Donald Sterling’s racist remarks

[Lorenzo]

[h=1]Donald Sterling Agrees to Give Up the L.A. Clippers[/h]
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/report-donald-sterling-agrees-let-wife-sell-l-151721915.html

 

[UncleBob]

Sold for 2 billion to Steve Balmer.

 

[Agent86]

Sold for 2 billion to Steve Balmer.

Ballmer wins bidding for Clippers with NBA-record $2 billion offer

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has won bidding to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers from owners Donald and Shelly Sterling with an NBA-record offer of $2 billion, according to James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times:

Ballmer bid higher than competitors that included Los Angeles-based investors Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh and a group that included David Geffen and executives from the Guggenheim Group, the Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.​

The Geffen group offered $1.6 billion and the Ressler-Karsh group $1.2 billion. People familiar with both those offers said they were rejected.

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The sale price would be almost four times the highest previous NBA franchise sale price — the $550 million paid earlier this month for the Milwaukee Bucks. It is second only to the Dodgers 2012 sale for $2.1 billion as the highest price for any sports team in North America.

​

The Associated Press and ESPN reported Thursday night that Ballmer and the Sterling Family Trusthave a binding agreement that will go to the NBA. One big potential roadblock to completing the purchase: Donald Sterling's attorneys said Thursday evening he has yet to approve a sale.

Movement toward the sale of the Clippers began gaining momentum last Friday, when news broke that Donald Sterling — who has been banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver following the publication of audio recordings in which he made racist remarks — had agreed to allow his wife, Rochelle "Shelly" Sterling, to oversee a sale. Shelly Sterling has tried to negotiate a rushed sale ahead of a scheduled Tuesday hearing in which the NBA's other 29 owners will vote whether to terminate the Sterlings' ownership of the franchise.

Sterling has gone back and forth in recent days over whether he'd actually assent to any negotiated deal and appears to be continuing his hemming and hawing:
If the negotiated deal actually gets past Donald Sterling, it would also reportedly need to be co-signed by the owners of the NBA's 29 other franchises. Rainey of the

Times reports that the agreement would be "expected to clear that hurdle as long as Ballmer reaffirms his pledge to keep the team in Los Angeles and not move it to Seattle, where he lives."

This is not Ballmer's first foray into attempting to purchase an NBA franchise. The former Microsoft CEO partnered with hedge fund manager Chris Hansen last year in an attempt to buy theSacramento Kings for $525 million (an offer later increased to $575 million and even to $625 million) and relocate them to Washington, bringing them back in the garb of the dearly departed Seattle SuperSonics.

That didn't happen, as the NBA's relocation committee recommended the team stay in Sacramento, the league's Board of Governors voted to keep them there, and a local ownership group led by Vivek Ranadivé eventually purchased the team from the Maloofs for a then-league-record $534 million.

While Ballmer was considered something of a volatile element in that process, he remained a very wealthy person whom the NBA had already vetted in the run-up to the Sacramento sale, making him a person of interest in the Clippers' proceedings.

He was spotted sitting and chatting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver during the Clippers' win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in of the the second round of the playoffs, stoking rumors of his interest. He spoke about his desire to buy into the NBA in a recent conversation with the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: You’ve tried a couple times to buy an NBA franchise to return a basketball team to Seattle. Are you interested in the Los Angeles Clippers, if the team goes up for sale?

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Ballmer: I have nothing definitive to say. Am I right on top of what’s going on there? Absolutely I am. 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.

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WSJ: So you wouldn’t move the Clippers to Seattle?

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Ballmer: 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.



https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-...pers-for-nba-record--2-billion-234227311.html
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[Cardinal Fang]

So lets see now.......

He bought the team for around 8.5 million way back when and now he might be able to sell it for 2 Billion. I'm no math wizard but that technical puts Donald Sterling in the "BLACK" on that transaction.

He must be livid right now. :biggrin2:

 

[Alfonso]

So lets see now.......

He bought the team for around 8.5 million way back when and now he might be able to sell it for 2 Billion. I'm no math wizard but that technical puts Donald Sterling in the "BLACK" on that transaction.

He must be livid right now. :biggrin2:

Team purchased for $12 million.... Owner forced to sell team as "punishment" for "racist" remarks,... not that he actually said anything racist... Steve Balmer buys team for $2,000,000,000.00.

Lesson learned. I can only imagine how he's really thinking hard and reflecting on the mistakes he's made and how hard he is suffering as a result.

 

[anon1]

So this scandal created a bidding war and has enriched him by at least 1 billion?
He should thank the GF and give her MORE money. :good:

 

[Elhorny]

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's team of lawyers has hired four private investigation firms to dig up "dirt" on the NBA's former and current commissioners and its 29 other owners, a source confirmed to ESPN.com.

The move was earlier reported by The Associated Press, citing a person familiar with Sterling's legal strategy.
Investigators were given a six-figure budget over the next 30 days to examine the league's finances, allegations of previous discriminatory conduct and compensation to past commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver, said the AP source, who spoke Thursday night on condition of anonymity.

The person wasn't authorized to talk publicly.
The person said the investigators also are looking into whether other owners made any off-color jokes, or racist or sexist remarks.
"The gloves are off, as they say," the person said. "Have them dig up all the dirt they can find."

Sterling, 80, is suing the NBA for $1 billion in federal court after the league tried to oust him as Clippers owner for making racist remarks to a girlfriend that were recorded and publicized. Silver fined him $2.5 million and banned him for life.

The suit alleges the league violated Sterling's constitutional rights by relying on information from an "illegal" recording. It also says the league committed a breach of contract by fining Sterling and that it violated antitrust laws by trying to force a sale.

"Now his objective is to demonstrate for everybody that the NBA is a damned hypocrite," Sterling attorney Bobby Samini told ESPN.com on Wednesday. "We're going to pull every case against the NBA. Then we'll demonstrate that the culture of racism and gender discrimination is born at the NBA, where Adam Silver has worked in a high-level position for a long time."
In addition, Sterling's attorneys will face off with his estranged wife's attorneys in probate court during a four-day hearing scheduled for July.

The probate court hearing centers on whether Shelly Sterling had the right to unilaterally negotiate a $2 billion deal to sell the Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Shelly Sterling's attorney, Pierce O'Donnell, said she made the deal as the sole administrator of the Sterling Family Trust, which owns the team, after two doctors determined her husband was mentally "incapacitated." Donald Sterling is fighting that conclusion and her authority to sell.

The person who spoke to the AP said Donald Sterling reluctantly agreed to hire private investigators after this week's legal proceedings in probate court. The NBA submitted a legal filing Wednesday urging a judge to confirm Shelly Sterling's authority to sell the team.

"He realized these guys will literally go to any low to get this sold," the person said. "Even if it gets [him] nothing other than exposing all these guys and shaking up the league and seeing a change in the leadership of the league, it'll be worth it to him."

The firms will be engaged in an "audition" of sorts, the individual said: "Whoever delivers the best [material] is going to stay on for the next round, and it might be all four of them ... 29 owners is not a small undertaking."

https://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba...g-hires-4-private-investigation-firms-dig-nba