Entertainment

Steve Ballmer Buys LA Clippers For $2 Billion

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(Gossip-Grind News) Steve Ballmer Buys LA Clippers For $2 Billion:

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has won the Los Angeles Clippers bidding war. Ballmer has agreed to buy the franchise for $2 billion.

The record-breaking deal still needs to be signed by current owner Donald Sterling, who is being forced to sell the team as a result of racist comments he made.

Ballmer beat out two other groups who had bid $1.6 billion and $1.2 billion for the team.

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ESPN reports:

A source close to the situation told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that Sterling and Ballmer signed the final papers of the sale shortly before midnight Thursday at the offices of her Los Angeles-based attorneys. Sterling announced she was acting under her authority as the sole trustee of the Sterling family trust, which owns the Clippers.

“I am delighted that we are selling the team to Steve, who will be a terrific owner,” Sterling said in a statement. “We have worked for 33 years to build the Clippers into a premiere NBA franchise. I am confident that Steve will take the team to new levels of success.”

Ballmer, who previously had been involved in a failed bid to buy the Sacramento Kings and relocate them to Seattle, released a statement saying he was “honored” by the opportunity.

Ballmer has said both publicly and privately that he will not relocate the Clippers from Los Angeles.

“I love basketball,” he said. “And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win — and win big — in Los Angeles. L.A. is one of the world’s great cities — a city that embraces inclusiveness, in exactly the same way that the NBA and I embrace inclusiveness. I am confident that the Clippers will in the coming years become an even bigger part of the community.”

Shelly Sterling became the sole trustee of the Sterling family trust very recently, sources told Shelburne and ESPN’s Darren Rovell, when husband Donald Sterling, the Clippers’ controlling owner, was found by experts to be mentally incapacitated. The rules of the trust did not require a court hearing first to declare Donald Sterling, 80, incapacitated. That allowed Shelly Sterling to negotiate directly with Ballmer and the NBA to sell the team.

The agreement will be sent straight to the NBA for final approval, sources told Shelburne. It must be approved by the league office, and Ballmer must be approved by three-fourths of the league’s owners.

Donald Sterling’s lawyer Max Blecher did not return messages asking for comment on Shelly Sterling’s actions. However, earlier in the day, Blecher said in an email to ESPN that his client had not signed off on the sale.

Bobby Samini, another attorney for Donald Sterling, told the Los Angeles Times, “There’s been no sale. There can be no sale without Donald’s signature.”

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