As NBA Commissioner David Stern leads the NBA into the upcoming CBA negotiations, he is "now under pressure from new owners and old hands," according to Mark Heisler of the L.A. TIMES. Stern, who "enriched a generation of former medicine show peddlers," is just two seasons shy of tying Pete Rozelle as the longest-tenured commissioner in major U.S. sports at 29 seasons. But NBA insiders "worry Stern is at the mercy of his hawks, or an outright War Party" with owners like the Wizards' Ted Leonsis, who "own NHL teams and think burning a season is the way to go." NBPA Exec Dir Billy Hunter last week in an e-mail said, "I've had people tell me David may find it easier to make a deal with the union than with some of his owners." Without "commenting directly, Stern says the angry-owner thesis is wrong." He said, "Oh no, absolutely not. They're a terrific group and we get along very well." Heisler noted the '08 Celtics-Lakers NBA Championship "started a renaissance as the Finals out-rated the World Series for a fourth time and in 2010 for a fifth." But then, "poverty hit the NBA," and Stern and Hunter "will decide how broken the model is, however many forecasts of doom it takes." If Stern "with an agenda is like Leonard Bernstein with an orchestra and he's hardly nonpartisan, here he is 27 years later, still on the firing line, still the NBA's last best hope." At 68, Stern "looks as cherubic as he did at 41." His hair is "now silver but without a strand missing or out of place," and friends believe that "he'll go on for years." He said, "It's a good time and a fun time to be commissioner of the NBA. It doesn't mean that there aren't challenges, but there always have been challenges" (L.A. TIMES, 2/13). Heisler takes a detailed look at "where the NBA owners stand" ahead of labor negotiations (L.A. TIMES, 2/13).
WHAT TO SHARE: SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's John Lombardo reports as NBA owners "figure out how much revenue they are willing to split with today's players, a difficult and sometimes fractious set of internal negotiations must be completed as ownership tackles a major new business strategy: how to split more revenue among themselves." No formal plans on changes to the current model "have been presented to the league's board of governors and there likely won't be any specific plan presented to the league or union during this week's All-Star break." But the "mechanics of change present huge obstacles to ownership, as teams confront an age-old question: how to redistribute wealth among those who aren't predisposed to increased sharing." One source familiar with league finances said, "The large markets have bought in, but this is a league run by a bunch of entrepreneurs who have never shared with their competitors. There has been zero revenue sharing on tickets and none on the local media level, so this represents a sea change in how the league is run" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 2/14 issue).
