Sterling Silver (Tarnished)

Donald Sterling is the rags-to-riches real estate mogul who's owned the L.A. Clippers since he bought the franchise for $12.5 million in 1981.  By all accounts, he's not a very good owner.  Apparently he can afford front-office screw-ups and nonsensical personnel decisions so long as he's not really committed to playoffs and championships

But Sterling's current problems are only tangentially related to sports.  A few days ago, celebrity gossip website TMZ.com came into possession of an audio recording.  On it, Sterling tells a woman (reportedly V. Stiviano) her public association with black men is negatively impacting her reputation -- and, by association, his own.

While I grant that Sterling's racism is disturbing, I'm not sure I'm able to focus on it to the exclusion of a larger context of craziness.  Sterling, 80, is married to Rochelle, his wife of 50 years.  Stiviano (nee Maria Vanessa Perez) is Sterling's mixed-race mistress.  In the recording, the 30-year-old woman is told it is acceptable for her to sleep with black men, so long as she isn't photographed with them.  

This complicated web of non-exclusive relationships is de rigueur for the Jerry Springer crowd.  It's a breeding ground (so to speak) of paternity suits and trailer park dust-ups.  But among the super rich, bed-hopping seems almost sophisticated in an Eyes Wide Shut kind of way.  So nobody's gasping with shock to hear the Sterling's taken a mistress.  And not even rabid feminists have objected to his permitting (or instructing?) "his" woman sleep with others.  Instead, the world insists on talking about how racism renders the guy unfit to own an NBA franchise.  Because if we start talking about how men in the professional athletic world treat women, I guess we're going to lose the moral authority to condemn Sterling as a special case.

All right, I'll play along.  Sterling's a racist.  He's been a racist for a long time.  And he can afford to be.  With a net worth of $1.9 billion, he can afford to treat a lot of people badly.  He can afford to pay "a record $2.725 million to settle allegations that he discriminated against African Americans, Hispanics and families with children at scores of apartment buildings he owns in and around Los Angeles."  He can afford to part with the largest settlement "ever obtained by the Justice Department in a housing discrimination case involving apartment rentals," according to a November 2009 article in The Los Angeles Times.

He's a sexist.  He's a racist.  But I'm not sure either of those should affect his ownership of the Clippers.  Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks.  Cuban hasn't defended Sterling, but he has made the point that what a person says in private shouldn't threaten their ownership of property.  The Ford CEO, for example, might admit to his wife that he always hated the Taurus.

Is there something wrong, something false about the auto exec?  He doesn't like the Taurus, but seems to have no difficulty profiting from their manufacture.  He puts on a game face for the press.  He stands in front of the car for photographers.  Should he not be allowed to do so?  Do his privately held preferences disqualify him as spokesperson or shareholder?

Don't people you work with and for regularly profit from the labor of folks they dislike?  Yes, it's cheap and unethical to badmouth folks on the basis of their race or gender or what-have-you.  It's also cheap and unethical to gossip about their morals, their hygiene, their I.Q.  But privately held prejudices -- personal, performance-related, or even demographic -- don't disqualify the world's proprietors. 

This afternoon, Sterling was banned for life, a gutsy move by the NBA's new commissioner, Adam Silver.  Silver's in a tight spot.  He's hired and paid by team owners to police the league.  It's his unenviable job to bite the hand that feeds him.  And this is the sport's hardest bite ever.  The largest fine ($2.5 million).  The harshest sanction (though a lifelong ban for an 80-year-old...).  Silver swears he'll make Sterling sell.

In January, Forbes valued the Clippers at $575 million -- and that was before the Milwaukee Bucks (who?) sold for $500 million.  Forcing Sterling out would "punish" the man with no less than a 4600% return on his investment.  Additionally, the precedent of Sterling's ouster would weaken the grip of every other franchise owner.  Each of them would be one P.R. misstep, one night of pillow-talk away from the forced sale of their own team.  Of course, they must publicly support Silver.  But only a fool votes against his own wallet.

If the NBA owners' club blackballs its longest-tenured member, will there be ripple effects?  Will NFL commissioner Roger Goodell put thumbscrews to the Redskins' Dan Snyder?  It can easily be argued that Snyder's refusal to change his team's name constitutes a more public display of racism than any of Sterling's confidential conversations.

As right as it may feel to applaud the noble commissioner, surely we know there can be no such thing as a moral capitalism.