Adam Silver

why it's so popular around the world. You have been the commissioner since two thousand and fourteen, and you had spent twenty two years at the NBA office before that, And before that you were a graduate of the two best schools to go to in combination, Duke University and the university's Cargo Law School, right, which you happen to go to, right, So you can't do any better than that. So let's just start with the NBA today and how it's doing. And honestly, since you've been the commissioner, the

revenues are up, uh, ticket sales are up. The owner's value of their teams is up by about three times. So are you adequately paid for the job you're doing? Do you think today? Um, the NBA it seems to be at at its peak right now. It's very popular all over the world. Why do you think it is that NBA basketball is so popular around the world, whereas our Major League Baseball and professional football isn't quite as

global sport. Well, I think part part of the reason is that it's been an Olympic sport since the nineteen thirties. I think that's made a big difference, and that it's a sport that has been played around the world. It was actually invented by Christian missionaries in you know, James Naismith was a Christian missionary, and the game was shortly after it was invent in Springfield, Massachusetts, brought to China, and so it's it's been global since its earliest days.

And I think when you think of that the two most popular global sports, I don't think it's an accident that both involved round balls. One you kick and one you shoot use your hands. And I think there's almost

something um evolution ary about it about round balls. And I think most people, even if you're not a basketball player, if you know, whether it's your you know, balling up paper and shooting it into a garbage can, or if your little kid I have I have a young daughter and she sees a ball, she she kicks it, or she picks it up and she throws it. So today, are there any more franchise than might be for sale? By the way, is there any not that I'm aware of?

Not they're were okay, But some of the people that have bought these franchises have done extremely well. People bought I think that, like said, the seventies Sixers were brought a few years ago for three or four hundred million dollars, the Bucks for maybe four or five million dollars. And when Steve Bamber came in and paid two billion dollars for the Clippers, where all the other owners happy because it made their their team look more valuable or not? Yes,

they were happy? And uh but and and since Steve bought the Clippers, two teams have sold for more than he paid, Um Houston Rockets and the Brooklyn Nets. So one of the most difficult things you had to do after you became the commissioner was to an effect banned the then owner of the l A Clippers. Was that a tough decision for you? Um? Yes, I mean I think people may not realize it, but he's the only

owner who's ever permanently been banned from a sport. Um and it's it's difficult because I in essence worked for the owners. I worked for the owners collectively. I don't work for any one owner, but my job is to do what's in the best inches of the league. And as people here may remember that the tape that came out, the recording for which he was banned, came out, Um, you know, in the middle of the night l a time, so I was in New York, so I didn't hear

until Saturday morning, and he was banned on Tuesday. So I mean, he received NBA style due process. But I think in most walks of life, people you know, to think that from beginning to end that was four days as was remarkable. I think he paid be less than a hundred million dollars when he bought the team many many years earlier, was in San Diego. Then, I know that's the way you look at it. That but he

made a big profit, I know. So my view is, yeah, I don't think frankly, from his standpoint, he's an extraordinarily wealthy guy, and um, I don't think his reaction was, look how much money I just made the team was worth that regardless of what the family didn't call you up and say thank you for doing that. Nothing they didn't do that, Okay, So but I understand that's how

you look at it. Private equity. So one of the controversial things in college basketball has been the so called one and done situation where college are high school players go to college for one year more or less, and then they get drafted into the NBA. UM are you in favor of continuing that one and done policy? And what would you change it to if you did change it.

It's it's interesting when so when I first became commissioner UM five years ago, I announced that I thought the minimum age for entering the NBA should be twenty instead of nineteen. Roughly eleven years ago we changed it from eighteen to nineteen, and that has to be collectively bargained with our players Association. So that's an area where I don't have the unial lateral right to make a decision.

I'd say, then, once I became commissioner and and and became more aware of how the one and done situation was actually worked in operations, sort of how the recruiting worked. UM then there's obviously been some very high profile um UH criminal proceedings around sort of college sports right now.

