Steve "PUPPY" Ballmer bought the LA Clippers!?!?!

I don't watch basketball but I find it interesting that Steve Ballmer bought the team for approximately $2 billion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/29/steve-ballmer-clippers_n_5413913.html

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What are your thoughts?

Rich dudes fiddling in sports has never been a bad thing right?

Paul Allen did real well with the Seahawks. Give the man a chance.

It seems like he really overpaid for a franchise that HAD to be sold. The racist old dirtbag only paid $12.5m for them in the first place.

@forkboy: Yeah, it was really weird seeing such a high bid for what was pretty much a firesale, but Ballmer is sitting on so much cash (and potential cash) that he might as well do something with it.

Can't answer the question because I know and care nothing for basketball. Though the developers clip is as overdone as Gabe Newell and fat jokes.

As I saw elsewhere: One of the most most mocked men in America makes a deal with the second most mocked man.

Sports franchises sell for a lot, doesn't even matter if only 5% of the population actually watches that sport or not. As someone who really enjoys basketball I watch almost no regular season games whatsoever.

I suppose it's worth mentioning that the Clippers don't suck for once so there is actually value to the current team; dunno if that makes them worth as much as the LA Dodgers though.

I guess ultimately if you have billions of dollars there is virtually nothing to spend it on so why the hell not? No one else needed that money.

Basketball's future (current?) does look like it's going to be a bunch of rich nerdy white guys owning the teams; which I guess is better than old racist white guys? Still a clear segregation even if the workers are well compensated.

It's funny how everybody thinks this is somehow punishing donald sterling, when he just made 2 billion on a franchise that is maybe worth 700mil tops. Social Justice!!!

Balmer looks like a hiliarious dude though, hopefully he's as funny as Cuban

Hello Seattle Clippers!

New mascot? Please make it so...

@vuud: /thread

two billion dollars is too much to spend on anything unless you are building a rocket that you are personally going to fly to the moon or something

So hopefully this doesn't come off as douchy, but as a die-hard NBA fan I thought I just shed some light on some stuff after reading a couple posts in the thread. First....

Technically the franchise didn't have to be sold right now, because a 3/4 vote of the other NBA owners is required to force another owner to sell their team. So this is simply is Sterling selling high because as the situation went on he would end up getting less and less. Yes the threat of this vote and all this happening probably rushed the selling of the team, but ultimately Balmer or any other possible buyer had to really make it worth the Sterlings' time or they would have just fought against the NBA to keep the franchise. As for the overpay and Sterling only paying $12.5 million originally that is another far more complex subject. First when Sterling first bought the Clipper franchise it was located in San Diego, a market that is far less marketable and flashy than Los Angles, plus he bought it in 1981 I believe. To give you a perspective of the NBA during that time, Magic Johnson was entering his second year in the league, no one had heard of Michael Jordan, and the NBA was no where the global sport it is today. Next for the overpay so I'll also point out this comment...

Basketball is probably the second most popular sport on the planet now, that is just a guess from me so I could be completely wrong, so owning an NBA franchise means international income as well as income from people in the US. So to tackle the 2 billion price tag it is probably a bit much I will admit, but not a drastic overpay. So the Milwaukee Bucks just sold for $550 million to give you an idea of what a franchise is worth. The Bucks just finished with one of the worst records this year, and have seen very little success throughout the entire time of the franchise. They are in a horrible market and have very low attendance. So you think a good team like the Clippers in a great market like Los Angles is only worth $150 million more than the Bucks? The price of a NBA franchise has skyrocketed because of the influx of stars and popularity around the globe.

Again I'm sorry if this came off mean or douchy all I was trying to do is help inform some people. Also I hate that Sterling just made 2 billion, but at least he is out of the league now. An interesting topic to keep an eye on now is how the Players' Union will react. In the latest CBA that the NBA Owners and Players signed a major reason for the lockout was that the owners felt as if they were not getting enough money. So here we have a disgraced owner on his way out getting 2 billion dollars after the owners all complained that they did not earn enough from their teams. I already saw a couple tweets from athletes raising this point. So if you're an NBA fan like me this will be a topic to keep an eye on for the future.

I would pay good money to watch him in the draft room and introducing rookies to the team.

