Donald Sterling suspended, fined $5 million: reports

Banned his stupid ass.

This fine is nothing for this guy, the last time he had to pay up it was $2.7M. Comparing it to a guy making a $100K a year was $57.00

His stated worth is in the neighborhood of $1.9 Billion so you're right in assuming it's chump change. Even being forced to sell the team won't financially hurt him. Hopefully the humiliation and public scorn will fill in for financial hardship. But the NBA is kicking his sorry ass out of their boardroom.

Suspended is too weak of a word. He's banned for life.

I wonder what other leagues think of this decision. How many NHL owners would survive a similar standard against racism?

This is actually the hugest penalty a professional league's levied against anyone (player, coach, manager, or owner) since MLB banned Pete Rose for life over the gambling he was doing on baseball games.

Can't say Sterling didn't fully deserve this. The guy's been a royal bastard for most of his life and he finally did something so embarrassing that even his fellow reprobate owners couldn't ignore it this time. Good on the NBA for hitting him as hard as he earned it.

Agree. I really have to hand it to the nba. When they come down on someone they down with great fire and curious vengeance.

And it's not like he could keep being the owner of a team in a sport where the majority of the players and the fan base are black after saying what he said.

He deserves everything that's coming to him.

If nothing else, it would be financial suicide for the league to allow Mr. Sterling to keep his franchise.

A precedent has now been set where all owners of professional teams will wonder if what they thought were private conversations in the past were recorded or any future ones will be.

I heard a report that said he bought the Clippers for 12 million, and could probably get close to 500 million for them now. Yeah the 2.5 million fine is not going to hurt him at all.

That was actually set back in the 90's by Marge Schott who owned the Cincinnati Reds.

I think trying to force him to sell the Clippers is going to be a tough battle. My understanding is the NBA can do all it wants to try and make him sell the team but nothing is in their by-laws that can make him sell it.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the NBA can force him to sell either. At the most, they can lean on him as hard as possible to GTFO. And rightly so.

Yeah, and he's already said that he's going to fight the ruling. They can still ban him from all day-to-day activities with the team though, and basically keep him from having any involvement at all with the front office, just like the NFL did with the above-mentioned Schott and MLB did with George Steinbrenner. The old prick will still collect money as the team owner but other than that his rule over contracts, signings, drafts, trades, office salaries, and anything else to do with any aspect at all of the team's management is over. If he doesn't own the arena they play in they can also perma-ban him from attending any games too. It's quite amazing how much power as professional sports league has in policing itself and if he antagonizes the NBA too much they'll smack him down harder than they've already done.

I had no idea that Sterling had been a member of CKA!

The NBA's nuclear option, which I expect they will use, will be to revoke his franchise. He will own a team, but won't have a league in which to field that team.