NBA Commissioner: Donald Sterling banned NEW YORK (CNNMoney) The NBA dropped a heavy hammer on Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. He has been banned for life from the league. He was fined $2.5 million. And league commissioner Adam Silver said he will work to force Sterling to sell the team.
What happens now to the finances of the team and to Sterling's personal fortune?
First, a sale would likely mean a huge payday for Sterling, who has become one of the most reviled team owners in sports.
But it's not clear that Silver will be able to force Sterling to sell. Such a move requires the support of 22 of the other 29 owners. Many of them might be nervous about setting such a precedent, although Silver said Tuesday he expects to win that vote.
The Clippers team is worth $575 million, up from the $12 million Sterling reportedly paid in 1981, according to estimates from Forbes, a leading source of data on the finances of professional sports teams. That valuation would mean a 12% annual gain.
The most recent NBA team to change hands was the Milwaukee Bucks. It sold for $550 million -- 35% more than the team's estimated worth.
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As for the ongoing finances for the team, a dozen sponsors announced on Monday they had ended or suspended sponsorship deals. But it's not clear how many have actually stopped making payments to the team.
Sports marketing consultant Marc Ganis said it's unlikely that sponsor contracts would allow them to cancel due to comments made by Sterling or similar controversies.
"[Sponsors] don't want to be connected with a brand as reviled as the Clippers brand is at the moment," said Ganis. "But they still may be required to make payments by the existing contracts."
And some sponsors may return to the team now that the NBA has banned Sterling, Ganis said.
Indeed, Silver said Tuesday he is hopeful he will be able to win them back.
"I would say the marketing partners of the Clippers and partners of the entire NBA should judge us by our response to this incident," he said.
"I'm hopeful there will be no long-term damage to the league or to th! e Clippers organization," he said. "I can understand how upset [the corporate sponsors] are, and I'll do my best to bring them back into the NBA family."
Even if the Clippers take a revenue hit, the team is well positioned to stay profitable.
The team already turns a healthy profit on relatively low revenue, according to sports business experts.
The Clippers brought in $128 million in annual revenue in the most recent year, according to the most recent estimates by Forbes. That places the team's revenue near the bottom among the NBA's 30 teams. But the Clippers still turned a $15 million profit, Forbes estimates.
"This is a team that historically had low revenue and low attendance, and made money in spite of that," said Ganis.
Abdul-Jabbar on 'plantation mentality' And its finances and attendance have improved considerably since the team moved into the Staples Center in 1999. The team has been profitable every year since, according to Forbes.
Before the move, the Clippers typically had the worst attendance in the league, averaging just over 10,000 fans a game.
Since Staples opened, attendance has averaged 17,162, even though the Clippers had only four winning seasons in 15 years.
And as the team became a winner the past three years, its average attendance reached 19,200 a game.
Even if some fans boycott the team next year, continued on-court success could keep most of the seats filled.
And with Sterling banned, it's likely that many angry fans will again embrace the Clippers.
A spokesman for the Clippers did not respond to a request for comment earlier in the day ahead of the announcement. 
Reuters 
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Carolyn Kaster/AP WASHINGTON -- A surge of eleventh-hour enrollments has improved the outlook for President Barack Obama's health care law, with more people signing up overall and a much-needed spark of interest among young adults. Nonetheless, Obama's announcement Thursday that 8 million have signed up for subsidized private insurance, and that 35 percent of them are younger than 35, is just a peek at what might be going on with the nation's newest social program. Still to be announced is what share of those enrolled were previously uninsured -- the true test of Obama's Affordable Care Act -- and how many actually secured coverage by paying their first month's premiums. "This thing is working," a confident Obama said of his signature domestic achievement. The days of website woes and canceled policies seemed far behind. State-by-state statistics, expected as early as next week, will provide a much fuller picture. A key question is how many of those signed up were young adults, ages 18-34. They're the health care overhaul's most coveted demographic because they're healthier than older adults and their premiums can help cross-subsidize care for the sick. That would help hold down future premium increases. According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, young adults 18-34 represent about 40 percent of the people eligible to buy coverage in the health care law's new insurance markets. The White House says that group now accounts for 28 percent of those who have picked a plan in states where the federal government is running the insurance exchanges. Not perfect, but not bad either, said Larry Levitt, an insurance expert with Kaiser. "Enrollment among young adults ended up lower than their share of the target population but sufficient to keep the market stable in the vast majority of the country," he said. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is forecasting only a slight average increase in premiums for 2015. Some private insurance experts expect big differences around the country, predicting that insurers will seek noticeably higher premiums, around 6 percent to 8 percent on average. Republicans were having none of Obama's celebration. A statement from the office of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he remains committed to repealing the law and replacing it. The president appeared in the White House briefing room to trumpet the new figures, which beat initial projections by 1 million people Following the disastrous rollout of the insurance exchanges in October, when HealthCare.gov was virtually unusable, Democrats have been hoping that higher-than-expected results could help their candidates reclaim the political high ground ahead of the midterm elections. Seven months out from Election Day, they're seeking to turn the page on the law's flawed debut -- a strategy underscored last week when Obama announced that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who became the face of the rollout failure, was stepping down. Polling shows the law remains unpopular in much of the country, yet most Americans say they don't expect it to be entirely repealed, but changed in some way. With the insurance markets looking increasingly viable, Obama and Democrats were hoping to move the political debate away from repeal and toward efforts to fix lingering issues. Republicans have been reluctant to pursue fixes for fear of tacitly embracing the overall law. Obama said that it's "absolutely possible" to make improvements but that it would require a change of attitude from Republicans. -.
As counterintuitive as it might seem, the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index is up about 10% today to about $500, although Bitcoin prices rose as high as $514.72. 
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5. Avoid 401(k) loans, even when money is tight. 
4. Don’t burden yourself with withdrawals.
3. Get to know the Roth. 
2. Get credit where credit’s due.
1. Bump up or max out your contributions.
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