He should have been canned, period. He's not a company man whose house was bugged while he told racist jokes to his friend, he's a team OWNER of a corporate and media driven league that's comprised of mostly blacks. You're treating the private conversation as if it's a black and white issue (no pun intended). It's not. It's an extremely nuanced, extraordinary set of circumstances.
That said, between this dickhead and the bozo thief out in Nevada, I long for the day when these super rich racist white guys finally run their course. Theirs is a dying breed, thank god.
THAT said, as a society we need to stop thinking in terms of progress toward racism eradication. That ain't gonna happen, and we should be grappling with more constructive, realistic ways of dealing with the issue of race.