And then in the middle of that, Um Mark Emritt, the head of the n C Double A, appointed a commission that included what was chaired by Conna Lisa Rice um to look at lots of issues involving college sports, but particularly to focus on the one and done situation. And ultimately, Conno Lisa Rice and her commission recommended to the NBA and our Players Association that we returned to the eighteen year old entry age. And I would say

that that had a huge impact on me. That together with a better understanding of what is happening to these top players in that it's it's hard even to see it as a full year. In many cases in college, most of them leave once the tournament is over. I've

changed my position eighteen. The Players Association has historically been that it should be eighteen, but there are a bunch of issues that need to be worked through between us and the Players Association, so it's something we're an active discussion.

It's a few years away. I think also, if we were to make the change, I think the first season that would make sense to make that change for is two thousand twenty two, in part because that's the current class that's just an essence finished their freshman year in high school, and the cohort is pretty well known. I mean, lots of these young men may move from you know, tenth projected pick to third projected pick. But but there

aren't that many surprises in the cohort. And so if there was no longer an issue of eligibility because remember now, because of n C double n A regulations, we can't be involved with that cohort of players right now. So if the rule were to change, we and our Players Association, USA Basketball other groups would work much more directly with those young players to prepare them for the NBA eight I mean the one and done after they finished the

n s A tournament. They're not finishing their classes. I don't want to say that's the case for all schools, um, but it's the case with many of those players, understandably because um the moment they fin look I I think that's the whole hypocrisy in a way of the one and done program. Those top players are being recruited by those schools as the best path to being a top draft pick in the NBA. So once they once they finish their collegiate career, after one season, they are fully

focused on preparing for the NBA draft. So whether or not they're still going to some classes. And remember, I mean just to put it in context, for a player into for a top player coming into the NBA, let's say a top ten pick that's going to come into next year's draft. Given our pay scale now, and assuming the NBA continues to prosper, and assuming that player stays healthy and and plays around where the expectations that player will play, that player, justin salary alone is going to

make well over two hundred million dollars. So um, So this this the steaks. It's it's hard. It's hard. I think if you were that parent or guardian to say to that player it's more important that you go to three more classes as opposed to preparing for such a critically important decision. I think it's it. And I think that's where the hypocrisy lies. Your referees are. They seem to be in pretty good shape there. Sometimes they're you know, not twenty years old, but they seem to be. You

require them to exercise a lot. They don't seem that pot bellies. They seem to be really good shape. They I hope that's not the best you can say about them. They don't have pot bellies. Well, they seem to be for guys that are age, they'rething to being pretty good shape. But I think that are there women referees? Yeah, absolutely, by the way that we have UM. We have three female referees right now, and I think it's an area

frankly where I've acknowledged that. I'm not sure how it was that it remained so male dominated for so long, because it's an area the game where UM, physically, certainly there's no benefit to being a man as opposed to a woman when it comes to refereeing. And in fact, you know, we're now in terms of the last group of referees that we hired into the league, and they came from our development league is are is called our

g league. UM. Two of the last five officials that came in where women and the and the goal is going forward it should be roughly fifty new officials entering the league. OK. So let's talk about UM. One serious issue that I didn't really address before. You've said that players have UM depression and melancholy and they feel isolated. Can you explain, you know, somebody's making fifty million dollars a year. They seem to be well respected by everybody.

Why are they so depressed and isolated? Well, and in all seriousness, what I've said is that when I in talking about our players, I said they are no more immune from mental illness than any other sector of our society. And I think I'm sure people in this room no families firsthand that regardless of how much money you're making, or your position in life or your family, that in some cases it's chemical, in some cases environmental, but that

it cuts across, you know, alsocio economic groups. And and what's changing though in our league, and and again I think this is it's it's wonderful that that players are

now willing to talk about these things. We had too high profile players the Margin Rosen when he was still with the Raptors and Kevin Love on the Cleveland Cavaliers who came out publicly and said they were suffering from depression, had issue is with anxiety, you know, and I know firsthand they weren't the first players in our league suffering with issues like those, but they were certainly the first players while they were current players in the NBA to

talk about it and I think what what And I've heard from so many mental health professionals that when it really goes to the heart of your question, when people who are perceived as having everything, and then especially in something in professional sports where there's a certain machoism associated with it and and a certain perceived toughness that and I think that the stigma historically has been suck it up right, and you're not tough if if if you're

dealing with something that's not physical and where you know when originally are our junior basketball programs were literally just about basketball skills like keep your elbow in and shoot this way and this is how you play defense. And then we morphed those programs into more about physical fitness in addition to basketball skills. And now in the last

year we've added a mental wellness component. It's been incredibly well received by people throughout the country you know who who, because I know from the letters we get and from the mental health professionals we work with that kids are now coming in and saying, Wow, this NBA player is able to you know, raise their hand and say, you know, I'm suffering, I need help. You know, regular kids feel comfortable doing that as well, if you are, I suppose um.

