LA Clippers Owner Donald Sterling under fire for taped racist comments to GF

[Yank2133]

Sterling racism is no surprise to anyone who follows the NBA. The league have been trying to get rid of him or at least 20 years now.

[Yank2133]

What kind of demographic is a Clippers fan anyways? I always wondered that, considering the popularity of the Lakers.

I always wondered why they didn't try to market their team to blacks and/or Hispanics, like the White Sox. I guess this explains why.

They do, it is just hard to be successful at it when you are in the same town with the Lakers. Off-topic, but I do hope if they are able to push Sterling out that the new ownership moves this team to Seattle, because that is the city that deserves to have a team.

[Yank2133]

The fact that this demonstrates there can be fairly adverse economic consequences for being a known racist does weaken the case for the continuation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act.  Of course implying that an NBA franchise is anything like a typical business serving the public would be idiotic, but no business that seeks to have a national presence can afford to be seen to be tolerating racism today.  Alas, we're not there yet, as the NBA was willing to tolerate Sterling as long as he wasn't widely seen.

Many owners hating him and wanted to get rid of him since long, but they needed 24 team owners (on 30) agreeing on that. Hard to do so without a good reason.

True, but it doesn't help the leagues image that they basically gave him Chris Paul.