Bishop of the Devil

"Adam, what is Richard doing now?" Stern was sitting in his office, rubbing his forehead, obviously this matter also made him very anxious.

Xiao Hua smiled bitterly, "There was no action. After the press conference, he calmed down, but the players are quite agitated. We cannot rule out the possibility of a strike in the near future."

"Hey..." Stern sighed, and now he wanted to strangle Sterling to death.

A player strike is absolutely unacceptable to Stern. It will cause huge irreparable losses to the NBA.

"Is there any evidence to prove that Richard is the driving force behind this?" Stern asked with a frown.

Xiao Hua shook his head...

Many people suspected that Richard was responsible for this matter, but no one had any evidence, so no one dared to say this.

The last person who offended Richard was named Sterling...

If there is no evidence, go bite Richard randomly. It’s strange that Richard can let him go.

So now we have a situation where everyone knows it, but no one says anything about it.

"This man is really terrible!"

"More than ten years ago, he was just a stupid young man. I didn't expect that more than ten years later, he would become so ruthless." Stern was also a little timid...

This incident directly pushed Sterling to the edge of a cliff, and it was the kind of cliff that he had to jump if he didn't want to. Anyway, there is absolutely no place for him in the NBA.

"Mr. President, we should take action on this matter quickly, otherwise the impact will be very bad, and the fans may even feel that we are shielding Sterling." Xiao Hua said with a serious face.

Stern nodded. He didn't know this, but there should be a process for everything. At the moment, the alliance has not even launched an investigation...

"Forget it, skip the investigation process. There's nothing to investigate anyway."

"Notify NBA owners of a meeting tomorrow. It would be best for them to come to this meeting in person." Stern said with a long sigh.

This meeting has only one purpose, and that is to vote to decide whether Sterling can stay in this league...

The voting has not started yet, but the results are definitely destined, even if the owners of 29 of the 30 teams in the NBA today are white...

Even though there must be people like Sterling among this group of bosses, at this meeting, no one would risk the world's disapproval to stand up for Sterling. That would definitely lead to self-destruction.

"Adam, after this matter is over, I will consider retiring. Now that I am old, I really don't have the energy to deal with these troublesome emergencies." After arranging the meeting, Stern suddenly appeared One sentence.

"It may be the end of this season, or it may be the end of next season. Just prepare yourself and I will let you take over my shift."

Xiao Hua was stunned for a moment. Although he had known that such a day would come, he did not expect that this day would come so early.

After leaving Stern's office, Xiao Hua was still a little unable to calm down. Will it be long before he can sit in the position of president?

Under his leadership, where will the NBA develop by then? Will it be a better alliance than the one Stern is building now? Or not as good as now?

…

Xiao Hua quickly informed the bosses of each team that this matter must be resolved as soon as possible. If it is delayed, it will be detrimental to everyone.

After the Pirates received the notice, Richard and Jordan decided to go to New York together to attend this meeting.

The reason is very simple. Richard is considered the main sufferer of this incident, and Jordan is currently the only black owner in the league. Neither of them is suitable and they will definitely appear.

On the plane to New York, Jordan sat next to Richard.

"Li, were you the instigator of this incident?" Jordan was a little curious and couldn't help but ask Richard.

Now it's not just Jordan, there are countless people who doubt Richard...

"No, Michael, do you think I am that powerful?" Richard asked with a smile.

Jordan nodded solemnly.

"Li, you are more powerful than we thought."

"I have a strange premonition that our cooperative relationship may not last long." Jordan looked at Richard with deep meaning.

Richard didn't respond to Jordan, just smiled lightly.

"Lee, if you have the idea of ​​selling the equity of the Pirates at that time, please let me have the right of first refusal."

Jordan said with a sigh.

Richard nodded inconspicuously. If everything went well enough to sell the Pirates' equity, he would definitely sell it to Jordan first.

…

Just after getting off the plane, Richard's mobile phone received a news link from Sun Xiaoben.

Richard clicked in and was surprised to find that it was an interview with Magic Johnson.

