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Golden State Warriors Sold For Record $450 MIllion

Filed under: Sports

In a startling turn, the frontrunner to be the next owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has come up short. The new owner will be Joseph Lacob. The Mercury News reports that Lacob, a managing partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capitalist firm in Menlo Park is also part owner of the Boston Celtics. His Golden State Warriors group includes Peter Guber of Mandalay Entertainment. Guber's Mandalay Baseball Properties owns a bunch of minor league baseball teams and was reportedly once interested in buying the Oakland Athletics.

There seems to be some controversy over the decision. Ellison has claimed that he submitted a higher bid but his bid may have come too late. "This is my dream come true," said Lacob, in a statement and he stated that he and Peter Guber are committed to building the team into a championship organization that will "make all of us in the Bay Area proud."

As now-former owner Chris Cohan hoped it would, the sale price broke the record of $401 million set by the Phoenix Suns sale. Lacob and his group paid $450 million for the Warriors. Cohan bought the team for $120 million in 1995.

Tags: basketball team, golden state warriors, joseph lacob, larry ellison, nbc, peter guber

More New York Temptations Promised For LeBron James

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Sports

Last week I wrote about a couple of chefs (Michael Symon from Cleveland and Jean-Georges Vongerichten from New York City) trying to influence LeBron James with free meals. Since then the deals have only gotten sweeter, at least on the New York side. Fans who want the basketball phenom, shown at right accepting the Spike TV Guy's Choice Award for "Unstoppable Jock," to come to New York and play for the Knicks just keep ladling out the promises. The NY Daily News rounds up a few more which include enough food offers to make sure that James never pays for a meal again. Bo Dietl offered a regular seat at Rao's, the chief cook of Smoke in Da Eye offered LeBron unlimited barbecue and Bob Bertrand of The Original SoupMan pledged free soup for life. That's not all, Bliss Spa has offered him treatments and the Palm Tribeca seeks to tempt him with hickory-smoked ribeye steak with jumbo Nova Scotia lobster for two.

Samantha Choi of the Classic Car Club Manhattan offered him an annual membership worth $10,000 and all sorts of New Yorkers filled up a trailer full of gifts outside Madison Square Garden so that they can be delivered to LeBron James in Cleveland. Hotelier Andre Balasz has offered LeBron a loft suite at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo and Alexandre Petrossian will send over a snack of Royal Ossetra caviar sandwiches. Sean Combs posted his appeal on Twitter promising LeBron James free Sean John clothing and Ciroc vodka for life. On the Cmon LeBron website, Iron Chef Mario Batali appears in video (after the jump) in a Cmon LeBron T-shirt upping Michael Symon's promise of an Iron Chef meal a month to an Iron Chef meal every two weeks in New York City.

What's next, will Los Angeles weigh in? Some rumors have David Geffen buying a share in the Clippers and bringing LeBron James to Los Angeles to enliven the much-maligned franchise. Could Chicago be far behind with promises of a lifetime of free deep dish. For LeBron, whose is facing a July 1 deadline, the culinary possibilities seem nearly endless.

Tags: bliss spa, ciroc, expire-images:2010-7-11, lebron james, mario batali, mercer hotel, michael symon, nbc, New York Knicks, Petrossian, sean john

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Conan O'Brien: Divorce from NBC is Ugly and "Crazy Expensive"

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events

If you can't beat them and you are leaving anyway, why not spend all their money?

That seems to be Conan O'Brien's philosophy this week as he embarked on a series of skits and extraordinarily expensive props to put on the appearance that he intended to blow through the Tonight Show budget in one week.

On Wednesday he trotted out a Bugatti Veyron, a rare and pricey sports car that costs as much as some private jets. O'Brien unveiled the Bugatti Veyron, showing the million dollar car embellished with mouse ears and whiskers. O'Brien claimed to have purchased the sports car.

Last night, he upped the ante by bringing out Kentucky Derby winning racehorse Mine That Bird adorned with a mink "Snuggie" and by showing restricted Super Bowl footage. This "crazy expensive" skit, he claimed, cost NBC $4.8 million.