Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is a big basketball fan and now it seems he will own the LA Clippers. In a cutthroat bidding war for the team, Ballmer offered a staggering $2 billion and knocked all other competition out of the way. If the deal goes through, it will be the highest price ever paid for an NBA team in the history of the United States.
The bidding was astronomical from the start with a bid of $1.2 billion by Los Angeles investors Tony Ressler and Steve Karsh and a $1.6 billion bid by David Geffen and a group of investors that own the LA Dodgers baseball team. The deal was made late Thursday evening with current Clippers’ co-owner Shelly Sterling, wife of Donald Sterling. The only thing that is needed now is for Donald Sterling to sign off on the sale of the team and the 30 member cartel of team owners to approve the sale. One condition of the sale was that Ballmer had to keep the team in Los Angeles and not move it to Seattle, Washington.
As many know by now, current owner Donald Sterling was forced to sell the LA Clippers because of a racist secret recording made public by his admitted mistress. Sterling purchased the team originally for $15 million, so he is set to make an incredible profit of 15,900 percent.
