NBA Commissioner David Stern and Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik gave their annual state-of-the-game address yesterday in Indianapolis, and Stern said, "We think we've had a great basketball year. The games have been good, the playoffs have been terrific." In looking ahead, Stern said, "We [have] focused on the issues of no-shows, we think we can improve that next year, and television ratings have been down during [the] regular season and during the playoffs, although we anticipate that the NBA ratings will remain strong and probably improve next year" (THE DAILY). NO SHOWS: Stern, on how the league will address no- shows at NBA games: "We're working on very specific technologies having to do with allowing people who don't want to use their tickets to be able to turn them in, in a very short order, virtually simultaneously, and to reissue them to others who might want to use them. And we're working on a number of applications with Ticketmaster to focus on that particular issue of people who are sitting on tickets of enormous worth who already decided, for whatever reason, they're unable to use them that evening." Stern did stress that any re-use of tickets does not mean that the league would be selling tickets twice (THE DAILY). IMPROVING THE RATINGS GAME: Stern said the league's ratings drop "doesn't alarm us, and we expect that the very games themselves, and all of the activities that we're undertaking in related areas will, in fact, turn it around." With ratings down across the board for most sports and non- sports programming, Stern said "the issue is going to be how much of a rating we can hold, not exactly how you increase them." Stern said the league would be more aggressive promoting its TV schedule: "We're going to make sure next season there's no NBA fan that lives, certainly one that is connected to the Internet, that won't know with some precision the time and teams of every NBA telecast. This year, various collected lists got video e-mails telling them about the games, but those lists are relatively small. Over time, those lists will increase tenfold, and we're going to make sure that any attendance decline is going to be met. ... Those Saturday night games [on NBC], I didn't know they were on some nights. I forgot. We need some more regular programming, and we need less on Saturdays. The marketplace is telling us that outside of the playoffs, people don't associate NBA regular season basketball with late Saturday afternoon. ... It's a Sunday sport" (THE DAILY). DEVELOPMENTAL LEAGUE: Granik said details on the NBA's developmental league, scheduled for 2001, will be announced in the fall: "In terms of player eligibility, what we basically decided is that a player [is going to have to be 20], with one exception that we can think of. Maybe there will be something else that comes up. But, basically, to play in what we're going to call the National Basketball Development League, the NBDL, ... it looks to us like you'll have to be 20 by November 1 of the year in which you're going to start to compete." Stern, on launching a developmental league rather than using a minor league such as the CBA: "There are reasons beyond simply the basketball development part for us to have such a league. ... We're going to use this at our direction to develop basketball wherever we do it. Directly, grass-roots marketing in small cities where we're going to continue to grow this game on a national basis. We think that's very, very important for us." Stern added, "We're going to use this league to develop profiles for hiring throughout the NBA: Coaches, assistant coaches, marketing, public relations, a real human-resources pool for us to do it" (THE DAILY). Granik, on where NBDL teams will play: "Ideally, we're talking about [population bases] of 750,000 or less, with arenas that seat 6,000-10,000. And it won't be in markets where there are NBA teams" (CBS SportsLine, 6/12). Stern said that the NBDL will be modeled after the WNBA and "could turn out to be 'infinitely growable'" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/13). Stern added, "Although we're in constant communication with the IBL, the IBA, the CBA ... the ownership and direction of our own development league is critical" (Baltimore SUN, 6/13). STERN'S NOT READY FOR SPIN MOVE: Stern, on a possible IPO for NBA.com: "In light of the certain cooling of the markets that our action is prudent by not rushing forward to do anything right now" (THE DAILY).
