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  1. #1
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    Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, has just been banned for life by the NBA. He has been fined $2.5 million and the league will try to force him to sell the team. This all stems from racial comments he made. The very new Commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver is the one making this ruling. I wonder if an owner of an NFL team did the exact same thing would he receive the same punishment?

    http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba-ban...181803437.html

    The NBA has banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million for racial comments he made to his reported girlfriend. The NBA will immediately begin working to try to force him to sell the team.

    "The hateful opinions voiced by that of the man [on the tape] are those of Donald Sterling," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. "…I'm personally distraught the views expressed by Mr. Sterling came from within an institution that has historically taken such a leadership role in matters of race relations."

    As part of the ban, Sterling is not allowed "to attend any NBA games or practices, be present at any Clippers office or facility, or participate in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team." Sterling also will be barred from attending any Board of Governors meetings and participating in any other league activity.

    The fine is the maximum the NBA can issue under the NBA constitution, Silver said. Seventy-five percent of the NBA's owners must vote to oust Sterling to force him to sell.

    "I fully expect to get the support needed," Silver said.





  2. #2
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Under Goodell, I doubt it.





  3. #3
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Quote Originally Posted by GOTA View Post
    Seventy-five percent of the NBA's owners must vote to oust Sterling to force him to sell.
    I wonder how strong the legal grounds are to force someone to sell. While you can certainly ban him from meetings, business decisions and games, I think it could be a long legal battle to force a sale if Sterling wants to fight it.





  4. #4
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Quote Originally Posted by alien bird View Post
    I wonder how strong the legal grounds are to force someone to sell. While you can certainly ban him from meetings, business decisions and games, I think it could be a long legal battle to force a sale if Sterling wants to fight it.
    In the article it states that "Seventy-five percent of the NBA's owners must vote to oust Sterling to force him to sell."

    If they have those votes I don't see why they can't force him to sell. As a owner in the league he should be subject to the league constitution.

    Another interesting item is that the person who is considered to be the front runner to buy the team is Magic Johnson. Magic Johnson is the same guy who Sterling saw his girlfriend with that set him off. How ironic would it be if Sterling is forced to sell to the very person that he is prejudiced against?





  5. #5

    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    This was a loud and clear message to the rest of the leagues. At the next meetings of all NFL, MLB and NHL owners you better believe this will be a point of emphasis. Whatever policy or consitution they have in place I'm pretty sure it's being reviewed, solidified and tweaked.





  6. #6
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Good question. Some of us were wondering about that when Jimmy Irsay was busted for possession. No one thought so for that but something like this, maybe. Who knows?

    The conversation was recorded so the evidence is in but did he know it was being recorded. If so even more reason to ban him but if he didn't know, it's pretty crummy for someone to ruin him like that. If he knew it was recorded, he got what he deserved. He hurt basetball.

    These guys are so stupid in front of the camera. Rush Limbaugh and Jimmy the Greek Snyder were fired and labeled racists for the rest of their lives. It cost Rush the chance to buy the Rams and it was Jimmy Irsay who blocked him out.

    All these guys are stupid ass holes.





  7. #7
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Oh I forgot. I posted a link on another thread that the NFL forced Art Modell to sell. They never got to the vote because Tags talked to Art and laid it all out there for him and Art saw the writing on the wall. It was bad for an NFL owner to be close to filing bankruptcy. It made the entire league look bad. Tags talked to him and he sold.

    The NFL would vote to bann an owner in a NY minute for comments like Sterling made.





  8. #8
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Quote Originally Posted by AirFlacco View Post
    Good question. Some of us were wondering about that when Jimmy Irsay was busted for possession. No one thought so for that but something like this, maybe. Who knows?

    The conversation was recorded so the evidence is in but did he know it was being recorded. If so even more reason to ban him but if he didn't know, it's pretty crummy for someone to ruin him like that. If he knew it was recorded, he got what he deserved. He hurt basetball.

    These guys are so stupid in front of the camera. Rush Limbaugh and Jimmy the Greek Snyder were fired and labeled racists for the rest of their lives. It cost Rush the chance to buy the Rams and it was Jimmy Irsay who blocked him out.

    All these guys are stupid ass holes.
    That's the key. Sterling hurt the NBA and continues to hurt the NBA by being part of it. If I were an owner in any sport and one of my fellow owners was hurting the value of my league and my team I would vote him out the second I could.

    Clowns like Irsay don't really hurt the league. Even Haslam in Cleveland doesn't hurt the league. Eddie Debartolo is probably the closest situation the NFL had to this one. In that case the NFL banned him from controlling the team for 1 year but didn't make him sell. It was his business failing that forced him to sell the 49ers to his sister.

    I do wonder exactly what the NFL would do if they were in this situation. I'd like to think they would do the same as the NBA but honestly I don't know.





  9. #9
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    I don't think the decision the NBA made was from a moral position; I assume it was from a business position. (That's probably a pretty safe bet in just about all decisions made by all sports leagues.)

    The pct of NBA players and fans that are African-American is obviously the largest of the major sports. There is no way they can allow an owner to alienate such a large part of the fan base, not to mention to inspire on-court demonstrations by the players. The guy had to go.

    I'm confident the NFL would do the same thing for the same reasons. The interesting question is whether the NHL would do it. I tend to think so. Recent history has shown that you cannot be exposed as a racist, or even suspected of being a racist, and keep a job in the public eye. You can be a dog-killer, teen-raper, or wife-beater. But not a racist. And that goes back to Al Campanis and Howard Cosell. (On a side note, I found it fascinating that Cosell, who was the loudest white voice to champion Muhammed Ali, got canned for making a non-racist comment that got construed as a racist one.)
    "Chin up, chest out."





  10. #10
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    To answer the question in the title, it would depend on the wording of their by laws / constitution, etc.

    In Sterling's case, there is a mechanism in place that allows the owners to do just that, in spite of earlier media reports to the contrary. They also have arbitration language in the NBA constitution. Even though he's an accomplished litigator, Sterling is powerless to appeal this. If the owners collectively sought to ban him and are taking steps to remove him as owner, he's powerless in the courts.

    And to an early post saying Goodell would never do such a thing, that's an odd thing to say since his bosses are the owners and he does their bidding.

    The NFL is VERY image conscious. Assuming something like this happened in the NFL and there's the appropriate language in the league agreement with the owners, hell yes they'd boot someone out.





  11. #11
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    like Mark Cuban said, it's a slippery slope. You can't really fire an owner and there are a lot of owners who engage in activities that the mainstream would find pretty offensive. What he said was in a private conversation that happened to be made public. No doubt his comments were racist but it's not against the law to be racist.

    If he decides to fight back on this it could get very ugly IMO.

    World Domination 3 Points at a Time!





  12. #12
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    Re: Would the NFL Ban an Owner for Life?

    Unless you do a hate crime. Again, did Sterling know he was being recorded?





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