It looks like Steve Ballmer’s deal to buy the Clippers is a sure thing but what does the former Microsoft man want with a basketball team? Emmet Ryan says this is more than just a toy for the newest owner in the NBA.
First things first, Steve Ballmer is already a massive upgrade as owner of the Clippers. The bar is so low that we could resurrect Nixon and give it to him and it would be an improvement on the Sterlings. Assuming the $2 billion deal gets ratified, Ballmer will become the latest tech billionaire to invest in a NBA franchise, following Mark Cuban. The former Microsoft CEO has the potential to be just as fiery and controversial as the Mavericks’ owner.
Economically speaking, looking at the Clippers purely as a business, the fee looks high. The inflation in sports franchise prices however, with billionaires treating them as luxury items, means we have to look past conventional economics. Paying $2 billion for the second team in Los Angeles (yes they are currently better but the Clippers are dwarfed by the Lakers in the popularity stakes) looks ludicrous now but, as pretty much every NBA owner looking to sell has found out, Ballmer will be able to offload the team for far more should he look to in a few years.
Fundamentally this is about a challenge for Ballmer. You have to get inside the mind of a man who joined Microsoft back in 1980. He was just the firm’s 30th employee. That was a company in a challenging environment looking to explode. Over the next three decades they became the dominant player, the incumbent everyone deferred to. They were the Jordan era Bulls, nobody could touch them. As giants Microsoft lost flexibility, giving room for Google to charge ahead. Ballmer famously declared he was going to “fucking kill Google”. That didn’t work out so well and then the Surface, Mircosoft’s hybrid tablet-cum-laptop, which Ballmer heavily backed failed to catch fire. Essentially the fight wasn’t fun anymore. Being CEO of Microsoft still gave him a ton of power in the world but, like being GM of the Lakers right now, it also came with a pile of headaches.
Ballmer’s aggressive manner at Microsoft made him look like the bad guy, a villain people liked to see taken down a peg or two. In truth, he was just trying to bring his business forward but his persona grated plenty in the public sphere. In Los Angeles, he has a new challenge, a chance to make the fiery image look positive in the public eye.
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Group A
Here on The Continent, all but the hardiest envy those in the Western Hemisphere today; as the holiday fades into evening here, the NBA’s awesome quintupleheader is just beginning: To watch this live, the European would have to pull an all-nighter, with wall-to-
This one goes out by request to BallinEurope’s Lithuanian agent Y. … with Team USA coming together to play the Dominican Republic today – 
It’s time for another BallinEurope shameless plug. Contributing writer David Hein has produced yet another great writeup over at the German Bundesliga’s official website. 
Okay, after that Xmas distraction, BallinEurope is ready to write up some more stuff about good tidings and cheer*, namely, the start of the NBA season. With hours to go, BiE’s got just enough time to get in the part two of the Euro-centric big-league preview in this brief look at the teams in the Western Conference – plus Official Fearless Predictions™, guaranteed to be as accurate as they are popular.
