Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to buy L.A. Clippers

Basically LA needs a team that's going to mask the suckage of lakers for now..

When lakers get better again, clippers will fade off into mediocrity.

 

The Seattle Supersonics dream is back to square zero. They need to find a new financial benefactor for their arena and to pay for a franchise to move.

People keep thinking that Ballmer is tied to Seattle, but he was essentially forced out of Microsoft and didn't grow up in Washington state or anything. He's originally from Michigan and, if anything, has ties to his Harvard alumni in Boston. This is Ballmer's new retirement plan. He's going to move to LA, hang with celebrities at his games, produce movies, go to oscar premeire parties, etc...

Bill Simmons just predicted that Ballmer is gonna buy LA Live and the Kings. I wouldn't be surprised if his next move was to take over the Farmers Field project to move the Rams back to LA.

 

That's crazy money, insane…..and ClutchFans is out of the picture. Were we ever in it? I wanted a piece of the action. A tiny piece.

 

That sucks. I wanted to see a vote and see if there's any holdouts. This is basically a bailout for the other owners.

 

The sad thing about this lawsuit is that Sterling's lawyer is probably taking advantage of his alzheimers to try to get a cut of that $2 billion they just got. The longer they drag this case on, the more money the lawyers can pocket for themselves. The sharks smell blood.

 

Do you guys not read? No way the franchise cld be valued at $2bn if it was to be moved to Seattle. LA and NYC are the only 2 media markets that make it a sound purchase. In fact, now that ballmers money is in la, there is much less of a chance of Seattle getting a franchise.

 

Ur acting like he cares about his franchise losing some value... He just wanted an NBA team and he had enough money to where the price didn't matter so he has enough money to move the team wherever he wants! The 2 billion was just to scare everybody else away.

 

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Let's just hope he'll attend Clippers playoff games

 

If you aren’t familiar with Steve Ballmer or the tech world, he has the potential to be the greatest sports owner of all time. Think Mark Cuban only if Cuban was a bigger nerd and didn’t give a **** what anyone thought of him. Guy is an absolute savage. Just look at what a simple google image search got us.

 

So yeah, basically the Clippers just went from an old creepy racist obsessed with Magic Johnson’s "AIDS" to an absolute maniac and complete savage of a man. Big time upgrade here! Need more Ballmer in my life, have to have it.

 

New Clippers owner Steve Ballmer

 

He overpaid by a long shot. This must just be a dream for him to own a sports team.

 

Somebody probably posted it already since this is from a couple of days ago, but here's Forbes on the $2b pricetag:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbad...-1-billion-bids-for-the-los-angeles-clippers/

[rquoter]10 Factors Fueling $1 Billion+ Bids For The Los Angeles Clippers

Bids for the Los Angeles Clippers are north of $1 billion and as high as $2 billion, according to early reports. My colleague Mike Ozanian reported this morning that former Microsoft MSFT +1.51% billionaire Steve Ballmer offered $1.8 billion for the team. Last year Ballmer failed in his bid with Chris Hansen to buy the Sacramento Kings for $525 million (later raised to $625 million) and move the team to Seattle.

Three years ago a big market NBA franchise that was a strictly a tenant in its arena was sold for $287 million or 2.5 times revenue. The Clippers are another big market team with limited access to arena revenue and a bid of $2 billion would be 15 times revenue. So what changed in three years between the sale of the Philadelphia 76ers to Josh Harris and David Blitzer and the current frenzy around the Clippers’ sale?

There are a host of NBA-specific and non-NBA factors driving the Clippers’ sale price as the league looks to untangle itself from Donald Sterling. Here are a few of the most important.

1. The 2011 collective bargaining agreement between players and owners decreased players’ share of revenue from 57% to 50%. Revenue sharing from high revenue teams to those less fortunate also more than tripled. It is almost impossible to lose money in the current NBA, barring a Mikhail Prokhorov-like spending spree.

2. The NBA is poised to sign new national TV pacts that are expected to at least double the annual average of $930 million from current partners ESPN/ABC and TNT. The NBA is one of the last major TV sports packages that is not already locked up beyond 2020. Bidding is expected to be fierce for one of the remaining DVR-proof properties on TV.

3. The Los Angeles Lakers displayed what is possible on the local TV level with their Time Warner Cable TWC +0.04% deal signed in 2011. The pact is expected to generate $5 billion over 25 years for the purple and gold. Los Angeles’ baseball teams inked $8.5 billion (Dodgers) and $3 billion (Angels) deals in recent years.

4. The Clippers’ current TV deal with Fox Prime Ticket is worth roughly $20 million a year and expires after the 2015-16 season. Experts think the team could get $60-75 million under a new deal.

