Just after NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned owner Donald Sterling for life, Diddy and Rick Ross took to Twitter to announce that they were interested in purchasing the Clippers. Then a short time later Floyd Mayweather (who’s spotted frequently courtside at Clippers games) expressed his interest — and he’s super serious. Hit the jump to see what he had to say about it & they way he feels about Donald Sterling…
Via ESPN:
Mayweather said he was serious about his interest and that he had spoken with his adviser, Al Haymon, about teaming with Mayweather Promotions chief executive Leonard Ellerbe, Golden Boy Promotions chief executive Richard Schaefer and possibly others to make a bid for the Clippers.
“I called Al today about that to see if me, Leonard and Al, and hopefully Richard and a couple of other guys, a couple other of my billionaire guys, we can come together and see what we can come up with,” Mayweather said. “Hopefully, we can do it, and it’s not just talk.
“With me, I can’t come in talking about Mayweather only gonna get 3 percent, 4 percent. I got to get a solid percentage. Do we want to buy the Clippers? Yes, we do. We are very, very interested in buying the Clippers. We’ll keep the Clippers right where they’re at. When I’m not boxing, I’m at the games all the time. We do want to buy the Clippers. Me and my team do want to buy the Clippers and we can afford the Clippers.”
Mayweather, an avid sports gambler in Las Vegas, where he lives, added, “Once I get ownership in the Clippers I can no longer bet, so I have to stop that completely.”
Mayweather, whose $73.5 million in minimum purses for his two fights in 2013 made him the world’s highest-paid athlete, did not weigh in on the comments that Sterling made, but said his interactions with the Clippers owner were positive.
“Donald Sterling, he’s been getting a lot of negative press and my thing is this — I don’t have nothing negative to say about this guy,” Mayweather said. “He’s always treated me with the utmost respect. He has always invited me to games, always. Has always told me, ‘Floyd, I want you to sit right next to me and my wife.’ I don’t know about the [alleged] mistress. But I’m talking about him and the wife.”
