Quote:
Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky
Is anyone important really proposing the NBA confiscate his team? Is that even legally plausible? I mean, Sterling is a grade-A A-hole, but you can't just take someone's property away from them, even if it's mostly an intellectual property managed by a third party.
What IS plausible is penalizing the team with loss of TV revenue, no Allstar game, draft picks, etc.
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Suppose you're in a business partnership (that's what the NBA is, right?) ....operating say...a restaurant, and one of your business partners is revealed to be a racist on the order of Sterling. Customers stop coming. Catering gigs dry up. Vendors stop selling to you. Longtime employees file discrimination suits. You have trouble getting skilled kitchen help, waitstaff, etc. Your landlord becomes difficult to deal with. You have trouble getting insurance for your business. The Health Department starts sending Mr. González out for what become every-two-week inspections, and you can't ever manage to come out of an inspection with less than 50 penalty points, and you keep having to close your business for Health Department-ordered repairs, and this starts getting disseminated via social media, and sites like Yelp. The local paper puts you on the front page publicizing your recent business difficulties. The local news station comes and stands in your empty parking lot and does a 4-minute segment about the racist business partner, about your recent problems with employees, vendors and the Health Department.
Would the non-culpable business partners be required to stay in business with the racist business partner? Or could they say, "Hey, this thing's going down the toilet. All of us are going to lose our investment if we can't attract business and resolve these employee lawsuits. We can give you this much money right now for your interest in the business, you leave, go far, far away, and say nothing publically ever again about our business, or our business relationship or the fact that we were ever even acquaintances; or we can all go down in flames together." If he refuses your offer, are you obligated to stay in business with him? Or can you dissolve the business relationship and re-open somewhere else on your own?
The NBA's situation is complicated, and complicated by the fact that they don't seem to have a clearcut provision for getting out themselves out of this situation. (In fact, now you've got an owner like Cuban saying that he doesn't even want such a provision.)
And even if the NBA declares that everyone on the team can be a free agent, what's to stop Sterling from suing and saying that the league has diminished the value of his investment? Or that the loss of draft picks is excessive punishment, and similarly negatively affects the value of his investment? Or that they have coerced him into divesting? Damned if they do, gosh-damned if they don't. Gonna be costly either way.
What stopped Cuban from suing Stern and saying that $500,000 was excessive or his remarks critical of NBA offciating? Where is the line? By comparison, Sterling's remarks were private, and released without his knowledge or consent. What gives the league any authority at all to punish him?
Their authority is what they say it is, and what they want it to be, whatever they have the collective will (and perhaps resources) to enforce. The other owners will have to make a business decision about how much they're willing to let Sterling cost them either in terms of a buyout, a forced buyout, protracted legal battles or lost business revenues, and labor difficulties, and general brand degradation.
29 other owners scruffling up $20 million apiece to buy Sterling out. Is there an NBA owner out there who can't get their hands on $20 million?