But the Supreme Court has said that sports betting is more or less going to be legal. Essentially it's legal. So are you worried that in the nineteen fifties and so on the college sports we had sports betting shaving people were because of the odds are related to the point spread, are you worried about that in the NBA. I'm always worried that we could have a scandal of any kind, certain certainly one involving sports betting. I think that we are better off with a regular, regulated betting

framework than keeping it all underground and illegal. And I know firsthand as the league that you know it's the Supreme Court decision has only been within the last year, and now something like eight states have now legalized sports betting. Our preference would be that there would be a consistent

federal framework. Because of your league, and you're potentially dealing with fifty different states and all their different requirements, it becomes a huge burden for the business and it's also a bit of a race to the bottom among the states sometimes from a regulatory standpoint. But putting that aside, in terms of our concern that like any public market. Just if you think of NASDAC or New York Stock Exchange.

Part of their ability to to ferret out illegal activities from the algorithms that that show when there's um deviations, that that that caused their computers to to to you know, issue red flags and say something aberational has happened here. When everything is illegal, other than having in essence tipping services and relationships, we can't know those things. So so I think it's better that it be transparent, regulated, you know,

and controlled and authenticated. And this way also people are betting with their credit cards, so you know who they are. And there's it's been not only legal and obviously the state of Nevada for a long time, but for decades in Europe. And I've learned a lot from our counterparts soccer leagues because they're they've worked and lived in regulated betting frameworks for a long time, and they have much

better controls than we would. You like to own a piece of the betting profits in the league, not the profits. I think our proposal is um. I mean, it's been a bit controversial, but you know, we've proposed that we received something that that I've called an integrity fee and some people said, oh, that's a euphemism for you just getting a royalty, And I'm saying, all right, called a royalty.

You know. My view is this this year, the NBA will spend roughly eight billion dollars creating the NBA, I mean, will generate around nine billion, and we spend about eight billions. And my feeling is as the creators of the intellectual property and the organization in which the burden of regulation has been imposed on us by the states. I mean again, this is you know that the Supreme Court did what it did, and now states are doing what they're doing

legalizing sports betting. They are now imposing a set of requirements on us in terms of how they expect us to protect the integrity of the product. And and so my view is we should get a fee, not off the profits, because I don't want anyone to think in any way that we're incentivized for a particular team to win, or for a game to go, or for a particular score, or for you know, uh, seven games instead of six games or whatever else. But yes, I feel as a

business matter, we should share in the proceeds. How do you get to be NBA commissioner. Really, um, do you? I mean, did you grow up saying I want to be NBA commissioner. I didn't grow wanting to be the commission I don't even think I had any sense of what to do. But you did not go to Duke

on a basketball schollege. I definitely didn't. And and I'm pretty sure that when even when I went to law school, I if somebody had asked me what the NBA commissioner did, I would have said, he hands out he hands out rings and you know, intense the schedule. I wouldn't really have even understood the joke. You graduated from the Universityicago law school, you clerk for a federal judge. Then you went to Krevass Sway and more like a well known all street firm. And then how did you go from

there to the NBA? Because a lot of young lawyers were not happy practicing law. I would love to go work for the commission in the NBA. I did you do that? Honestly? I got incredibly lucky. I um. I had worked at Kravat for about two years and decided that I was working one at the time. One of Crevass big clients was Time Warner and I was doing working on a lot of media cases and at the time for HBO in particular, and I became fascinated with the media business. And uh, well, I was working on

a particular litigation. I was following what was happening in sports media and and the move of sports to cable television really you know. And it was Ted Turner in essence through TVs and then T and T who was leading that charge. And um, David Stern, Um then the commissioner, was at the forefront of that movement. And David Stern had worked at Proscouer in New York, which was the

