Spurs Fire Announcer Jacob Tobey After Cheating Allegations With Lindy Waters’ Sister
San Antonio Spurs play-by-play announcer Jacob Tobey is out of a job. The organization dismissed him this week after allegations went viral that he had been sleeping with the sister of Spurs guard Lindy Waters III.
Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports broke the news of Tobey’s firing on Thursday. This all started earlier in the week when Tobey’s girlfriend posted cheating allegations directly to his Instagram Story, which she still had access to. The posts named Loren Waters, Lindy’s sister, as the person Tobey was involved with.
Tobey had been calling Spurs games since 2024 and had recently signed a contract extension to remain the voice of the franchise. The 29-year-old was seen as one of the fastest-rising play-by-play talents in the league. All of that is gone now.
The Spurs clearly decided the allegations had enough behind them to act. An undisclosed relationship with a player’s sister is a serious breach of the professional line between broadcasters and the team they cover. There is no way San Antonio could keep him behind the mic once the story was public.
Lindy Waters III is heading into his second full season with the Spurs. His sister is not a public figure. Dragging her into a viral cheating story cannot be what anyone in the Waters family wanted. Whatever comes next for that side of things is a private matter that should stay private.
For the Spurs, this becomes a hiring problem in the middle of July. The play-by-play seat for a team building around Victor Wembanyama is one of the most desirable open jobs in NBA broadcasting. Whoever gets it will be calling games for a Finals team that is still on the way up.
Expect a fast search. San Antonio does not want to enter the preseason with a temporary voice in the booth, and there are plenty of qualified candidates who would jump at this role. Names that get thrown around in these situations tend to include current national broadcast fill-ins and radio voices from smaller markets ready for a step up.
Tobey’s career is not necessarily over. Broadcasters have come back from public embarrassments before. But he is going to have to spend the next couple of years rebuilding trust with employers, and no NBA team is going to touch him this cycle.
The bigger picture is that the guardrails on private conduct for public-facing team employees have gotten tighter. The Spurs organization runs a tight ship under Gregg Popovich and RC Buford’s front office. When a story like this hits, you can bet they act quickly. That is exactly what happened here.
Tobey handed San Antonio a mess he could not talk his way out of. The Spurs did what they had to do. Now they have to find someone new to introduce Wembanyama to a national audience next fall.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
