Another victim of reverse racism:
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has wrapped a news conference in which he announced the NBA’s punishment of Donald Sterling for controversial comments Sterling allegedly made about blacks. The Clippers owner was banned for life and fined $2.5 million.
Silver also said he would urge NBA owners and the board of governors to force Sterling to sell the team.
$2.5 mil is the maximum fine under NBA rules.
monkeyfister
The $2.5 million is .26% of his total wealth. He bought the team for $17.5 million. Will sell for probably hundreds of millions. Fine is simply cost of doing business– barely a chaffed wrist.
So he can’t go to a live game anymore… big deal.
catclub
I bet he could add the fine on to the sale price.
Except for the fact that he has admitted it was him ( but in what he may have thought was a private conversation), this has gone extremely fast from accusation to execution ( a figurative lynching, as it were). Public relations organizations, like the NBA ( and the Whitehouse) react fast (in order to show that they are responsive) and then later often regret acting.
Persia
I’m so happy. No, it doesn’t make everything right, but it’s a statement and a pretty unequivocal one.
The Dangerman
Good for the new Commissioner; he’s stuck his neck out pretty far given the lawsuits to come. I hope Sterling quickly and quietly sells; I expect anything other than quiet from him, however.
Also, props to KAJ and all the players that gathered with the Mayors (Johnson and Garcetti) for their press conference.
Tom Levenson
@monkeyfister: Actually, for an owner to be told he can’t own? These guys don’t buy major sport franchises because they love the game. They do it because they love being one of ~30 members of an incredibly exclusive club. Being told you can’t assert that (suspension) is a real blow.
But yeah, there’s no way that Sterling loses financially from this, which is one of the facts of life given our concept of private property and aversion to forced takings.
gnomedad
And yet John Kerry gets off scot-free for his anti-Semitism.
/winger
drkrick
@catclub: I suspect they’re going to regret not taking this action after the DOJ fine in 2006 a lot more than they’re going to regret the action today.
catclub
Posted in previous thread, but relevant here.
I wonder how many people have said things that, if made public, would get them banned for life from something like the NBA. This includes things said while drunk or in college.
That ‘you cannot do anything that WE judge as detrimental to the league’ clause is a doozy.
There also is no sanity clause.
The Dangerman
@Tom Levenson:
They also do it to be the center of attention; for years (decades?), you didn’t mention the Clippers (THEY SUCK) without mentioning The Donald (HE’S THE REASON THEY SUCK). In a twisted way, I think he’s taken some pleasure in being talked about again (he’s been really quiet for The Donald for about 4 or 5 years).
As for Sterling profiting handsomely from the presumed sale, not much can be done there…
catclub
@Persia: “and a pretty unequivocal one.”
Don’t get caught?
LAC
@Tom Levenson: maybe the money is a drop in the bucket, but being banned for life, having no control over the day to day decisions of the team and not being allowed a seat at the table is a good thing. If the fucker wants to sit on his pile of money and pout at home, good fucking riddance.
catbirdman
Well done by the new Commissioner. This will actually give the Clippers a chance to win their series with Oakland. Not that I’m a Clippers fan, but without this kind of action their chances of moving forward in the playoffs were near zero. That would have been incredibly unfair to the players, coaches, and fans, all of whom have already been hurt by this disgusting turd. It’s true that hasty decisions are often regrettable, but in this case I believe it was the best move. There will always be recriminations when a decision isn’t totally clear-cut, but sometimes sitting and waiting is the worst choice of all.
catclub
@The Dangerman: “profiting handsomely from the presumed sale, not much can be done there… ”
Well, if the Congress were in a hurry, (to avoid an ex post facto law) they could write in a modification to capital gains taxes on basketball franchises sold in 2014. But no lobbyists are pushing that kind of targeted tax break.
scav
How dare private organizations maintain agreed upon codes of conduct they find to their monetary and other benefit! Who do they think they are?
RaflW
$2.5 mil is the maximum fine under NBA rules.
Gee, that’s an absurdly self-serving rule by the multi-millionaire/billionaire owners, for the multi-millionaire/billionaire owners.
Huh.
jl
Good for the NBA for giving Sterling the maximum fine, and trying to force him out. I have no idea whether NBA can force a sale.
