In 1988, Paul Allen, who founded Microsoft alongside Bill Gates, bought the Trail Blazers for $70 million. Seated behind the baseline during games and wearing a boyish grin verging on rapturous, he took great joy in the franchise. So much so that he evangelized sports ownership to his friend and coworker. Steve Ballmer recalls that, again and again, Allen gushed to him, Steve, you gotta buy a team! Steve, you gotta buy a team!
Says Ballmer: “I saw what that meant to him.” Ballmer was too busy to heed Allen’s suggestion, serving, as he was, as CEO of Microsoft. But in 2014, Ballmer retired. Just a few months later, the Clippers came on the block when the franchise’s noxious owner, Donald Sterling, was essentially forced to part with the team.
This was no fire sale. Ballmer paid $2 billion. For the perennially cursed Clippers. Three years after the 76ers had sold for $280 million. And the same year the Bucks sold for $550 million. If this purchase reset the market for NBA teams, so be it. Ballmer had his team.