same law firm that my father had worked at. And I didn't know David, but I wrote him a letter and asked him if he could give me some advice about transitioning from law into a media job. At the time, having written a letter, not even thinking about working at the NBA or understanding what that that this was something I could do at the NBA. UM, make a long story short, he gave me. He you know, this is pre email, he he. I wrote him a letter, an

old fashioned letter. His assistant called me a few weeks later said he can see you on whatever date I went over. I met with him for a half hour. He gave me some advice which I didn't follow. And and then about a month later he called me and he said, what are you up to? And he said, I have an idea, And after a series of meetings, he hired me as his assistant. And was my first job. You got a letter from a young lawyer today, what would you pass it to our HR department? And UH,

all right? So David Stern, David Stern was a spectacular commissioner by everybody's account. He did it for thirty years, and I think he retired when he was like seventy two. So were you when he was sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty nine, seventy Did you say, David, maybe I'm ready. Did you ever give him a little push or how did that happen? Never? Never, never, And and again I was being commissioner of the NBA. Is

my sixth job at the NBA. And so for five of those jobs I worked directly for David and he gave me enormous opportunities. A brilliant guy. Um I ended up running an entity called NBA Entertainment I was interested in the media business, sort of the television and media, and then became the Internet arm of the NBA. Many years later, I became the deputy commissioner of the NBA. But ultimately, you know, David could recommend me, but it

required the team owners voting me. That's how the commissioners determined, and he sort of set his own timeline for when he was going to step down. And I think also I was very fortunate that the league was in great shape at that moment. I assume there could have been a scenario where things weren't going so well. They might have looked outside the NBA. But again, I owe a lot to David, and I was very fortunate to be

in that job. So what do you think is the leadership trait that you had that enabled Dava to you know, think you deserve to be the commissioner? Um, I I think, you know it nothing necessarily so unique to me. I was willing to work very hard, and I did work very hard over the years. I certainly loved the sport of basketball. I think that much of my job now is spent on media. It's the primary revenue source for the NBA. So the fact that I developed an expertise

and media over the years was very important. I'd say, I think while certainly being a lawyer isn't prerequisite to being UM NBA commissioner, no different than being a lawyer, I obviously in your job. But I think you and I would say the same thing. I think I think you'd say the same thing. Having gone to law school, learning those skills has been very beneficial. Large part of my job is being a professional negotiator, whether it's collective bargaining,

whether it's commercial relationships that we enter into. So I think it was it was all of those skills. A lot of your media today and this is contractor with the other leagues as social media. You encourage your players to be involved in social media. Uh. You encourage uh Lebron James, your best known players to really be, if not controversial, to have public views. Why do you? Why do you do that? And it's been helpful to the NBA. Yeah,

I don't. I don't certainly don't encourage them to be controversial. I encourage them to be genuine and earnest about their views, and I make sure that they know that that within

certain boundaries. Frankly, I mean I think there's still more around issues of decency, not particularly political speech, but I want them to know that they should feel safe frankly as NBA players, and I ultimately think it's in our business interest to demonstrate to our fans in the greater community, these are multidimensional people that earlier on in my career at the NBA, I think when we had the biggest issues as a league, and this is before was that

opportunity with social media for players to um have that ability to to show who they are directly to fans. They were portrayed in many cases as being one dimensional people. They were just sort of just ballplayers, and people didn't understand, you know, that where they were from and what they did, what the other interests were, and or if they were if they were from other countries. They were just from China.

There was no sense, well it's a big place there from Beijing and this is what they did and this is how they grew up. And I think social media as a compliment to the traditional media which is really helpful to allows them to show who they really are, and I think it helps to engage fans and the best player in the NBA. There's many great players in the NBA, David, And now you have recently married a couple of years ago, right, uh, four years ago, years ago.

And now you have a baby who is two years old, little little old over too. And is she interested in basketball? Absolutely? She watches. And that's why I got to make sure the w n B a prosperous. She's my wife is tall. I'm tall. She uh she watches basketball games with me. And I may get some tips from our other coach k here in the audience of and uh um. I would love to coach her one day. It's sort of

I want she loves the game. I'd love her. So you're gonna You're gonna stay in this position for the foreseeable future. You're not going to go buy a team, going to private equity, nothing like that. You're gonna stay. No plans to go anywhere, right, Thank you very much for an interesting consecutive