Seems to me that Sterling will have to sell.The guy has alienated African-Americans, Hispanics, and anyone who associates with them. And this is not only California, but Los Angeles. So, Sterling has insulted probably well over 90 percent of his fan base.
Who is going to want to wear the gear, for example? I don’;t know how well the fans can separate the team and owner, but hard to believe that ticket sales and other revenue, community relations gigs, etc.
And the other shoe to drop is Sterling’s super oafish rich guy approach to women..
Ash Can
@LAC:
Sums it all up perfectly.
The Dangerman
@catbirdman:
Don’t forget Vegas; a LOT of money is on the line for a “fair game”. For example, recall that the NFL brought back the real referees within hours after a blown call in a Seahawks/Packers game that flipped a win over the spread.
John M. Burt
Thom Hartmann suggests this might be a good occasion to agitate for municipally-owned sports teams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIKV2Lyml9I
Makes sense to me. Like roads and sewers, sports franchises require massive investments in infrastructure and will be more responsive to complaints if they report to a local authority.
Let every town be Green Bay, Wisconsin . . . .
raven
@monkeyfister: So you are saying the fine should be based on his wealth. That’s pretty dumb.
Mandalay
@catclub:
No need for words or alcohol. Unfortunately, thousands of teens have already potentially shafted their futures by uploading revealing images and videos to the intertubz.
Tolerant souls at BJ may not care about videos of someone running for Congress taking it up the ass, but the general public will be less forgiving.
SatanicPanic
@jl: “Who is going to want to wear the gear, for example?”
Remember how they had those Support Chik-Fil-A days? Time to buy Clippers’ tickets wingnuts!
RaflW
@jl: Heard on the radio this afternoon that a 75% vote of NBA owners can force the targeted owner to divest.
Sterling would get his millions, but he agreed to those terms when he bought. I hear he’s a lawsuit machine, so expect him to sue (probably multiple times). But a contract is a contract, right glibertarians?
SatanicPanic
@catclub: It’s not like he just said this out of the blue. If he weren’t a known racist and active discriminater he’d be on the TV apologizing already and paying a much smaller fine.
Citizen_X
@catclub:
Shit like what Sterling said? I’ll go with “not me.” Kinda lacking the years-long history of racist words and deeds, too
What’s with the sympathy for the poor bigoted billionaire, anyway?
LAC
@catclub: Sterling is dirty,okay? He should have been drummed out a long time ago. This isn’t some random dude. So don’t worry – I think a cocktails and hate calling happy hour will survive, if you have one. It is too bad that some folks want to put themselves in Sterling’s old man shoes.
RaflW
@raven: I dunno if that’s what he’s saying, but I’m saying that the $2.5M cap makes no sense at current franchise valuations.
raven
@SatanicPanic: So the fuck what? This is this, not something else.
raven
@RaflW: Whatever. Fucking people would whine and bitch if they gave him the chair because of it’s carbon footprint.
Mandalay
@monkeyfister:
But it is a big deal, since he has already lost his wife and lover. Surely the money aspect is barely relevant, compared to the humiliation and shunning he faces for the rest of his life.
RaflW
@raven: Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning? Sheesh.
SatanicPanic
@raven: Would it make sense to ignore all his past statements and behavior because on the one occasion we have his own voice it’s from a questionable source? Why?
gratuitous
And the asking price for the franchise should be whatever Sterling paid for it, adjusted for inflation. Oh, at the chained-CPI rate, not some other, higher rate.
Can’t you just hear the plaintive wail of the Simpson-Bowles aficionados should one of theirs be subject to the same nostrum they prescribe for the poors?
raven
@SatanicPanic: Because life is one stone motherfucker. He got away with it then he didn’t.
The Dangerman
@SatanicPanic:
I wonder if Sterling can sue for damages for possibly being illegally recorded (there is some information floating around out there that he AGREED to this recording, which boggles the mind)….
Mandalay
@SatanicPanic:
Questionable because the recording may have been doctored, or questionable in the sense that the character of the person who made the recording is relevant?
GregB
It’s just like Jonah Goldberg said:
The white man is the Jew of liberal fascism.
raven
C.S.
