Taking the Team Away

I've been watching and reading the talk concerning comments made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling in a telephone conversation he had with a lady friend/girlfriend/etc. While not touching on the legality of recording the telephone conversation, some of the actions and comments border on the ludicrous. While the NBA has fined the owner $2.5 million which he says that he is not going to pay, the action that seems most questionable to me is banning Sterling for life from the league in which he is an owner of one of its products....NBA team. While it's apparent that professional sport leagues conduct business by a different standard than most other American corporations, I question the legality of a organization being able to arbitrarily decide to take the business away from the person who owns it. While some action was required for the racist comments, for me, it calls into question what rights does a person have in America in 2014 when he/she can be removed from the business they own for comments that some find offensive. If this is the new standard, then is anyone running a business today just one comment away from having a business taken away from them?