"Ballmer, how do you like this kid?"

"DEFENSE! DEFENSE! DEFENSE DEFENSE! WOO! I LOVE IT!"

Please... rename them the Clippys...I need this...

@vuud said:

New mascot? Please make it so...

Yes, and yes.

@mattadord: No douchiness detected, was quite an informative post, though $2bn does still sound like a lot of cash for a team that's round about half way in the list of team value (going by Forbes 2014 list, which had the team at 13th, valued at $575m). For the sake of discussion, they valued the #1 team as the Knicks at $1.4bn

@mattadord: You nailed that post.

It is punishing him, though. He was humiliated and he didn't want to sell. He got a boat load of money, which sucks, but bad guys winning is kinda the way of the world. There was, after all, no scenario in which he would have had to sell for $41. I really doubt somebody who's already as rich as Donald Sterling is going to get a lot of enjoyment out of Steve Ballmer's money because he'll probably be dead in the next few years anyway. He'll die as a pariah, one of the most hated, stupid, incompetent and bigoted owners in the history of American professional sports. We won to the extent that our winning was possible.

@forkboy: Well I'm glad that it didn't come off douchy. Really, they were only 13th? Mind sending me a link to the article if it isn't that big of a trouble. I understand where they got the Knicks as being the number one franchise, but even before this selling I would have guessed that it would have been valued at more than just $1.4 billion. The Knicks are probably in the best market, New York City, both for national and international advertisement, and the team has experienced decent success overall so having them as number one is no real surprise. It would be interesting to see if the list was made before the selling of the Milwaukee Bucks because that could influence the differences. So just to point out my thinking of why $2 billion for the Los Angles Clippers is not a crazy price. The most expensive part of the team, just like the Knicks, is the market it is located in. Los Angles is the city of stars and Hollywood so not only do you have famous actors, actresses, musicians, etc. showing up to your game to make it seem more "cool" you can also use the glitz and glamour of the city to advertise and reach wider audiences. Now while the Clippers have been an extremely poor preforming team overall, presently they are performing very well and their future looks bright. They have one of the most marketable and exciting players in Blake Griffin who not only amazes with his amazing dunks, but also is somewhat funny as seen in his work for Funny or Die. I would have to imagine if the Sterlings were just looking to sell the team normally and there was no scandal surrounding the sale of the team the price would have been closer to the $1.4 billion Forbes predicted for the Knicks. It probably raised to $2 billion because of two factors: 1) There were a lot, and I mean a lot, of high profile people wanting to buy the team. Magic Johnson, Oprah, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and many more all were rumored to be interested in buying the team. Balmer wasn't even listed as a rumored buyer, at least as far as I saw. So this started a bidding war so Balmer probably jumped up to the $2 billion mark to make the others back off as it would be too much for them. 2) Balmer had to make it so the Sterlings would agree to the sale now rather than later. I imagine the Sterlings would have just fought the NBA if no offer came in that really blew them away. Now you might be thinking that why not wait and just get it for cheaper, but think of it as a PR move for your future purchase. Would you rather buy it now, pay extra, and be a hero for the franchise that got it out of the hands of this horribly racist and recently voted most hated man in America, or wait for Sterling to drag the franchise through the mud even more possibly into the next year to get it cheaper? Also note that many players and coaches on the Clippers voiced their disdain for Sterling, and opening talked about not returning to the team if he still owned the team. So now you just bought the Clippers, but it no longer has the flashy/good players and coaches. Balmer probably spent a bit more than he should have, but it was all a smart move in my opinion. He will make his money back very quickly, especially if the Clippers continue their winning ways. Again I hope this helps and if you have any question I would be more than happy to answer them. I'm sure you've noticed I quite enjoy discussing basketball (understatement alert!!!!).

@chrissedoff: Thanks man. Basketball is probably one of the few things that I enjoy talking about more than video games. It is a huge passion of mine. I debated if I should start some sort of basketball thread or some playthrough type thing of a Giant Bomb inspired player in the 2K14 My Career mode in the forums, but I just don't know what anyone's interest in something like that would be.

Also for those who hadn't seen Sterling is filing suit against the NBA for another billion dollars. This man is unreal!