@Tom Levenson:
Actually, there is a way he could kinda-sorta lose. If the league forces a sale, I doubt he’d get anywhere near the amount he would have if he had sold last year. There have been rumors floating around L.A. for years that he turned down well over a billion several years ago, when they unequivocally sucked. Also, the NBA’s TV deal is up in less than two years. What would a franchise in L.A., coached by Doc Rivers, and with Griffin, Paul, and Jordan on it, and a perennial contender be worth when that deal gets struck? Forcing a sale now, where he likely gets paid under market now, could be seen as a fine of several hundred million.
Sure he won’t “lose,” because he’s reaped untold profits and increased value from the team over the years. Still, because of this he’ll likely not realize the profit he could have if he’d just been a slightly more decent human.
Death Panel Truck
@catclub:
You mean, “There ain’t no sanity clause.” If you’re going to quote the legendary Chico Marx, please do so correctly. :-)
raven
@Death Panel Truck: You canna no fool me. . .
CONGRATULATIONS!
@The Dangerman: If this happened in California, absolutely. Unless he consented. If he did, well…stupid move, boss.
ETA: suing pretty useless save for the PITA/humiliation factor, as the working girl in question doesn’t seem to have a lot of assets that actually belong to her.
burnspbesq
@RaflW:
I’d be curious to hear which of the Congressional powers enumerated in the Constitution you think would give Congress the ability to pass a law imposing content-based restrictions on the private speech of owners of professional sports teams.
raven
@CONGRATULATIONS!: From an LA lawyer:
catclub
@SatanicPanic: “It’s not like he just said this out of the blue.”
which is kind of my point. He has been probably saying similar things for decades, and it only matters when it comes out. Then very fast, everything changes on what is ok, and just part of what these old dinosaurs do (are). Rush Limbaugh said that everyone knew he was like this, and today is about day 4 after the tape was released. That ‘you cannot do anything that WE judge damages the league’
is in his contract, and he will have to deal with it, but if you have been saying the same kind of thing for 30 years and not getting any punishment, the change is still a surprise.
pete
To my mind, the really interesting takeaway is the attitude of the brand-new NBA Commissioner. I dont know enough about the inside games to know exactly what this implies, but generally the Commissioner has a major influence on running the show, and Silver is off to a first-rate start.
Omnes Omnibus
@John M. Burt: Have you been to Green Bay? I have; but for Lambeau Field, it may as well be Manitowoc.
catclub
@Death Panel Truck: point taken. If I had a hand-horn, I would honk it.
C.S.
@Death Panel Truck:
Chico . . . or The Damned?
jl
The BJ lawyers will jump all of this but John Madden says something that I think is true in terms of society, if not legally, paraphrasing: the owners don’t own anything, they are custodians of the franchise
Daily Madden: NBA Must Resolve Clipper’s Sterling Racist Comments Quickly
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/28/daily-madden-nba-must-resolve-clippers-sterling-racist-comments-quickly/
Discussion of Sterling and ownershp starts around 1:80.
Belafon
@catclub: The UCMJ carries a clause that sounds a lot like that. It’s only used when you know that you don’t want to be around the person any more but the laws haven’t quite caught up. (No, this was not meant to argue how well they are handling harassment cases. I know they’re not doing a good job.)
Mandalay
@burnspbesq:
Nice strawman you built there.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I was about 10 miles north of there on my way to Sister Bay when I got a speeder and had to give up almost all the cash I had for the whole week! Not ATM’s in them days.
SatanicPanic
@Mandalay: Questionable in its legality. Which isn’t to say we can’t judge him based on it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@raven: THAT is a very interesting clause and puts more loopholes in the CA recording law than a lariat. Thanks, because while I was well aware of the recording law, I was not aware of that clause. Could be useful…
dubo
@raven: No, it really, really isn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: That’s one of the risks of speeding in WI while wearing IL plates.
