NBA Commissioner David Stern and NBA Deputy Commissioner
Russ Granik met the media on Friday to give their assessments of
the state of the league. Excerpts:
OVERVIEW: Citing the return of Johnson and Jordan, the new
CBAs with players and refs, attendance up just over 3.5%, rising
TV ratings on national carriers, and the "biggest All-Star
Weekend ever," Granik said: "Business for the sport looks very
good right now."
SAN ANTONIO: Stern: "We think that San Antonio is an
excellent NBA city. ... We would like to see the Spurs remain in
San Antonio and fully expect that they will."
REVENUE-SHARING: Stern: "We already have revenue-sharing
pretty extensively from the playoffs, network television, funding
of the league office and NBA Properties and the like. One of the
things that we have done is ask the Long Range Planning Committee
to look at the potential impact of the collective bargaining
agreement, under which we have made some serious economic
commitments to the players, and to see if our current revenue
sharing formula is adequate to support the operations of the
[CBA]."
THE NEW CBA: Granik said that, other than the "benefit" of
the rookie cap, it is hard to say what the impact has been. ...
It is going to take a few years before we really know how well
the agreement works."
WOMEN'S LEAGUE: Stern: "We have no fully developed plans.
We're just considering a lot of issues about how we can grow our
sport and that includes everything from women to summer
programming to international programming."
FRANCHISE MOVEMENT: Stern: "We have always believed we
have the right to pass on franchise relocations. ... We have
asserted and continue to assert the proposition that our
franchises need permission from the Board of Governors in order
to move, and that power reasonably exercised is not in violation
of the antitrust statutes."
RETAIL SALES: Stern: "We will probably have retail sales
about the same as football in an extraordinarily difficult retail
sales environment, and we think those sales will probably be flat
this year." Stern promised the future release of "some big plans
... that will both domestically and globally cause our retail
sales to grow quickly."
MEXICO CITY: Stern: "At this point, I think we should
allow our league to grow within itself and not really consider
any expansion before the turn of the century." Stern did note
recent devaluation of the Peso (THE DAILY).
