Steve Ballmer In Negotiations To Buy The Forum From MSG

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The Forum, Inglewood, Calif.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is in negotiations to purchase the Forum from the Madison Square Garden Company, according to a source as well as multiple published reports that surfaced Sunday night (March 1) and which ESPN.com first broke.

The news comes amidst a two-year lawsuit between MSG and Ballmer and the City of Inglewood that centered on the legitimacy of Ballmer’s intention to develop a nearby arena estimated at $1 billion and which allegedly violated existing agreements with the city when it made a deal for the construction of Hollywood Park and SoFi Stadium led by Rams owner Stan Kroenke of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment.

Clippers Choose AECOM Hunt / Turner

The Clippers issued the following statement: “The Clippers continue to pursue plans to build a state-of-the-art, 18,000-seat basketball arena and entertainment complex in Inglewood and are currently working with the city to successfully complete the comprehensive Environmental Impact Report. We are examining every possible way to resolve our differences with Madison Square Garden Co. regarding our new arena.”

MSG declined comment for this story.

Ballmer purchased the Clippers from Donald Sterling in 2014 for $2 billion. The Clippers currently play their home games at the AEG-owned Staples Center and signed a 10-year agreement to remain tenants in the downtown Los Angeles arena through the 2023-24 NBA Season though the Clippers are considered the “third tenant” at Staples where they reportedly have less power than the Lakers or Kings, the other sports tenants, in scheduling and receiving proceeds. Ballmer has wanted to build a new state-of-the-art arena and entertainment complex in time for the 2024-25 season on a parcel of land roughly a mile from the Forum and a half-mile south of the new NFL stadium. The Clippers, who currently practice at a rented facility in Playa Vista, would bring the teams’ operations, corporate headquarters and training facility under the new complex’s roof.

While Ballmer’s purchase of the Forum, capacity 17,505, would remove a major obstacle to building a new Clippers arena, it is unclear if the Forum would continue as a music-only venue or if it would exist at all following the opening of the new arena.

The Forum was No. 8 on Pollstar’s 2019 Year-End Top 200 Arenas chart ranked by tickets with 840,205 tickets sold. By gross, however, its $84.5 million was No. 2 only behind MSG’s Madison Square Garden. The “Fabulous Forum,” as it’s known, opened in 1967, led by Jack Kent Cooke and was home to the “Showtime” Lakers before the team moved to Staples Center in 1999.

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The Eagles’ Hotel California spins atop The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. The 407-foot diameter LP is made from more than a quarter-million square feet of vinyl and spins.

MSG, which also owns Radio City Music Hall, The Beacon Theatre and the Chicago Theatre, acquired the Forum in 2012 from the Faithful Central Bible Church in a $23.5 million deal. The building opened with a series of six Eagles concerts which began in Jan. 2014 after a $100 million renovation to the Forum that included state-of the-art audio, luxe backstage areas, VIP lounges and more. The opening also included the world’s largest vinyl, the band’s “Hotel California” album, set atop the Forum’s roof (left).

Irving Azoff, now chairman and CEO of the Azoff Company (and co-founder of the Oak View Group, parent company of VenuesNow and Pollstar) formed a joint-venture in 2013 with the Madison Square Garden Company to run the newly-formed Azoff MSG Entertainment which included working with the Forum. The agreement ran until October 2018 when the Azoff Company bought out MSG’s interest. The two entities then entered into multi-year consultancy where upon The Azoff Company continued to advise MSG, including the Forum and MSG Sphere initiative, which includes announced plans to build state-of-the-art venues in Las Vegas and London.

According to ESPN, , the Forum would continue to operate at least until the new arena was built and possibly longer.

The $5 billion SoFi Stadium is part of a massive development that is part of the LA Stadium & Entertainment District at Hollywood Park, a mixed-use development on the site of a former racetrack slated to also include a performance arts venue, office space, residential units, a luxury hotel, public parks, a lake and mass-transit access.