OT: Steve Ballmer buys the Clippers for $2 Billion
and is considering renaming the team...
... or maybe not ???
Clippy says "Go Clippers!"
All for just $2 Billion. $2 Billion???
http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/11003237/former-microsoft…
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Would the NBA approve of moving the Clippers to Seattle?
If they would approve that, Baller would do it in a heartbeat. He doesn't care about money. What he cares about is the fact that everyone in Seattle views him as a failure for what he did to Microsoft after Gates left. If he were to bring the Sonics back to Seattle, he'd be a local hero. That would be worth way more than 2 billlion dollars to Steve Ballmer. WAY more.
This article seems to put that theory to rest:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/sonics/2014/05/30/report-steve-ballmer-chris-… “
I love basketball, and I’d love to participate at some point in the NBA. If the opportunity is outside of Seattle, so be it. I will learn about any team that comes up for sale at this point,” he said at the time. “If I get interested in the Clippers, it would be for Los Angeles. I don’t work anymore, so I have more geographic flexibility than I did a year, year-and-a half ago. Moving them anywhere else would be value destructive.”
The NBA has wanted the Clippers to move to Orange County or Sand Diego for years. They would approve a move with no problem.
I just got an ESPN alert on my phone that says that Donald Sterling is filing a 1 billion dollar lawsuit against the NBA.
/GameofThrones'd
If it takes 2 billion dollars to get the Sterling fiasco out of every damn sports conversation, I'd say it's a bargain.
Sale gets dragged through Courts for years.
Donald Sterling will end up winning. The NBA doesn't have the authority to divest him of the Clippers.
He keeps the team, although he may die before that happens.
This case gets written in trust/estates law books for the next 30 years.
So what happens if Sterling does exactly that?
Say he fights it and get the injunction and then dies before its resolved. Does the team go to his kids? Do they have recourse to stop the sale completely?
Not sure if you have the background or desire to answer this question, just interested in the answer and it seemed like a good place to throw it out.
possibly---but short term
not
not
not
not
Sterling has no legal standing. If he has Alzheimer's, then he is probably incompetent or his wife will have him declared incompetent and can't make decisions about the sale. And if he does not, then he's a racist and makes the NBA look bad and the NBA can probably terminate his ownership under the agreement he signed when he joined the league.
Seems a bit high, but who knows in the long run. I will say, Ballmer better not expect an ROI quite like Sterling's 153X one (~$13m to $2B).
Still, I doubt he'll lose money on it. I do think sports franchises are hitting a bit of a bubble, and at some point you'd expect the value to drop when these guys realize paying billions for teams that aren't always going to be pulling in huge gate receipts and tv deals isn't a great investment.
else to spend their money on. They are bored and ridiculously wealthy.
He wanted 2.5 billion to sell the athletic department
plus, he would get a 5 year consulting contract