Former Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer has purchased the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Los Angeles Clippers franchise for US$2 billion, a record for a professional basketball team, sole trustee Shelly Sterling announced yesterday.
In a news release from Greenberg Glusker, Sterling’s counsel, she said she had signed a binding contract to sell the team to Ballmer on behalf of The Sterling Family Trust, which owns the club.
The agreement will need to be approved by the NBA Board of Governors before it is finalized.
“I will be honored to have my name submitted to the NBA Board of Governors for approval as the next owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. I love basketball,” Ballmer said in a statement. “And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win — and win big — in Los Angeles.”
On Thursday, Ballmer outbid two groups, one led by media mogul David Geffen that offered US$1.6 billion and included TV talk-show maven Oprah Winfrey and Oracle Corp CEO Larry Ellison, a source close to the process said. A group of Los Angeles investors also bid US$1.2 billion for the team.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as the financial advisor in the deal, Sterling’s statement said.
The Clippers came up for sale after the NBA banned owner Donald Sterling for life because of racist remarks he made in a recorded conversation that was leaked last month to entertainment news Web site TMZ.com.
Donald Sterling’s attorney, Maxwell Blecher, told the New York Times earlier that he would have to approve the sale. Blecher did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
If approved, the deal would be second only to the US$2.15 billion paid in 2012 for baseball’s the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“It’s no wonder the prices are so high,” said sports consultant Ed Desser, a former president of NBA Television and New Media Ventures. “There just aren’t enough teams for all the billionaires who want them.”
Sterling, a Los Angeles-area real-estate developer, paid US$12.5 million in 1981 for the Clippers, who were then in San Diego.
It is unclear how the team’s potential sale will affect a hearing the NBA scheduled for Monday at which Donald Sterling can address the accusations against him. At that meeting, the owners could force him to sell the team on a vote by 23 of the remaining 29 owners, the NBA has said.
Sterling’s lawyer said in an interview with CNN that his client is prepared to file a suit to fight the charges, but that he intended to wait for communication from the NBA before deciding when and whether to do so.
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