Steve Ballmer to Buy Clippers for $2 Billion

Former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, left, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver attend an NBA playoff game on May 11. GC Images

Former Microsoft Corp. MSFT +0.82%  chief Steve Ballmer will buy the Los Angeles #Clippers for $2 billion, according to Shelly #Sterling, wife of embattled team owner Donald Sterling. Ms. Sterling had been running a process to sell the team.

Mr. Sterling's attorney had said late Thursday, though—before Ms. Sterling announced the deal—that Mr. Sterling hadn't yet decided whether he would sell the team or fight to keep it.

Ms. Sterling said she had signed a binding contract for the sale. She and Mr. Sterling each owns half of the team through a trust they share, though he is the owner as recognized by the NBA. Ms. Sterling acted under her authority as the sole trustee.

Mr. Ballmer, whose bid is three times the record price for an NBA franchise, said he would be "honored" to have his name submitted to the NBA Board of Governors for approval. For the NBA to sign off on a sale, the league wants Mr. Sterling to agree to several provisions: to not sue the league, to pay a $2.5 million fine levied by the league and to accept a lifetime ban imposed by the league, according to people familiar with the terms.

Ms. Sterling received four offers for the franchise. They included a $1.6 billion bid from entertainment mogul David Geffen, who is working with Guggenheim Partners, Oprah Winfrey and Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. There was also a $1.2 billion offer from billionaires Antony Ressler and Bruce Karsh, who were joined by former NBA star Grant Hill.

Ms. Sterling, who enlisted Bank of America BAC +0.07%  to run the sale of the team, has been in contact with Mr. Sterling around the process. News of Mr. Ballmer's $2 billion bid, was earlier reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Investors Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry paid $550 million for the Milwaukee Bucks earlier this year, the most recent sale of an NBA team. The deal included the assumption of $125 million in debt. The highest price paid for a U.S. sports team was the $2.15 billion paid for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team in 2012.

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling AFP/Getty Images

Initially, Mr. Sterling—who bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million—agreed to allow his wife to sell the team, but later he changed his mind. On Wednesday, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, his lawyer said Mr. Sterling was intent on fighting the sale. Late Thursday Mr. Sterling's attorney Max Blecher said Mr. Sterling hadn't agreed to sell the team to Mr. Ballmer or anyone else.

"Will that change? I don't know," he added.

The NBA has said it will move forward with plans to strip the Sterlings of the team if there isn't a deal in place by June 3, part of the league's response to racist comments by Mr. Sterling made public in a recording last month. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver fined Mr. Sterling $2.5 million, banned him from the league and vowed to do all he could to force Mr. Sterling to sell the team.

Mr. Sterling earlier this week responded to charges from the NBA that he damaged the league and the team with the comments, calling the league's efforts to force a sale illegal and saying the process is stacked against him.

Mr. Ballmer, who owns Microsoft stock valued at more than $13 billion, has twice been among a group that tried to buy an NBA team and move it to Seattle, where he has long lived.

However Mr. Ballmer, who stepped down as Microsoft CEO in February, said in the interview earlier this month that he was willing to own an NBA team outside of Seattle now that he has stopped working at Microsoft, headquartered in the nearby suburb of Redmond, Wash.

Mr. Ballmer said earlier that if he made a bid for the Clippers he wouldn't move the team. "Moving them anywhere else would be value destructive," he said. Mr. Ballmer declined to comment on Thursday.

People who know Mr. Ballmer or have worked with him say he is a basketball zealot whose energy for the sport is equally evident when he is playing pickup games with Microsoft employees, sitting in the stands at NBA playoff series or shouting at referees for high-school games. Mr. Ballmer was photographed recently taking in an NBA game with Mr. Silver, the league commissioner.

"I love basketball, and I'd love to participate at some point in the NBA," Mr. Ballmer said in the May 14 interview.

In that interview, Mr. Ballmer was asked to predict who would win the NBA championship title this season. "The team I'm rooting for the most is the L.A. Clippers," said Mr. Ballmer, who added that he knew one of the team's players, Jamal Crawford. The Clippers were eliminated from the playoffs the next day. Source: WSJ