5. With apologies to the global ambitions of the NFL and MLB, the NBA is the game most likely to prosper on the world stage. There are 300 million people in China alone who play basketball.

6. The value of all businesses have increased and companies and people are flush with cash. Facebook just paid $19 billion for messaging company WhatsApp, which generated $20 million in revenue last year. The S&P 500 is up 282% since the stock market lows of March 2009. Stocks are currently trading at 15 times forward earnings compared to roughly 10 times in 2011, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

7. Soaring asset prices have fueled the number of rich people on the planet. Forbes reported a record 1,645 billionaires on the planet in March with an aggregate net worth of $6.4 trillion. There were 793 people on our list of the World’s Billionaires with a collective net worth is $2.4 trillion five years ago in the depths of the recession

8. If you want to own an NBA franchise in the L.A. market, this might be your only chance. The Clippers and Lakers are the two longest tenured franchises with Sterling’s 1981 purchase of the Clippers for $12.5 million in 1981 and Jerry Buss’ Lakers acquisition for $20 million in 1979 (the Lakers’ are now owned by a trust controlled by his Buss’ children after his 2013 death).

9. Sports team sales are often done in the privacy of lawyers’ offices with the leagues having significant influence on the process. At this stage, the Clippers’ sale is working like an auction with a shingle on the door letting everyone know the team is for sale (this could change next week when the NBA votes to terminate Donald Sterling’s ownership). We saw how an auction unfolded with the Dodgers with initial expectations expecting the team to fetch in the $1 billion range before eventually selling for $2 billion.

10. Ego is always a factor in sports team transactions. The NBA is hot right now fueled by global stars like LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Sitting courtside with the keys to the castle is a powerful drug. The Clippers are not likely to generate substantial profits (they have averaged $11 million over the past five years), but if you are Ballmer (net worth: $20 billion) or Larry Ellison (net worth: $50 billion), you can afford to park $1 billion in something that won’t generate much of a return. Call it asset allocation in a world where 10-year Treasury yields are only 2.5%.

With all of the above said, it is hard to make financial logic of a $2 billion sale price for the Clippers (revenue is less than half of the Dodgers even before the Dodgers new TV deal kicks in). Yes, the Clippers are hot right now with stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, and the Lakers are down and out. But the Clippers’ arena situation as a tenant in the Staples Center limits their revenue from concessions, suites, parking, advertising and naming rights. The team does not get any non-basketball event revenue from Staples. The most recent NBA sales were the Milwaukee Bucks ($550 million), Kings ($534 million), Memphis Grizzlies ($377 million), New Orleans Pelicans ($340 million), Toronto Raptors (an estimated $400 million as part of the sale of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment) and 76ers ($287 million). All were sold since 2011. Yet, logic is not always part of the equation when it comes to sports teams.[rquoter]

 

The next time the CBA is up good luck to the owners when they try to say they are losing money. If this was a high school test this guy just ruined the curve for the whole class.

 

It could be that there is a big disparity in revenues for teams in big markets and teams in small and mid level markets. I mean, the Clippers sold at $2 billion because the Lakers have a local cable deal that brings them between $3-5 billion over the course of the next 25 years. So if the Clippers could sign something similar, Ballmer would be making an extra billion dollars amortized over 25 years. I don't know if every market offers that sort of opportunity so, without it, paying players more money than they already make might not be a profitable proposition.

These CBA rules are not only designed to screw over the players, but also as a means to even the playing field. If the players improve their position the next time the CBA negotiations are up, it will totally benefit the big market teams. I'm sure Ballmer would have no problem eliminating the salary cap and pay the players what they are worth.

 

I have a bridge to sell him. But man... He overpaid. I guess he wanted a the travesty of a guy like Sterling owning the Clippers to be over. Wish some of that extra $1.4 billion could have some how made it into pockets though.

 

The next highest bid was like 1.6 billion right? So he may have overpaid but by a little... and who knows? Maybe he had inside knowledge the second bidder was ready to raise it closer to 2 and he knew that was the magic number to scare off the other bidders.

Either way, it's nice for the Clippers fandom to have an owner who probably won't shy away from paying the tax. They definitely won't be another OKC when it comes to financial decisions.

 

So?

If you have 1 billion, you are basically untouchable, there's not much of anything you can't have. Ballmer still has 18 billion more. Cost/benefit depends on the relative costs and your own sense of benefit.

 

Ballmer will need to negotiate a better deal with Staples Center, I can't believe the clippers are so lowballed on their rights to it (no luxury suites, no non-bball related entertainment at all?). That's pretty bad considering they are the only game in LA for the time being.