Poor, poor Donald Sterling. He’s having his beloved basketball team pried out of his hands and all he’ll get for it is about four times more than anyone has ever gotten before for selling a NBA franchise. At two billion dollars, it’s second only to the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the history of American sports. Thanks, Steve Ballmer, for really showing that Donald Sterling. I’m sure he’s learned his lesson.
Of course, the sale isn’t finalized and Sterling’s a little crazy so who knows if he’ll sign on the dotted line. I suspect he will, though, since he only paid 12.5 million dollars for the team back in 1981. The capital gains taxes will be so huge that they’ll probably balance the nation’s budget.
Sad to think that Donald Sterling probably stands to make more money for being a racist than anyone since the abolition of slavery.
And Ballmer has enabled him. NBA rules should be changed to require the owner to sell the franchise back to the NBA at original cost or at least give the NBA the option to buy.
“Ballmer, 58, left the software giant in February and has an estimated
net worthill-gotten gains of $20 billion. Unlike other bidders, he did not immediately seek out partners for the purchase of the Clippers.”His net worth is negative IMHO.
Boo:
And Brian Roberts must be kicking himself right now. If only he had held on to the 76ers for 2 more years. How much is Ballmer overpaying? Is the Clippers are worth that much, how much are the Lakers, Heat, Celtics, Bulls and Knicks worth?
>>How much is Ballmer overpaying?
the market is so weird, with so little turnover, that it’s tough to estimate.
The fact that there are several other reported bids adds up to one scary fact: American capitalism has created a class of people able to spend BILLIONS of dollars on a hobby.
A class of billionaires bidding against each other for used (pre-owned) trophies that create nothing new or do any good. The more wealth the billionaires have, the more the trophies cost. Francis Bacon painting sells for $142.4 million. In its heyday, the Vatican at least commissioned artists to create new works.
I had similar thoughts; why not BUILD something? A massive extravagant folly that employs builders and craftsmen for years and your grandchildren can donate to the state for a park like Hearst did.
Hearst even hired a woman, Julia Morgan, as the architect/civil engineer. Should also note though that he raided a lot of old castles/mansions in Europe for interior elements.
How many homeless people in Seattle could be housed for $2 billion?
why am I not surprised that you knew that?
Ballmer could build housing. He could build a university like Leland Stanford did. but instead he’s spending money on entertainment.
One isn’t a true Californian if one doesn’t know Julia Morgan.
Confiscatory taxation is a better solution — then we collectively can decide the best use for the wealth. None of this Bill Gates using his wealth to advance privatization of public education. And as interesting as Hearst Castle is, the money could have been put to much greater public use.
“He could build a university like Leland Stanford did. but instead he’s spending money on entertainment.”
Yes, well universities these days are spending money on entertainment too. LOTS of money.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/12/college_sports_it_s_time_to_evict_big_time_s
ports_from_american_higher_education.html
All those non-educational amenities and lavish salaries for presidents and campus “stars” on the backs of part-time profs and students. Easy to overlook the fact that back when college at public institutions was affordable for working class kids that sports were an adjunct that most students didn’t care about. That had little to do with the educational experience. (How much was Penn State paying Paterno in his later years?)
Well, it’s not a “hobby”. It’s a business. I am surprised by the amount (way too much perhaps), but it IS Los Angeles – one of the top two media markets in the country, and a market which has no NFL team (and which probably won’t ever have one). That makes the Clippers quite lucrative in terms of earning potential as they have less competition for fans, despite the Lakers. There’s a lot of people in LA.
The arts, sports, etc, are not just hobbies. They are businesses just as legitimate as any other.
The 2nd and 3rd bids were 1.6 billion and 1.2 billion.
The LA Dodgers went for 2.15 billions in 2012.
I don’t know what the Clippers are really worth, but that’s just some of the context.
OT: How come no one is discussing Snowden’s interview? I guess it’s not important.
is it important? the information he leaked is important, but is he?
It’s important, but at the moment, everybody seems to have already taken a position and nobody is willing to budge. And how much can be said about the hapless SOS Kerry’s demand that Snowden “man up?”
I just read all twenty posts I’ve written that mention Edward Snowden. Almost half of them mention him in passing. Maybe three talk about the appropriate punishment for him, mostly arguing for leniency. Another set are much more about Greenwald than Snowden. There are about four that deal with reforms. There are a couple that are about the Intelligence Community. I think only one of them touches on anything that Snowden has actually said.
