Outside of imagining a Don Draper - Roger Sterling character MERGE... the "Donald Sterling" name has had a shitty brand name since I've ever known his name. The audience aware of this prior to last week was limited to NBA junkies. Now the whole world knows his name and it's shitty brand correlation.
The events of this past week are historic -- but the desire for the NBA to get rid of Donald Sterling is historic as well... He's a billionaire, a shrewd asshole, and it appears a horrible racist.
Follow me here ... I've been the Commissioner of a fantasy football league called The BigTime going on 15 years. There have been some additions and subtractions over the years - but not many. The owners are a mix-mash of social friends with it's own set of cliques. As Commissioner, it's my job to bring it together. The truth is that there's an individual or two that get on 80% of the league owners nerves at any point during the football season through antagonizing emails or complaining or whatever... As commissioner, while this may annoy me at times too - I've never really considered kicking someone out of the league for being annoying. Even if an owner crossed the line per se (went too far with trash talk, or was just generally a nuisance) it would probably take cheating or failing to pay or something like that to force me to kick them out. (FWIW - I'd never let a racist into the league in the first place so I wouldn't have to kick one out) Furthermore.... If someone acted up - there would be at least one or two owners to come to that individuals defense....
This brings us back to Donald Sterling..... I haven't heard a single voice of defense for Donald Sterling. It seems as if NO ONE cares if he's banned - and even more - that they're excited to see him go... That's the price he pays for being an asshole all of those years I suppose.
I obviously think the racist comments are disgusting and intolerable - period. I get the feeling, though, that this is mostly a GREAT reason to do what the NBA has wanted to do for a really long time.
He's being kicked out of a billionaire's club and I don't imagine it's going to be a quiet exit. Donald Sterling is 80 years old - and it seems like he doesn't give a crap about anything (especially his personal "brand").
I'm looking forward to the day we don't talk about Donald Sterling, but thought I'd take the opportunity to document my thoughts.
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