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Geffen told ESPN that he, Ellison and Winfrey would together like to take over the team since “the team deserves a better group of owners who want to win, ” adding (about Ellison), “Larry would sooner die than fail. I would sooner die than fail. Larry’s a sportsman. We‘ve talked about this for a long time. Between the three of us, we have a good shot.”
Octogenarian Sterling, who has a personal net worth about about $2billion, bought the Clippers in 1981 for just US$12 million and turned it into an exceptionally franchise in the 32 years since he bought it. For that reason people tended to turn a distinctly blind eye to what been long known to be obviously racist positions over the years, until now when everything has changed and society is simply no longer as forgiving.
Today the Clippers team is said to be valued at about US$600 million, a huge increase. Larry Ellison is worth about US$48 billion, Geffen another US$6 billion and Winfrey a mere almost US$3billion, according to Forbes magazine’s billionaires list. So they can certainly afford to club together to buy a basketball team.
Of course they will not be alone in seeking to buy such a successful franchise, and a bidding war could well even develop. Others reported to be potentially interested in the team include former basketball star Magic Johnson himself, the screen actor Matt Damon and likely others as well
It would be very ironic if, as a result of all the brouhaha Donald sterling should have a big success in auctioning off the team at top dollar. That would certainly, perhaps, give new meaning to the term “there is no such thing as bad publicity”ץ