Ignoring a Snowden interview is a standard of practice around here.
Interesting watching the media back and forth on that interview. Snowden says he was super-important secret guy, NSA and former CIA folks pooh-pooh his secretness and make him sound like a coffee fetcher. In an interview on NPR the other day, a former CIA guy was dripping with disdain, acting like Snowden was the most trivial of trivials.
I was disappointed (though not surprised) that the NPR host didn’t ask how a trivial fellow with no real importance could have access to everything Snowden came up with. It’s like these guys are arguing that your average CIA janitorial staff has access to our deepest secrets. Perhaps that’s true, but it’s hilarious anyone would use that as a defense.
Getting a whiff of deja vu from 2003 and the recall of Gov Gray Davis. Issa bankrolled it expecting to replace Davis. Then Arnold waltzed in and took the prize.
Sterling should thank Jim Buss, whose idiotic mismanagement of his father’s team has increased the value of the Clippers exponentially.
important point. the clippers have a window of opportunity to become MUCH more important in L.A.
They’ve already blown it. Since they can’t, and won’t, win a playoff series that really matters, they’re doomed to being good, but nowhere near the Lakers’championship standard. They’ll always be second fiddle to the Lakers. The Lakers have won 16 championships. The Clippers have never made it past the second round of the playoffs.
If Ballmer were smart, he’d move the team out of Staples Center, change their name, and change their colors. Leave the failed history of the Clippers franchise behind in the dustbin of history.
If this isn’t the best summary of America I have encountered in years, then my mother plays center field for the Texas Rangers.
OT: These muthafuckas have lost their damn minds.
…………….
Gun Activists With Assault Rifles Harass Marine Veteran on Memorial Day
“Are you gonna cry? Sounds like you’re about to cry.” Watch armed men pursue a vet through downtown Fort Worth.
–By Mark Follman
| Fri May 30, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
On Memorial Day this week, a former Marine in Texas named James got a couple calls from friends who’d spotted an unusual gathering in downtown Fort Worth: Roughly a dozen people, mostly men, were hanging out in the middle of the city’s cultural district, armed with semi-automatic rifles. James quickly knew what his friends were describing, having recently encountered an open-carry demonstration himself in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. An independent TV commercial producer who sometimes films live events, James headed downtown with his camera to get some footage.
What he saw there struck him as especially provocative. Not only had the open-carry activists come to a typically relaxed, family friendly part of town, they were displaying intimidating firearms just three days after a major gun massacre in southern California. What he didn’t anticipate was that they would soon be pursuing him for several city blocks with cameras of their own, harassing him and later posting the footage online, where they would also level homophobic slurs and violent threats against him.
Women who speak out have been the primary target for gun activists, as I detailed in a recent investigation. But now, on a day meant to honor fallen service members, a military vet would make the hit list.
http://youtu.be/04k4OWPquK4
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/guns-open-carry-texas-harassment-marine-veteran
I’m not crying for Sterling. It is what it is.
This is exactly why our culture is stuck in the quicksand of criminally capitalism. Trade in a bad subsidized zillionaire “small” business person for another subsidized zillionaire “small” business person and hope for the best.
Green Bay Packers Inc., has been a publicly owned, nonprofit corporation since Aug. 18, 1923, a NFL community-owned franchise.
Wouldn’t a publicly owned, nonprofit Clippers be better for LA and their fans? Wouldn’t it be better for our culture?
But where are the intelligent 1%ers to think beyond the sports plantation to a new paradigm? It might take several liberal-minded 1%ers acting jointly to take advantage of this opportunity. This is an opportunity to evolve for the better one of the pillars of this unjust economic system.
Sure, it would take argument and discussion with skeptics and the short-sighted diehards, and negotiations to alter the NBA franchise ownership rules. But 1%ers have the time and money to get it done and all the glory for doing the civic-minded thing.
One reason why sports franchises have become so valuable (a commodity for 1% to buy and sell amongst themselves) is that the public subsidizes the facilities. Would be like privatizing public parks with water and sanitation provided by the city and zero property tax rates and the owner charging admission.
The Guggenheim group (which I alluded to yesterday http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/5/29/8517/17894#1 ) owns the Dodgers and only bid 1.6 billion for the Clippers – the second highest bid according to the article.
That makes me speculate that Ballmer is paying at least a 400 million premium.