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Steve Ballmer paid $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers. But a new report from the Financial Times said he might get about half of what he paid back in the form of tax benefits over the next 15 years.Ballmer's purchase was a record for NBA franchises, coming at nearly four times the next-highest amount ever paid for an NBA team.But the FT found that using a goodwill tax exemption allowed for sports teams, Ballmer could get back $1 billion in taxes.Here's how the FT lays it out:Under an exception in US law, buyers of sports franchises can use...

LOS ANGELES -- A judge ruled against Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling on Monday in his attempt to block the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. In the tentative ruling, Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas sided with Sterling's estranged wife Shelly Sterling, who burst into tears when the ruling was announced. "I can't believe it's over. I feel good," she said. Shelly Sterling negotiated the sale of the team after the 80-year-old billionaire was banned by the NBA for making offensive remarks about blacks. She sought approval from a probate judge...

I imagine Donald Sterling is going to fight this one too, but… Shelly Sterling has been granted the authority to sell the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer because her husband and co-owner Donald Sterling has been declared mentally incapacitated under the terms of the trust the couple owns the team through. That made her the sole trustee and decision maker. That according to the tapped in Ramona Shelburne of ESPN. There have been reports and rumors that Donald Sterling has been battling dementia, which is the reason his former mistress claimed to make the recordings that sparked the...

Gannett paper: Link only: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/clippers/2014/05/27/donald-sterling-letter-privacy-los-angeles-lawsuit-ban/9646707/

... Sterling revoked gal pal V. Stiviano’s tickets, parking passes and luxury suite access to Los Angeles Clippers games in April, possibly touching off a crazy chain of events that ended with him losing his high-flying basketball franchise, according to the LA Times. Shelly Sterling — the owner’s estranged wife — filed a lawsuit against Stivano in March, demanding she return a laundry list of expensive gifts that Donald Sterling had given her. Six days after that lawsuit was filed, Donald Sterling cut off Stiviano from Clippers games. When a team employee reached out to Stiviano, she texted a seemingly...

Let's say tha someone owned a chain of hotels (be they whatever number of stars), and this individual was caught on tape uttering a string of racial expletives. Let's say furthermore that this individual had signed a contract that if they were to ever bring harm to the company or impugn its name, that within the contract clause for owners this individual could be forced to sell. That I could see and understand. But let's say that this individual sold his string of fancy hotels, and later wanted to rent a room in a hotel that was far away from...

I really should say something about outrage-fest that has mostly concluded over in the NBA and its environs. Clippers owner Donald Sterling got himself banned from NBA games and practices for life, and was fined 2.5 million dollars, because he managed to insinuate himself onto some audio, the playing of which audio proved to the world that he was in fact a racist jerk, not to mention a bounder and cad. It is difficult to summon up any sympathy for that kind of guy, and so why bother? No sympathy at all, at least not from this quarter. The fact...

...on Don Sterling's arm ...and the disturbing racial secret behind her mysterious name changes Changed her name in 2010, for a very disturbing reason adding: 'I haven't yet been fully accepted' because of her race Vanessa Stiviano portrays her life as that of a glamorous jet-setting model - a stunning mixed-race 'philanthropist' with the world at her feet. Calling herself V. Stiviano, the woman behind the Donald Sterling race hate scandal seems to want for nothing. The 31-year-old lives in an impressive $1.8m condo in an upscale, tree-lined avenue in Los Angeles, close to Beverly Hills. She owns a bright...

How? Are the two reconcilable? Secondly, should (not can) an owner of a team be forced to sell his team, and/or be banned from attending any NBA game as a non-owner - attending a NBA game like any other person? Example: Is the situation of an owner saying that blacks cannot eat in his restaurant different from someone saying that now the restaurant is under new management, and the racists will no longer be allowed to eat in that same restaurant? When hunting monsters should society be careful that it doesn't become a monster when doing so? I think so....

NBC and TMZ are the latest to learn how the irresistible urge for a scoop, even for a matter of minutes, can burn a news organization. NBC on Tuesday quoted an anonymous source when it incorrectly reported how the NBA was punishing Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for racist comments just minutes before league commissioner Adam Silver announced it. NBC reported Sterling would be banned indefinitely and fined $5 million. Silver banned Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million. […] TMZ cited “sources familiar with the situation” in reporting the wrong punishment about 20 minutes before NBC. TMZ...

Well, it looks like Donald Sterling will not be getting that NAACP lifetime achievement award he was set to receive at the civil rights organization's 100th anniversary celebration in Los Angeles in May. Allegedly, Sterling's 30-something girlfriend, a model who goes by the name of V. Stiviano, whom Sterling's wife of 50 years is suing, taped these remarks of the 80-year-old owner of the L.A. Clippers: "You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it ... and not to bring them to...

A private recording of racist remarks by the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, in a telephone conversation was released last week. Among other comments, Sterling said to his former mistress, a black Mexican woman known as V. Stiviano: "It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to? ... You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that ... and not to bring them to my games....

The N.B.A. has started an investigation into remarks attributed to the Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling after the release Friday night of an audio recording on TMZ.com in which a person TMZ identified as Sterling admonished a female friend to avoid being seen in public with black people. Reaction around the league, whose players are predominantly African-American, was swift. The Clippers, who are in San Francisco for their first-round playoff series with the Golden State Warriors, held a team meeting late Friday, according to The Los Angeles Daily News. Magic Johnson, the former Lakers star and minority owner, said...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Disbelieving eyes followed the arc of the first three-point shot, and as it splashed into the net, they became wider. By the second consecutive make, jaws began to fall. By the third, which seemed to float and then fall through in slow motion, there was only silence. PHOTOS: Clippers vs. Grizzlies, Game 1 Said Clippers forward Kenyon Martin: "It got quiet." By then, with 1 minute 47 seconds left in the fourth quarter of the Clippers' 99-98 win at FedEx Forum on Sunday, many in the sellout crowd of 18,119 could only look around in disbelief, trying...