SatanicPanic
@raven: I don’t know what you’re getting at (honestly, I’m not sure I understand). It sucks that he got away with it for so long and it’s good that he finally got in trouble. If it takes a tape, then great. And yeah, it sucks that the league was ignoring this. I’m not making excuses for them by any means.
raven
@dubo: So you think it isn’t and I think it is. Would a hundred million have made you happy or is it just something to complain about?
raven
NBA players, city leaders cheer sanctions against Donald Sterling
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-nba-players-city-leaders-reaction-donald-sterling-sanctions-20140429,0,896846.story#ixzz30J76Fb2j
So these people are satisfied but the intelligentsia of BJ is like Johnny Rocco, they want “more, yea that’s it, more”. Will you ever get enough? “No, I guess I won’t.”
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: In a hot 74 Ford F100 pickup!
Schlemizel
It does not help that I really don’t give a crap about pro sports, most particularly the NBA but does anyone really believe this somehow cleans the owners of their guilt? DO you not suspect that a large number of team owners enjoy ‘owning’ players and secretly (at least in public) think like this guy? Yeah, its all well and good that the NBA smacked him as hard as they could but at the end of the day it changes nothing. The asshole that buys the team will have to be part of the 0.01% and will be whiter than me (unless the league finagles something for Johnson but I doubt even he has the money to play in that group).
Good riddance to a horrible person, welcome to his horrible replacement.
raven
@SatanicPanic: I totally agree that is sucks that he got away with it and I think he’s a lowlife asshole. I’m glad it did come out and I think the league did just fine in handling it in a severe and no-nonsense way. I just think the idea that fining him more money was going to make some kind of difference is wrong.
Culture of Truth
So much for free speech!!
/snark
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: That’s true. Everything does suck and nothing good ever happens.
raven
@Schlemizel: Like I said, life is a stone motherfucker now isn’t it?
Prometheus Shrugged
@C.S.: This is actually my theory for the motives behind whoever set Sterling up and leaked the tape. Magic Johnson and his backers are known to want the Clippers franchise. If Sterling is forced to sell, the price will be several hundred million below what he could have gotten for it, if he sold it at all.
So someone in the Guggenheim group (Magic’s organization) hatches this absolutely brilliant extortion plan that is based on Sterling’s well known and abject bigotry. As Obama said, you don’t have to do much to get ignorant people to advertise their ignorance. So once the inevitable happens and the ignorance spews out, everyone feels better about the end result of the restitution. And the Guggenheim group just netted $300+ million in a feel good moment.
SatanicPanic
@raven: The lifetime ban is what is what will really hurt.
raven
@SatanicPanic: Exactly, and more power to Silver for putting it to Sterling!
Mandalay
@Schlemizel:
I usually agree with your cynicism, but isn’t it likely that Sterling’s replacement will be less horrible? What if Magic Johnson becomes the new owner – would you still feel the same way?
Hungry Joe
@raven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWa6vsXOKAU
The Thin Black Duke
Living in a less-than-perfect world, this is going to be the closest thing to justice that Donald Sterling is ever going to see. I’ll take it.
raven
@Hungry Joe: I was paraphrasing for the sake of brevity!
PaulW
Every ownership group bidding for the team should stick to the lowest value. Why give this guy $800 million? Just keep the bids under $100 million at least. Make it $40 million and we’ll all sleep easier.
PaulW
@SatanicPanic:
He’s 80. Unless he lives to 120, it’s not much of a ban.
PaulW
Anybody who buys the Clippers franchise should also relocate it back to San Diego. It may even improve the value of the team no longer sharing the same market as the Lakers.
Or Seattle. Seattle Clippers… is that doable, or should the team re-name if it goes up there?
Quaker in a Basement
All that AND he probably lost his trophy girlfriend too.
Karma has a bit of a mean streak, eh?
Cacti
@PaulW:
I would imagine they’d re-name the team the Supersonics. It’s not like the Clippers have any history or tradition worth preserving.
Belafon
@Schlemizel: My experience with owners is limited, but i don’t think that Sterling fits in with the other owners. I know everyone has a beef with Cuban, but having seen what he does with the players, it’s obvious he doesn’t think of the players as property the way Sterling did. Yes, Cuban got to buy the really big toy he always wanted, but he spends a lot of money of money on his players, including the locker rooms. He also tends to get in trouble because he’s so focused on his players.
