Before purchasing the Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer nearly became the owner of a different NBA franchise. The former Microsoft CEO seriously considered purchasing the Milwaukee Bucks prior to seizing the opportunity to buy the Clippers for $2 billion, reports Ashlee Vance of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Steve Ballmer almost bought the Bucks instead of the Clippers
The Clippers owner seriously considered buying the Bucks before the Donald Sterling controversy made the team in L.A. available.
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The Bucks would eventually sell to a group led by Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry for $550 million once Ballmer turned his attention to the franchise in L.A.
Vance reports that Ballmer’s interest in purchasing the Bucks was indeed legitimate, and serious enough that he visited Milwaukee to get an idea of what the commute from his home in Seattle would feel like.
“I can tell you the suburbs and where they are,” Ballmer says. “I can tell you where the malls are. I can tell you who’s good in high school basketball. I can tell you where I would have lived. I went to a game, flew home, and figured out what it was going to feel like to fly home after a game that ended at 10, 10:30 at night.”
However, the controversy involving then-Clippers owner Donald Sterling went public with the TMZ report not long after that, and Ballmer quickly changed directions. He decided to aggressively pursue the opportunity to buy the Clippers, and would eventually agree to purchase the team for that record-breaking $2 billion. The previous high? The $550 million Edens and Lasry paid for the Bucks just months prior.
Now both teams have exciting, new ownerships, and based on the prices paid, the rest of the league is probably pretty thrilled, too. It’s certainly interesting to wonder what would’ve happened with the Clippers had Ballmer already committed to buying the Bucks, though.
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