The Librarians movie poster can be seen in the background of the scene when Victor Dubenich gets out of the black car to meet with Sophie. The TV series The Librarians (2014) was created by John Rogers (who was a creator of Leverage), is produced by Leverage's Dean Devlin, and stars Christian Kane. Noah Wyle from The Librarians eventually joins the cast of Leverage for the spin-off series Leverage: Redemption (2021).
The door pass code that Hardison's gadget cracks during the first heist begins with 8675309 - a reference to the 1982 hit song "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone.
At the end of the first episode, the checks given to the team are from Credit Dauphine, which was the front company for SD-6 in the TV show Alias (2001).
The check that each member of the team receives at the end is for $32,761,349.05.
In the scene of Hardison putting Eliot in the back of the police car and then thanking the local officers, the interaction between Eliot and Hardison and Hardison's speech were both improvised.