Not entirely defending Cuban’s actions, just contrasting him with Sterling.
jl
@Quaker in a Basement: he lost the trophy girlfriend some time ago, and they are fighting things out in a lawsuit. She denies that she had anything to do with the release of the tape, though.
catclub
@PaulW: “Or Seattle”
I laughed. Isn’t is common knowledge that the NBA swore a blood oath never to let Seattle have ateam since they voted down some large gift to the Sonics ( a new arena) paid for by the citizens.
Why move from LA if the owner is Magic Johnson, and they have become the dominant franchise in the city. Let the Lakers move.
ETA: gift to the OWNERS of the Sonics.
PaulW
@John M. Burt:
It makes sense, and personally I love it, but let’s not kid ourselves. Team ownership is made for oligarchs to buy and sell as personal playthings, much like houses and hotels on Monopoly boards.
Green Bay’s situation happened during a unique period in our nation’s history, back when the value of teams were not that high. Today, due to the billions in TV revenue, franchises are worth so much that none of the leagues would let community ownership come into play.
It’d be nice that forcing a team owner who’s trying to sell out a team he/she no longer wants to an stock-shared community ownership group would be a good alternative to letting teams move or even threaten to move: just think of how Seattle could have kept the Sonics, or Baltimore keeping the Colts and Cleveland keeping the Modell Browns. But the mechanics of getting a community-sharing ownership group together is tricky to begin with, and the leagues are not about to happily give up the prestige that owners get by being owners.
Quaker in a Basement
@jl: Good to know. I only added “probably” because I hadn’t heard that for certain.
Belafon
@PaulW: He was going to games to show that he owns a team. It will hurt him.
PaulW
@catclub:
As if anyone wants a Kobe-led team?!
If true about the NBA p-ssing on Seattle all because Seattle wouldn’t kow-tow to their billionaire-begging for a taxpayer-paid arena, it’s just one more reason why teams shouldn’t be getting public money for their private toys in the first place. Every city/county/state that pays up a percentage of funds to build anything ought to get that percentage back in payment. Screw you Jeff Loria and your Marlins monstrosity…
WaterGirl
Am I the only one who is challenged by the fact that these two people are named “Sterling” and “Silver”?
The Thin Black Duke
It’s time for Jay Smooth to have The Last Word on Donald Sterling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhhKQ0P9x9A
PaulW
@WaterGirl:
Not all that glitters is gold…
catclub
@PaulW: “just one more reason why teams shouldn’t be getting public money for their private toys”
I agree. Dinna hold your breath.
The Seahawks had just wangled a huge stadium out of the Seattleites’
paychecks. I think the Mariners had hit them up, too.
SatanicPanic
@catclub: The Clippers signed a lease until 2024 at the Staples Center, I suppose they could break it.
RaflW
@burnspbesq: The fine rule is an NBA rule. It has nothing to do with Congress or the Constitution and everything to do with contract law. I would have thought that was obvious when the OP said it was an NBA rule.
Hungry Joe
The Spanos family hasn’t given up the quest to extort half a billion $$ — give or take a hundred million or so — from the citizens of San Diego. (“New stadium or we’ll move the Chargers to L.A.! … Oops. Did we say that out loud?”) With the wingnut-plus newspaper, and probably the new mayor in their corner, it could still happen.
Another Holocene Human
@Prometheus Shrugged: Do you feel better after sharing that post hoc conspiracy theory?
RareSanity
@catclub:
I’m not sure what your point is here…in what other facet of life is this not true?
If you get recorded saying something foul about your boss, and somehow your boss gets to hear that recording, would you be shocked if the process began to “make the case” to fire you, make you quit, or if you’re in a right to work state, just fire you outright?
Nowhere is it written that Donald Sterling had an inalienable right to own an NBA franchise, it was a privilege…a privilege that he has now lost. He lost it because statements he made, that were recorded, that he admitted to making, became public, and caused serious harm to the NBA.
The particulars of how the recordings became public, or whom recorded them, or what the motivation was, is wholly irrelevant, because regardless of the answers, the same damage was inflicted by those recordings.
So, the NBA allows for punishments to be assigned when an owner causes harm to the organization…and that’s what Sterling got today.
Maybe Sterling should be more careful about what he says, and whom he says it around…we all do this, why not him? Maybe he should be more discerning when choosing his “girlfriends”. Maybe he should be more careful about how he treats the women in life, in general, then maybe there wouldn’t be so many of them “out to get him”.
