OK, so Donald Sterling has been banned for life by the NBA for making racist comments. I’m sure the NBA is within their rights to do this. They probably have some clause about not doing anything to bring disrepute on the NBA. Everybody’s hoping he sells the team and goes away.
What I’m curious about is what if Donald Sterling decides that he wants to get revenge on the NBA, and doesn’t care about trying to get money from selling the team.
Could he order the LA Clippers to file for bankruptcy, and disband the team? Could he change their name to the LA Child Rapers, or something awful like that? Could he sell the team to some Mideast oil shiek who plans to move the team to Dubai?
I don’t think he is the sole owner of the team.
I’m sure the NBA has contract rules about doing whatever you want with a team in their league.
Besides, it’s the Clippers, who would notice if they were gone?
He probably can’t sell to just anyone. He can drive the business into bankruptcy, but then he might lose control. More likely he’s going to hang on just to be a pain in the ass.
Pretty sure the NBA can step in sell it for him and hand him the proceeds. The league has a lot of power governing what owners can and can’t do with teams in their league.
All of the rules governing the owners are internal and not made public. It is my understanding that with the consent of 75% of the other owners they can kick anyone out of ownership. Its part of the rules governing owning a franchise. The rule is mostly there for an owner that ruins the team financially but can be used here too. I do not believe the commissioner would make this announcement without already knowing he had the backing of the owners.
I know nothing about the NBA, but I do know that other major sports leagues have extremely stringent rules governing ownership, and I seriously doubt that Sterling would be able to pull any dirty tricks even if he wanted to. The straightforward path for him would be to sell the team at a profit of what would likely be over $500 million, and disappear into obscurity.
I didn’t even know this guy existed before this thing blew up. But from what I’ve read, the first thing he’s likely to do is sue the league.
I saw reports that every single corporate sponser of the Clippers had either terminated or suspended their sponsorship. Any idea how much that would decrease the value of the team?
Im actually curious on what grounds the guy copped all the punishment.
I heard that he was recorded in private making some seriously racists statements, this recording then got leaked as I understand it.
So, his private opinion is unpalatable. Fairy Nuff, but isn’t the USA the land of free speech? Isn’t he allowed to hold a repugnant opinion and express it personally or is the mere fact that he has this opinion enough to disqualify him?
It would seem that irrespective of what the association did, most of the team had no intention of playing while he was involved, and I have no issue at all with them taking that stance.
I’m just curious as to the legalities and grounds, not the morals or ethics.
The government can’t deny him freedom of speech, but any non-government organization to which he belongs is free to act on his speech. Any business he does business with is allowed to cease doing business with him because of his speech.
Think of the NBA Owners Association like a Home Owners Association. When you buy a home (a basketball team) that falls within the realm of the Association, you agree to the terms of the association, or you can’t own property within the realm of the Association. When you break the rules of the Association, or piss off enough people in the Association, they are allowed to rule against you as well as force you out of the Association. There’s probably words in the agreement that say you can’t take your team out of the Association, just like you can’t up and remove your house from the HOA neighborhood.
As for dude suing the NBA…I dunno. I would suspect the NBA had quite an amazing team of lawyers working on things for the last few days to make sure their position was air-tight. And dude stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the sale of the team. And also, now black people will never bother him again. Everyone wins!
True that, but I think the nuance in the case is a little different as the NBA (a governing body of sorts) is the one that took him to task. But you know, Sterling damaged the NBA brand so I think ultimately the NBA is right. But still, I think there is a big giant grey area here.
Assuming he wanted to simply “stop doing business”.
It depends on how the team is structured. Does he run a company which runs the team? Is he responsible for signing the paycheques?
Or is he simply a majority shareholder of a public company? There are strict rules about how to run a company in the interests of ALL shareholders. Screwing the company’s finances to stick it to the NBA leaves him liable to all sorts of lawsuits from other shareholders. If as executive of a company you make deliberately incorrect decisions, or even should have known better, you can be sued personally for your bad management. So if he bankrupts the company to stick it to the NBA he’d only hurt himself.
If he just decided to fold the team - well, what’s even a shitty NBA franchise worth these days? I’m guessing upwards of $100M, likely five times that? Close it down and you’re writing off a lot of money.
So you close the doors, we stop playing as of tomorrow. OK, you still have the players, the stadium lease, the coaching staff, etc. All this runs on contracts. If the NBA Players Assoc contract allows weasel words like “I don’t have to pay you because I’ve decided not to” then they should fire their lawyers. So he’ll owe hundreds of millions in outstanding contracts. If he makes deliberately bad decisions and bankrupts the team to get out of paying up, then he personally can be sued. If he wants to spend the rest of his life in a trailer park, go for it…
This depends on what the contract for owners says - whether he can even make any decisions after his suspension. Presumably if he tries to or tries to cut off committed payments to support the team, or defy the league - lawsuit, again.
As Little Pig says, best course is to take the money (he can get) and run. *He who fights and runs away, will live to run another day. *
