How Do You Solve A Problem Like Donald Sterling?<\/a> by Heidi Moore in The Guardian.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> When we see a rich man abusing his power, we like to imagine we know the way to cause him pain: hit him where it hurts \u2013 in his bank account.<\/p>\nIt rarely works. Fines, lost businesses, even bankruptcies are all mere potholes on the road to wealth. That\u2019s why a boycott is such an ineffective path to shaming our errant oligarchs, particularly in the case of LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.<\/p>\n
Sterling is the Archie Bunker of NBA team owners, an unreconstructed racist who has long used epithets against his talented black players and who, most recently, asked his mixed-race girlfriend not to be seen with black people \u2013 including Magic Johnson \u2013 at Clippers games.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As a result, a cohort of influential people \u2013 from Johnson himself to Jesse Jackson \u2013 are advocating that fans, or even NBA players, stay away from the Clippers\u2019 playoff games. Today, the NAACP revoked its anticipated lifetime achievement award for Sterling.<\/p>\n
The outrage is justified. The question is whether it will be effective in changing anything. On a business basis, it\u2019s nearly impossible to financially damage Sterling into seeing the error of his ways. While symbolically satisfying, a boycott inflicts little damage in terms of dollars, and it will inflict even less on Sterling himself. There\u2019s a moat of money around him. As a member of the NBA oligarchy, his fortune is guaranteed protection from the flailings of populism. The NBA\u2019s greatest profits come from TV rights, followed by season ticket holders, followed by sponsorships. A boycott \u2013 either by fans, or players, or corporations \u2013 won\u2019t make a dent.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s count the ways a Sterling boycott will fail on every financial count. Multiple experts on the league told me today that an attendance boycott will fail because it would hurt only ticket sales, which are one of the smallest parts of the Clippers\u2019 profits \u2013 and there are only a couple games left in the season anyway. Cutting sponsorships? Satisfying in theory, but none too quick. Corporations like Amtrak, Carmax, Kia, Red Bull, State Farm and Virgin America \u2013 all of which cancelled or reconsidered their sponsorships of the Clippers today \u2013 may have a harder time than they think getting their names disassociated with the team. As Tony Schiller of Paragon Marketing told me, it may not be possible for sponsors or even season ticket-holders to cancel contracts based on Sterling\u2019s offensive statements. The most they can do is avoid future deals with his team.<\/p>\n
Boycott all you want: the only way to hurt Donald Sterling is to get his fellow NBA oligarchs to force him to step away from the Clippers. The NBA is a cartel \u2013 a monopoly run by team owners \u2013 and its main financial purpose is to protect the profits of those owners. Nothing will change until they turn on one of their own, Lord of the Flies-style.<\/p>\n
So far, this kind of enlightened self-interest seems elusive. The other owners in the league, as well as previous league commissioners, have ignored Sterling\u2019s racist antics \u2013 even after decades of controversy. His moral rap sheet is long: he won\u2019t rent apartments to blacks or Latinos. A court deposition of remarkable misogyny didn\u2019t even get him suspended. As the owner of the Clippers, he lived off the welfare of other owners by keeping his team below the salary cap, instituting a system of churn that kept players young, cheap and disposable. \u201cIf you list the top 10 most horrible things [Sterling] has done, this wouldn’t even make the list,\u201d says Dr Olugbenga Ajilore, an associate professor of economics at the University of Toledo who is also a long-suffering Clippers fan.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s simple math. No individual \u2013 or company \u2013 has the influence to turn a boycott of the Clippers into the anti-racist revolution it needs to be. The economic power is not in the hands of the people. You can\u2019t Occupy the NBA.<\/p>\n
For proof of that, I called Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College who follows sports, to ask what would happen if fans stopped attending the last three LA Clippers games left in this first round of the playoffs (assuming their series with the Golden State Warriors goes the full seven games). Zimbalist\u2019s offhand estimate of the financial impact of a boycott: \u201cit would add up to maybe $1m in ticket revenue, and several hundred thousand dollars in concessions and related revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
At most, a boycott of the Clippers would add up to $2m, Zimbalist says. \u201cThat’s a drop in the bucket,\u201d Zimbalist says, compared to the team\u2019s $128m in yearly revenues \u2013 $48m of which come from ticket sales \u2013 or to the NBA\u2019s revenues of nearly $4bn.<\/p>\n
A boycott would, however, hurt the Clippers players. They staged a silent protest by hiding their team logos on Sunday afternoon, but they still have to play on the court for a vile human being.<\/p>\n
Pulling sponsorships, while flashy, is also unlikely to work on its own. A lot of big companies are eager to distance themselves from the Clippers today. Carmax and Virgin America, which sponsor the Clippers, have said they will pull back their money. State Farm is \u201cassessing its relationship\u201d and Kia is suspending its sponsorship, as are Amtrak and Red Bull.<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t show Sterling much, but it may scare his fellow NBA team owners, who are probably concerned that the sponsorship-cancellation bug may hit the rest of corporate America.<\/p>\n
Still, the loss of a sponsorship is a stronger financial blow to some players more than it would be to their boss. Chris Paul, the star Clippers player who has been starring in the \u201cBorn to Assist\u201d ad camaign for State Farm for over a year, has to be wondering why he will end up paying for Sterling\u2019s racist views. Another Clippers player, Blake Griffin has a longstanding relationship with Kia, which features him in its ads.<\/p>\n
Sterling\u2019s imperviousness shows the flaws in the NBA\u2019s financial structure. The finances of the NBA are like a battalion of armored vehicles: the money\u2019s inside, but it\u2019s impossible to tell who\u2019s it is, and even harder to get at it. It\u2019s a unified front of rich men, sworn to protect each other.<\/p>\n
Not even players get a break; when they objected to salary caps a few years ago, the owners simply locked them out of the league. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, if player salaries exceed 57% of the NBA\u2019s profits in any given year, the players actually have to give some of their salaries back to the owners. When a team owner pays a \u201cluxury tax\u201d to hire more and better players, that money goes right to the other owners as well. It is nearly impossible to hurt the profitability of just one team owners.<\/p>\n
Sensing the futility of all of this, Dr Ajilore himself is not boycotting the team. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to be a Clippers fan,\u201d he told me. \u201cYou just say, You know what, I am supporting a team that has one of the world\u2019s most despicable people in the world as an owner. And I deal with it. I know the deal I\u2019m making.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear, however, whether the NBA can say the same. We\u2019ll find out on Tuesday afternoon, when the commissioner Adam Silver will try to fulfill his promise on moving \u201cextraordinarily quickly\u201d on an investigation. But increasingly, the league\u2019s inaction on Donald Sterling\u2019s racism looks like a deal with the devil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Donald Sterling? by Heidi Moore in The Guardian. The Text: When we see a rich man abusing his power, we like to imagine we know the way to cause him pain: hit him where it hurts \u2013 in his bank account. It rarely works. Fines, lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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