A racist rant by billionaire Donald Sterling, the owner of professional basketball team the Los Angeles Clippers, has been broadcast on US national TV. Discussion about it has continued for weeks.

The rant was captured in a recorded conversation between Sterling and his girlfriend. Sterling takes her to task for posting an innocuous photo of herself online with Magic Johnson, a well-known African American basketball star now retired.

He becomes increasingly abusive and angry with his girlfriend. Ultimately he forbids her from being publicly associated with Blacks and orders her not to bring any Black people to “his” games.

She tries to reason with him, explaining that her ancestry is Black and Latino. Some commentators have expressed confusion over this – how could such an open racist have a mixed race girlfriend? But such relationships are not uncommon; many racists consider such relationships an expression of their power over those they consider inferior.

Indeed, the whole conversation reveals Sterling’s belief that he has the right to tell her what to do.

African Americans are 70-80 percent of the players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) – and an even higher percentage of Sterling’s Clippers.

The reaction of top NBA players was swift and sharp. One after the other they publicly demanded that Sterling be removed as the Clippers’ owner and that he be banned from the NBA.

The Clippers had a scheduled game shortly after the recording was first aired. They came out with uniforms inside out and dumped their sweatshirts on the floor.

This was so embarrassing to the NBA that its commissioner, Adam Silver, publicly blasted Sterling, banning him from attending any games or dealings with the Clippers. He also said that he would seek to have the owners of the other NBA teams force Sterling to sell the team.

The owners operate under rules that are secret, but apparently three quarters of them have to vote to force Sterling to sell. As of this writing, they haven’t yet made a decision.

But the hypocrisy of Adam Silver and the owners has been exposed as it has come to light that they knew of Sterling’s racist background well before the recording was broadcast.

They are speaking out now only because they fear the scandal will affect their profits.

Donald Sterling and his estranged wife Rochelle are co-owners of the Clippers. Their billions came from real estate. The Sterlings were racist slumlords before becoming racist basketball team owners. In 2006 the Justice Department brought a discrimination lawsuit against them. In 2009, they settled, paying a fine of $2.76 million.

Donald Sterling’s statements about his Black and Latino tenants, whom they evicted, have now come to light. He opined that Black tenants “smelled” and that Latinos were always drunk.

A legal problem has now arisen concerning whether the other NBA owners can force the Sterlings to sell the team. After all, owning a basketball team is just another business. Can a business owner be forced to sell his/her business? That goes against the rules of capitalism.

In this regard, there is another revealing quote from the video discussion between Sterling and his girlfriend. She raised that the large majority of the Clippers’ players are African American, and how can he have such views about Blacks, given that fact?

He replies: “I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars and houses. Who gives it to them? …

“Who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is (sic) there 30 owners that created the League?”

Spoken like a true capitalist. Who makes automobiles? The owners of the auto companies or the autoworkers? The capitalists think they do.

This exchange underscores that major sports in the US have become big businesses in the last 50 years. Capitalist encroachment on sports, which should be an arena for all, corrupts at every level, from turning sports into a vehicle for advertising to empowering racists to own and control teams made up mainly of Black players.