Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will buy the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.
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The move caps more than a month of controversy that began when team owner Donald Sterling was caught making incendiary racist comments in a secret audio recording. In the fallout from the recording, the NBA banned Sterling for life and imposed a $2.5 million fine, while urging him to put the team on the market.
Despite some confusion about his intentions, Sterling legally authorized his wife Shelly to pursue a sale earlier this month. (He might later have had a change of heart, although it appears to have been too little or too late to stop Ballmer's purchase.)
Ballmer's name has been on a shortlist of potential buyers for several weeks. There was some speculation that if he did acquire the team, he might move it to Seattle -- a town without a pro-basketball team since the Seattle SuperSonics decamped for Oklahoma City in 2008. However, Ballmer put that speculation to rest in a WSJ interview, calling such a move "value destructive."
Update: Sterling's attorney tells CBS News that the sale, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, has not yet been accepted.
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