Donald Sterling Proves Once Again That He Is The Worst Owner In Sports

Kurt BadenhausenForbes Staff

Donald Sterling bought the Los Angeles Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million when the team played in San Diego. He orchestrated a move to the bigger Los Angeles market in 1984 that triggered a $25 million penalty by the NBA. He countersued for $100 million and the NBA back down allowing him to pay $6 million from expansion proceeds instead. As the Los Angeles Lakers piled up titles over the next three decades, the Clippers racked up losses and fired coaches. Sterling was branded a cheapskate for never paying to keep star players, as well as moves like not hiring a coach during the 1998 lockout to save a few bucks. Sterling was lambasted for the Clippers putting up only two winning seasons over 32 years, but started making millions when the team became a tenant at the Staples SPLS +1.45% Center. The Clippers were dubbed the worst franchise in pro sports by ESPN The Magazine in 2009. But Sterling’s faults run much deeper than the inability to field a competent basketball team before the last three seasons.

The laundry list of Sterling’s misdeeds include a housing discrimination lawsuit he settled for $2.7 million with the government where he was accused of not renting apartments to Hispanics and blacks. He was sued in 2006 by the Justice Department for allegations of housing discrimination in the Koreatown part of Los Angeles. Sterling was sued by longtime Clippers general manger Elgin Baylor for wrongful termination alleging racial and age discrimination after Baylor lost his job.

Donald Sterling brings shame to the NBA once again.

The latest blow is an audio recording released by TMZ that alleges a conversation between Sterling and his girlfriend, V. Stiviano. Sterling rails on Stiviano for associating with black people and posting a photo on Instagram posing with Lakers’ legend Magic Johnson. A couple of the stomach turning comments include: “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” He later adds, ”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.” Sterling’s girlfriend is black and Mexican.

The NBA has put up with the Sterling sideshow for too long, while he built a $1.9 billion fortune from his real estate portfolio and the Clippers. The club is now one of the games biggest attractions with stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, as well as a championship coach in Doc Rivers. It is time for new commissioner Adam Silver to step in and remove Sterling from the NBA.

There is precedent for this kind of action. Former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was suspended from baseball for a full season for her derogatory comments regarding Jews and blacks. The suspension didn’t help and she uttered her famous line, “[Adolf Hitler] was O.K. in the beginning.” She added: “He just took it too far.” She was then reportedly forced to sell the club by MLB. Baseball seized control of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2011 because owner Frank McCourt used the team like his personal ATM. McCourt was forced out as the team was sold to Guggenheim Baseball. McCourt walked away a rich man when Guggenheim paid $2 billion for the club.

An NBA spokesman issued the following statement: “We are in the process of conducting a full investigation into the audio recording obtained by TMZ. The remarks heard on the recording are disturbing and offensive, but at this time we have no further information.” Sterling has not commented on the reports.

Activist Jesse Jackson has called for a boycott of Clippers games. Johnson took to Twitter in a series of tweets to express his displeasure with Sterling.

Sterling is a courtside regular at Clippers games and loves the attention that comes with owning a basketball team in the second biggest sports market in the U.S. He is the NBA’s longest tenured owner after the death of Jerry Buss last year, who owned the Lakers since 1979. The Clippers are one of the favorites to win the 2014 NBA title along with the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder. Does the NBA really want to take the chance that its crowning moment of the season will be Commissioner Silver handing the Larry O’Brien trophy to Sterling on national TV if the Clippers win the NBA title? Time to send Sterling to the showers and end his ownership tenure that only brings shame to the NBA.

–

You can follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my Facebook profile. Read my Forbes blog here.