Las Vegas Weekly

July 28, 2008 · 4:24 PM

Team USA gets boost from billionaires

By Robin Leach

Bill Gates, Ludacris and Lenny Wilkins hold a summit before Team USA's exhibition waxing of Canada.

Photo: Tom Donoghue

In the pop-music world of entertainment, Ludacris is thought of as a very wealthy multimillionaire -- but even he joked while sitting alongside billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet that he was in “the poor house” by comparison. As if America’s two richest men in the front row of the Team USA basketball pre-Olympics obliteration of Team Canada at our Thomas & Mack Center over the weekend wasn’t enough, there were even more Mr. Moneybags on hand. First, our very own billionaire hotel mogul, Steve Wynn, Prince Abdul Al Saud, son of the late Saudi Arabian King Saud and Mexico’s richest billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, ranked with a mind-blowing $60-plus billion as the second-wealthiest man in the world, who is trying to purchase his own NBA team. Also in the fans’ front-row favorite VIUP section was a slew of basketball superstars and coaches, gorgeous singer Ciarra and actor Jamie Foxx.

Our Luxe Life sports ace cameraman Tom Donoghue was at courtside as promised for this amazing souvenir collection of candid action shots.

It was the second time in two years that Team America brutally bashed the visitors. Last year the score was 113-63 and this year the bigger whipping was 120-65 in front of a totally sold-out crowd of 18,000 enthusiasts rooting for our players now en route to Beijing. They play four more exhibition games in Macau and Shanghai and then face their first Olympic match-up against the home-country Chinese team on Aug. 12, to be telecast back to the States.

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