@mattadord: Sure, this is where I got those numbers from. http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mli45eheim/1-new-york-knicks-3/

I'll grant you that I have absolutely no idea how Forbes makes their rich lists, because I do agree that the idea that a franchise in LA seems like it'd be worth more than $50m more than a team based in Salt Lake City. Though the Jazz do have the best team name in American sports so maybe that's the reason they are worth $525m

@forkboy: Nice link. The issue is there's only one sports team to buy at a time and there's lots of ridiculously rich people that have nothing productive to do with their money so they need something to blow it on and that generates competition.

Keep in mind before all of this started Sterling was considered one of the worst owners in sports dragging the franchise down with his cheapness and his general insanity. The Clippers for years were way, way behind the Lakers but now that they have a better team they have least closed that gap a bit. There is also an estimate because of how crazy TV sports deals have gotten around the country and even more so in LA that the Clippers TV deal might jump from $20 million a year to $60 million a year.

I don't know the Jazz's full situation but the Clippers don't own the arena they play in like some teams do. Which can obviously make a team more valuable.

Also this situation in some weird perverse way likely drove up the price some combined with Ballmer alright missing out on buy an NBA team in his previous tries.

Totally unrelated to anything else but I really love that the team from Salt Lake City are called the Jazz. I understand why (they moved from New Orleans) but the juxtaposition of the conservative image of Mormons and the wild bohemian image of jazz mashed together really, really tickles me. And is why even though I don't really watch basketball I do like to follow the Jazz's results. Also when I was a kid the Stockton/Malone duo were ace to watch on the weekly NBA highlights show I remember being on Saturday morning.

@forkboy: Yeah after looking over the rankings there are some head scratching placement. I think it was mostly based on attendance numbers from the previous year which is super dumb and easy way to make a list like that. It really isn't a surprise though given that you have to click through the rankings one by one. It just seemed to be an article to get the most page views out of it so the person really didn't do much research I imagine. I totally agree about the Jazz name. As a New Orleans basketball fan when the renaming/rebranding process started a popular idea was that our management would go over to Utah, beat up the Utah management, and then take the name back since New Orleans Jazz would create the greatest and most aptly named team in sports history again.

I actually linked to the wrong page, there is something somewhere on the Forbes site that just has a chart with the ranking, but I went for the one I found first in my history.

http://www.forbes.com/nba-valuations/

If this leads to a Seattle Sonics team I will be very happy. However, that would suck for Clippers fans so I guess it remains to be seen if this happens (I got the impression Balmer needs to get a majority vote from the rest of the NBA to buy the team out as the minority Clippers owner is saying he wont sell, but this is just from the BBC, I am not huge into Basketball but would love to see a Seattle team again).

@forkboy: Ah well the rankings still seemed to be just the attendance rankings. So I don't know if I trust them, but thanks for the links.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the Clippers are staying in Los Angles. I and everyone else would be absolutely blindsided if Balmer moved the team. Like I said in a couple of my other posts the market of Los Angles is one of the best in the US if not the world so it would be a dumb business move to move the team. Also about the sell of the team you have it mostly right so way to go BBC. Yes Balmer needs a majority vote to buy the team, which he just received, but he is buying from the majority Clippers owner. The things about him not selling is sorta true and sorta false. Donald Sterling is the owner of the Clippers, but since he was banned from the NBA he gave his wife permission to sell the team. Donald Sterling though has fought back and was planning on fighting the decision so he could keep his team, even plans to sue the NBA for a billion dollars. But he was recently found to be mentally incapacitated meaning that the selling of the team did not need his approval. This whole situation is rather confusing and I am very much into basketball. I want to see a team in Seattle again too, but I imagine they're won't be one for quite sometime. A group in Seattle has been trying to get a team there for a couple years now, even going as far as saying they would pay for a new arena with their own money (crazy for an owner to do this), and they haven't been able to get a team back up to Seattle. Not many people want to sell their NBA teams now that they are making record profits so the idea of that owner group buying another franchise and moving it to Seattle is unlikely. So the most likely way for a team to come back to Seattle is if the league expands, and I don't see that happening anytime soon either. Just know that you're not alone in your wish to see a NBA franchise in Seattle again.

Mark Cuban