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Ballmer in deal to buy Clippers
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FORMER Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer will buy the Los Angeles Clippers team for a National Basketball Association record US$2 billion, he announced in a statement on Thursday.
The NBA is forcing the family of Donald Sterling to sell the team because of racist comments he made.
Sterling’s wife said in a statement issued with Ballmer that she had agreed the sale. But Donald Sterling could still oppose the deal.
The price tag for a team that has never won a championship would set an NBA record. It would mark a massive financial return for Sterling on a club he purchased in 1981 for just US$12 million.
In the joint statement, Shelly Sterling said she was acting as sole trustee of the family, which owns the team, although a lawyer for her husband said he had to sign off on the deal.
“I am delighted that we are selling the team to Steve, who will be a terrific owner,” Shelly Sterling said in the statement.
Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000 until this year, said he loves basketball and will do “everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win — and win big — in Los Angeles”.
The deal was reached on Thursday night after a bidding war, news reports said.
But attorney Bobby Samini said as he left Donald Sterling’s home: “There’s been no sale. There can be no sale without Donald’s signature,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Earlier, another attorney for Donald Sterling, Maxwell Blecher, said there would be no sale “unless the NBA does something about the illegal charges they have filed against him and so far we’ve heard nothing to indicate that will occur”.
Donald Sterling is to appear before the NBA board of governors on Tuesday, when the other 29 owners are to vote on whether to terminate his ownership.
The previous highest price ever paid for an NBA team was US$550 million paid for the Milwaukee Bucks in April.
Any deal must be approved by three quarters of the NBA’s other owners.
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