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Daily Madden: $2 Billion For The LA Clippers; What Is Steve Ballmer Thinking?

SAN FRANCSICO (KCBS) — Shelly Sterling reached an agreement to sell the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion.

The sale still has by the NBA before it can go forward and would require Donald Sterling's signature as 50 percent owner, but a statement released by Shelly Sterling's representatives stated she acted "under her authority as the sole trustee of the Sterling Family Trust."

Donald Sterling bought the team in 1981 for $12.5 million.

Daily Madden: $2 Billion For The LA Clippers; What Is Steve Ballmer Thinking?

The awarded purchase price, which breaks an NBA record so on Friday morning, Madden was asked what he thinks is on the minds of prospective owners when it comes to offering up such huge sums of money. Is it really to make more money or to turn up a profit later down the road?

"Well, $2 billion—he's not thinking of making money. I know that. I can figure that out pretty quickly but it reminds me of when Rupert Murdoch was at Fox and they didn't have any sports and he bought the NFL (rights) and paid a big, big number that just blew everyone else out of the water," he said.

Madden was referring to Murdoch who, in 1993, snatched the rights to televise NFC games, as well as the 1997 Super Bowl, away from CBS by offering the NFL $1.6 billion over four years—$100 million a year more than CBS chairman Laurence Tisch was willing to spend.

"After I went there, I asked Rupert, 'So how did you arrive at this number?' and he said he had to put a number at a point where greed will overcome loyalty. He said there is price on that and he knew that if I got to that point, because the NFL owners were going to loyal to CBS because they had been there forever. So he had to come up with a number so high, he just blew them out of the water," Madden said.

Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM.

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