Barry LeBrock
(An edited version of this story appears on FoxSports.Com)Never before has an issue so widely debated been so inevitable in its outcome. As a nation's eyes turn to Adam Silver, the new NBA commissioner can simply sit back and do nothing. This thing has already been decided. The league's Donald Sterling problem; a situation that seems to have a hundred possible resolutions actually has just one and it will end up taking care of itself.
Sterling lives in a world where money rules. Yes, we all do to an extent, but this is a man whose exorbitant wealth has allowed him to bypass many basic human decencies on his way to a life of excess and power. Notably stingy for the first 90% of his Clippers ownership, it is only in the past few years that he has been willing to peel some bills off the top of his formidable stack to put a competitive team on the floor. And now it is the almighty buck that will ultimately be his undoing.
Sterling's recent egregious racist comments blew up over the weekend. Clippers business partners started bailing the moment America opened for business Monday morning. CarMax, Kia Motors, Red Bull, Virgin Airlines... the list goes on and on. They're all gone. The companies either cut ties immediately or suspended their financial support of the Clippers until an investigation determines that the facts in question are indeed, facts without question.
With the businesses checking out, Sterling loses the precious revenue stream of in-arena advertising. TV sponsors are in the starting blocks, knuckles down, and will be bolting as well. So many sponsors will leave that any who dare stay will seem as though they are advocating Sterling's views. Guilt by association. Customer boycotts will eventually send any stragglers scurrying as well.
Every single sponsor will be gone. TV and radio networks will follow the money right out the door. Then the players will go. Black, white or other, current Clippers whose contracts expire will leave. Free-agents will double over in laughter at the mere suggestion that the Clippers want to make an offer. The team will be completely non-competitive, if in fact it can even drum up five guys to put on the court.
And finally, in a beautiful irony, it will be the little guy that drives the final dagger into the heart of the big, mean, racist monster. Clippers fans -- the ones who have spent their hard-earned and precious dollars to support this team and its owner over the years will stay away. The same way Dodger fans withheld support during the recent Frank McCourt ownership debacle, Clipper fans will spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere. This is, after all, Los Angeles. There's plenty else to do and see.
How fitting that after accumulating his great wealth through decades of monthly rent checks, ticket sales, pricey concession-stand beers and in-arena advertising, it is now the very people who have enabled him who will stop the Sterling gravy train dead in its tracks.
This game is over. Team for sale. No need for Adam Silver to flex any muscle or waste any breath. Of course he will though. He'll come down hard. What does he have to lose? Being against racism is like being in favor of Thanksgiving. Its a one-way debate.
Be that as it may, the situation will take care of itself, much the same way that athletes police the fields or courts on which they play. Unwritten rules have been broken. The code has been dismissed. Donald Sterling is finished as an NBA owner. No sponsors, no broadcast networks. No players, no fans. No chance for this to play out any other way.
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