against us,” according to court documents.
He added that he hoped other media outlets would “take notice and show more love (even when the chips are down!),” according to emails cited in court documents.
On the day that the stock sank, Plank — who stepped down as CEO of Under Armour in 2019 but currently serves as executive chairman — had emailed Under Armour employees in a message with the subject line “Morgan [S]tanley,” according to court records.
Plank wanted to schedule a call with employees to discuss “a strategy to put [Under Armour’s] friends in media and other analysts to work to refute [the Morgan Stanley] report,” court documents state.
That same day, Plank emailed Ruhle a “fact sheet” which Under Armour wanted to “send out to ALL media to arm them for any discussion” of the Morgan Stanley report, according to the court filing.
“[P]lease let me know if you see anything missing from here,” Plank allegedly wrote in an email to Ruhle — as cited by court documents.
During Ruhle’s appearance on her Bloomberg show that afternoon, the anchor appeared to cast doubt on the Morgan Stanley report, saying that a member of the “Bloomberg Intelligence team” had “remain[ed] very bullish” about Under Armour, according to court documents.
She told her audience that Under Armour was a “long-term buy” and that it was “very early to actually evaluate” the sales numbers, according to the filing.
Ruhle praised Under Armour for having made “huge strides” toward integrating technology into its products while noting that the company’s endorsement deals with superstar athletes such as Curry, NFL legend Tom Brady and skier Lindsey Vonn was a sign that “clearly, they pick winners.”
Shareholders sued Under Armour in 2017 in a federal court in Maryland, alleging the company inflated its stock artificially by misleading investors over poor sales figures.
Their bid to force Bloomberg to provide Ruhle’s emails was rejected by a federal judge in New York last Friday, according to the Journal.
“There is no suggestion whatever that Ruhle received any promise of that interview for her coverage and, more significantly, no evidence that Under Armour controlled Ruhle in her reporting on the Morgan Stanley Story,” wrote US Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York.
A Bloomberg News spokesperson declined to comment when reached by The Post.
The Post has also sought comment from Under Armour and Ruhle’s current employer, Comcast-owned MSNBC.
Under Armour has vowed to fight the lawsuit.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
