

Steve Ballmer to Sign $2 Billion Deal to Buy L.A. Clippers Basketball Team - qwerty_asdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/sports/basketball/ballmer-sterling-clippers.html

======
sambrand
He suggests he won't relocate the team to Seattle (doing so would be "value
destructive"). But I wonder if this purchase itself destroys the value of his
own net worth. That's a lot of money to pay for what was just a few years ago
the hallmark of a terrible pro sports franchise.

~~~
zevyoura
According to the article Ballmer has ~$20B. 10% is significant, but not
exactly "destroy[ing] the value of his own net worth."

~~~
waterlesscloud
According to Wikipedia, Ballmer joined Microsoft as employee #30 in 1980.

A year later, in 1981, when Microsoft incorporated, Ballmer held 8% of the
shares.

That was a pretty neat trick.

~~~
Omniusaspirer
My google-fu seems to be failing me, does anyone know how exactly he obtained
an 8% stake in the company in a single year?

------
taspeotis
Previous discussion [1], including LA Clippys jokes [2].

Bonus LA Clippys humour [3].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819188)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819293)

[3] [http://t.co/LbPyPcRgd8](http://t.co/LbPyPcRgd8)

~~~
nemasu
Awww, I felt smart and witty for once ... way to ruin it.

~~~
hkmurakami
Hahaha all my MSFT friends gave me crap for the unoriginality when I quoted it
on FB too. I imagine there must be a boatload of inhouse clippy jokes at
Redmond ;)

------
nemasu
Oh man, is he going to rename it the L.A. Clippys?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I suppose he could give the "Dribblers, dribblers, dribblers" talk. But joking
aside I've wonder what the value proposition was for owning a team (wonder why
Cuban owns the Mavericks, etc) Sure there is a status symbol kind of thing but
what kind of return do you get on that capital? Can you get $2M/year out of
it? $20M? $200M? What is the internal rate of return from the franchise?

~~~
melvinmt
Operating income is $15m/yr: [http://www.forbes.com/teams/los-angeles-
clippers/](http://www.forbes.com/teams/los-angeles-clippers/)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Wow, 0.75% on your $2B. I suppose it must be the status thing then since
putting that $2B in a treasury ladder would get you a guaranteed 2.2% or about
$44M annually (and tax free, with no wondering if your T-bills were going to
make it into the playoffs :-)