In this incident, the magician, like Richard, was scolded by Sterling by name. It is quite normal for him to accept an exclusive interview now.

The only abnormal thing is that Magic actually mentioned in this exclusive interview that he would form a team to acquire the Clippers...

…

Magic is one of the better retired players. It seems that apart from Jordan, Magic has earned the most money after retirement.

A few days ago, media reported that the Magician’s current total net worth is US$800 million.

It seems that the net worth of 800 million U.S. dollars seems to be quite a lot, but if the magician were to come up with cash, he probably wouldn't even be able to come up with 100 million U.S. dollars.

He is engaged in real industries. For example, he owns half of the shares in many Starbucks stores, and has also invested in restaurants, etc...

These industries are Magic's capital. He would not sell all his capital in order to acquire the Clippers.

Then if the Clippers are not managed well, who will he go to to reason with?

That's why he thought about forming a consortium to jointly acquire the Clippers.

Richard also knew from the memory of his previous life that Magic had the idea of ​​acquiring the Clippers after Sterling's accident.

But in Richard's opinion, the magician is not the biggest competitor, it can even be said that he is not even a competitor.

Richard's real competitor is Ballmer, who just took over from Bill Gates in 2008 and is currently the president of Microsoft.

In terms of net worth, he is still not as good as Paul Allen, but it won't take long for him to surpass Paul Allen's ranking on the Forbes rich list.

Under normal circumstances, Ballmer spent a total of 2 billion US dollars to win the Clippers in 2014...

What's interesting is that at that time, in addition to Magic, his competitors also included Yao Ming.

Under normal circumstances, Yao Ming would have retired long ago in 2014. He was in a similar situation to Magic at the time and was also thinking of forming a consortium to acquire the Clippers.

As a result, these two people were directly deceived by Ballmer's largesse. They originally predicted that the Clippers' value would be between US$1.2 billion and US$1.5 billion, but Ballmer directly spent 2 billion...

Now, because the time point has been advanced by a full four years, the Clippers are definitely not worth that much money. According to the market value of each team announced by ESPN last season, the Clippers are not as high as the Buccaneers, which is about 630 million US dollars. about.

Even so, Richard feels that the Clippers' premium will definitely be quite serious. Even if Ballmer does not participate, the Clippers' premium will be close to one billion US dollars!

And if Ballmer intervenes, it will cost a billion dollars.

The only thing that Richard is thankful for is that Ballmer's current net worth is not particularly exaggerated, only less than 10 billion US dollars. He probably doesn't have the confidence to just spend 2 billion to buy the Clippers.

…

"Johnson wants to acquire the Clippers?" Jordan also saw the news and couldn't help but sneered.

"This guy thinks too much. How can he possibly acquire the Los Angeles team?"

"Li, I will raise as much money as possible during this period. The funds I have raised here alone can beat three Johnsons. I don't know what this guy is thinking."

Hearing Jordan's words, Richard smiled and shook his head. He didn't take Johnson seriously at all. What he wanted to know most right now was whether there was any action from Ballmer.

Richard calculated that the market value of the Pirates last season was around US$700 million. If he sold half of his shares to Jordan, he would get US$350 million.

I can sell some of the projects I have that don’t have much potential, and I’ll probably be able to raise $500 million by then.

It previously lent 350 million US dollars to Golden Dragon. Now Golden Dragon will definitely not be able to pay it all back, but it shouldn't be a problem to come up with about 150 million US dollars...

Based on this calculation, he probably has a capital of one billion US dollars. This is the capital that he can use without breaking his muscles.

If you sell those stocks with unlimited potential plus equity, it will definitely be another matter.

But Richard will definitely not be stupid enough to touch those potential stocks...

One billion US dollars is Richard's current limit. If Ballmer does not participate, this one billion US dollars is almost enough.

And if Ballmer wants to come in and stir things up, it's hard to say.

But Richard is not too worried. He still has the strong backing of Paul Allen, so he can't just ignore death...