It doesn’t matter…the only person at fault in all of this is Donald Sterling, and he has no one to blame but himself. He opened himself up to the “clause” that you are taking issue with, for being just a general asshole.
JaneE
Well, its about time they realized that a racist owner isn’t going to be good for business. It’s not like this is the only problem he has had, specifically regarding African Americans. I hope they change the maximum fine level to something really punitive, like 3 or 10 times the purchase price of the team, ala punitive damage awards. If you can change their behavior, the battle is half won.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mandalay: Yes, for entirely different reasons. Magic Johnson is an untreated sex addict who went through women the way a sick person goes through Kleenex, but with less regard for the women than most people show their used facial tissue.
God knows how many unknowing people he spread the AIDS virus to before his fame and public knowledge that he had the disease forced him to stop.
Prometheus Shrugged
@Another Holocene Human: Yes I do feel better. Now I can remove my aluminum lid and get back to my bitcoin wallet.
Omnes Omnibus
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
?
Schlemizel
@Mandalay:
I doubt that Magic has that kind of cash.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Probably not that many although I’m sure there were some, as the strain of HIV prevalent in the US is difficult to spread through heterosexual intercourse, although it passes more easily from the male to the female, which made the fact that he was infected somewhat unusual.
Given that he had the courage to reveal to the world that he was HIV+ and helped educate millions of Americans about the disease I’m finding it kinda unlikely that he wouldn’t have cooperated with his doctors, thus keeping his viral counts low, and started aggressively using protection
Like many straight guys, he didn’t think there were any real risks to him from unprotected sex besides being stuck with child support, and he was making money where he wasn’t worried about that either. Granted I may not know everything about the situation but I haven’t heard tales of him being a misogynistic jerk like some NFL stars I could mention or some sort of obsessed freak like Wilt Chamberlain who wanted to be the Genghis Khan of the lower 48 with offspring everywhere.
Eric k
@John M. Burt: @PaulW: @PaulW:
They really should be in Anaheim, the only reason they are in LA is because Sterling didn’t want to have to drive there for games, he kept them in that dumpy arena at USC for years when a much better option and chance to build a fan base in Anaheim was there. They do great in LA now but the Lakers won’t stay bad for long.
shortstop
He should have gotten an extra $500K (at least) fine for making me look at him in a warmup suit unzipped to his navel.
Keith G
I finally had enough time in my life to scan the Kareem Abdul Jabar-centered post from last night. That was a mistake. What a wonderful illustration of the the web at one of its lowest uses.
Someone gets a bur up his ass because he read a mislabeled partial segment of a longer piece and therefore formulated an errant notion of what was being said (yes he went back to read the entire article, but seemingly still missed the point). And based on that, others jumped the original author for things he didn’t write so therefore could not have meant. It’s good that eventually folks stepped in to confront the real outrage over an imagined opinion, but it is disappointing that so many nonetheless clung to their indignation for reasons that are beyond me.
Outrage can make one stupid.
Haroldo
@raven: A FIB raising his (I presume) hand, yes?
Gian
@raven:
or smart. a $50 parking ticket is a fortune to a guy on minimum wage, and pocket lint to someone like Sterling. why should the punishment be so painful to one and so light to another just because one is uber rich?
IIRC some scandanavian countries fine based on income or net worth.
Prometheus Shrugged
@Another Holocene Human: I take it back. I feel disgusted now that I see that Rush Limbaugh and Patrick Kincannon had much the same thought.
In my defense, I was thinking more Benito Cereno-like irony and intrigue, and they were thinking “how can I blame Magic and the faux-PC liberal media”?
Theron Ware
I’m sure Sterling carries $2.5 million in his wallet, but the lifetime ban and eventual sale of the club are just.
Kylroy
@John M. Burt: Every major sports league in the U.S. has rules that prevent a Packers-style ownership from happening. Green Bay was grandfathered in due to being one of the first NFL franchises, and then the owners made sure that no team would be allowed to operate without an owner again.
Jamey
Lookadis:
monkeyfister
@raven: No. I am saying it is so low, it is just another line-item of doing business. It is not punitive.