What do you do if you were the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world with millions in retirement money? If you are former Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, you buy the LA Clippers basketball team.

Ballmer reportedly put in a $2-billion bid for the team after the Sterling family trust out it up for sale. Former owner Donald Sterling rose to notoriety a couple of weeks ago after Sterling made apparent racists comment to his girlfriend. The NBA is in the process of terminating the Sterlings’ ownership in the team as a result of the comments.

Before Ballmer gets the nod, the deal will first need the approval of 75% of the NBA Board of Governors, and possibly Sterling himself.

Ballmer is grouped together with other celebrities who made a play for the team, including music mogul David Geffen and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. According to CNN, if Ballmer becomes the new owner of the Clippers, it would be one of the biggest NBA transactions in history.

“If the deal goes through, it would be the largest sum paid for an NBA franchise. Last month, the Milwaukee Bucks, a bad team in a small television market, sold for $550 million. But the Clippers are in the second-largest market in the league, albeit one they share with the Los Angeles Lakers,” they wrote.

This is Ballmer’s second involvement with a basketball team and hopefully it would be more successful than his first. Last year the governors denied the sale of the Sacramento Kings to a group that included Ballmer, as it would have involved the team being moved to Seattle. The league’s relocation committee put a stop to it as they recommended that the team remains in Sacramento.

Sterling would be making a tidy sum in profit, as be bought the Clippers for $12-million in 1981.

[Source – CNN, Image – file]