American football has had a hard time expanding and will deal with injuries in the future, soccer (sic) is already global, just not popular here, baseball is an entrenched classic, and hockey has always been regional.
The fact that the Clippers went from a laughing stock a few years back to where they are now actually says a lot. They'll probably get to keep Paul and Griffin now that Sterling is gone, and due to the Lakers being bad they have a massive market to tap into.
Yeah they won't be worth more than his investment any time soon, but in 20 years? That's not out of the question. Not to mention unless you are Donald Sterling or someone like him you don't usually buy a team to make money, you buy it cause there are only 30 other people in the world that get to do it. That's priceless.
Sports is one of the few businesses that will thrive under any economic condition. There will always be fans that shell out money to watch their team.
Not to mention Larry Ellison's purchase of Lanai island for $500MM+. Now that is a terrible purchase from a investment standpoint, but hey, the guy was $40BB+, so it's chump change you know? :(
A year later, in 1981, when Microsoft incorporated, Ballmer held 8% of the shares.
That was a pretty neat trick.