Why the Market Will Take Care of Donald Sterling

The market will take care of this. The arena will be empty and the TV money will dry up and that, my friends, is how Mr. Sterling will be taken care of. And that -- I submit to you -- is stronger than any message the NBA can or will be able to send.
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Each day on my radio show, I do a "last word" segment. In my segment today, I felt compelled to address the Donald Sterling situation.

By now, you have undoubtedly heard -- or heard about -- the racist comments made by LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling. It seems everyone has weighed in and bloviated on this topic so i will make this brief. But there are a certain things about this we should ponder.

Everyone has said it, and I will say it: There is no place for racism for our society. We are better than that. It is appalling to hear these comments whether you are White, Black, Hispanic, Korean or anywhere in between. That goes without saying.

In this case it needs to be noted Mr. Sterling was having a private conversation in which it appears he was recorded illegally. Think about it for a moment: If every private conversation, or in this case argument, were recorded and then released for public consumption I bet we would hear hate that would make our skin crawl.

And I mention that because everyone is demanding strong swift action from the NBA. Of course the league needs to do something but I believe because of how this recording was made, they may not be able to do something that many people want -- and that is kick Mr. Sterling out of the league or force him sell the team.

And here's why it doesn't matter! Whatever the NBA does will be for public relations reasons. No fine will hurt this guy. No suspension will ruin his life. And here's why nothing the NBA does will matter: the market will take care of this!

Minority players won't want to play for Mr. Sterling. Current players may push to get out of their contracts due to a hostile work environment. Fans won't want to support a racist owner and continue to line his pockets. If Mr. Sterling can't keep and retain good players, the team will be horrible and the fans will stop coming. And the arena will be empty and the TV money will dry up and that, my friends, is how Mr. Sterling will be taken care of. And that -- I submit to you -- is stronger than any message the NBA can or will be able to send.

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