Steve Ballmer is Open to Changing Clippers' Name and Logo

bobheckler wrote:https://thebiglead.com/2019/07/29/steve-ballmer-clippers-logo-name/



Steve Ballmer is Open to Changing Clippers' Name and Logo



By: Ryan Phillips | July 29, 2019 5:09 pm ET



Steve Ballmer is willing to change everything up with his Los Angeles Clippers. After landing Paul George and Kawhi Leonard this summer, Ballmer announced plans to build the Clippers a new arena in Inglewood. Now he’s even willing to consider rebranding the entire franchise.

During an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ballmer said the following about changing the perception of the franchise and potentially using a rebrand to do that:

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really step our identity up another level. I don’t anticipate making a change, but we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that is the kind of thing you somehow do in consultation with your fans.”

So it sounds like fans would be involved in any kind of rebrand.

Ballmer emphatically stated that he wouldn’t move the franchise out of LA, so it’s probably time to put those rumors to bed.

The Clippers name has never really made sense in Los Angeles. When the Buffalo Braves relocated to San Diego in 1978, they were renamed the Clippers because San Diego had strong ties to sport of sailing. Former owner Donald Sterling just decided to keep the name when he purchased the team and moved it to Los Angeles in 1984.

It’s always been an odd name to have in LA. That doesn’t mean Ballmer is going to change it, but he seems open to the idea.



bob
MY NOTE:  A new arena in Inglewood is a direct competitor to The Staples Center and the Buss Empire.  When the Clippers (or Steve Ballers?) move into that new arena Jeannie Buss will lose whatever rent the Clippers pay for use of the facility for practices, lockers, etc.  She'll lose concession money from people buying beer etc at Clipper games as well as parking fees.  This isn't that strange, when the Raiders moved to LA that left a hole in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum the management had to fill, but now Jeannie will have to fill that hole despite having a competitor right there in Inglewood, half an hour away (if anything is really half an hour away in LA with traffic) that will also be courting those filler date customers.  The Buss' have never had to compete like this before, they've always owned the turf.  It's amazing what good management can do, huh?  Remember when we had to suffer through Paul Gaston and The Chicken King, John Y Brown?  Remember how truly awful that was and how blessed we felt when Wyc Grousbeck, his father and Steve Pagliucci bought them out?  We started to turn around almost as soon as Wyc and Pags got their feet underneath themselves.  Look at the Clippers now, with Ballmer instead of Don Sterling!  Ballmer isn't milking it just so he can hang out with LA's A-listers, he wants to win and he wants his own home to win it in.  I've always liked Jeannie Buss.  There was never a second of doubt in my mind that she was the 2nd smartest person in that organization after her father, not Mitch Kupchak and certainly not her idiot brother Dimbo, but this is a new world for her front office.  At the minimum, this is good for metro Los Angeles.  New construction, new businesses in Inglewood to support the influx of Clipper fans and I really don't think this will hurt the Lakers much, if at all.  Just an interesting business dynamic, even more so than the Nets moving into a new arena in Brooklyn while competing in the same market as James Dolan and MSG.  Poor Knick fans.  They are hoping against hope Dolan starts making racist remarks like Sterling so Adam Silver can justify forcing him out like Stern forced out Sterling.


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