The Los Angeles Clippers officially have a new owner.
Steve Ballmer's bid to purchase the team closed Tuesday after the entry of an order by a California court confirmed the authority of Shelly Sterling to sell the team on behalf of the Sterling Family Trust, the league announced.
The NBA Board of Governors previously approved the sale of the Clippers to Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who bid $2 billion for the team in May. Sources tell ESPN's Ramona Shelburne that league owners then voted to approve the sale of the team to him on July 15.
Drafts of the Clippers sale bid book, given to bidders by Bank of America and obtained by ESPN.com, revealed that the $2 billion price paid would be 12.1 times the expected 2014 revenues of the team. The bid book noted that the highest previous sale was the record that Ballmer beat, the Milwaukee Bucks, which sold for $550 million this year and a then-record five times total revenue.
In May, Ballmer defended the amount of his bid in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying he would be paying, in part, for the Clippers' potential value.
"I've got big dreams for the team," he told the Times. "I'd love to win a championship. I'd love the Clippers to be the most dynamic, vibrant team and name in professional sports.
"The only way any of this makes sense -- my desire to spend time in Los Angeles, this team, its aspirations, this community, this purchase price, any of that -- is to really live out the dream and make this kind of America's team."
Ballmer's takeover of the Clippers follows weeks of legal tussling between Shelly Sterling and Donald Sterling, the 80-year-old billionaire whom the NBA banned earlier this year for making offensive remarks about blacks.
Subject: Steve Ballmer new Clippers owner 
