Clippers President of Business Operations GILLIAN ZUCKER is profiled by the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER's Jim Alexander, who wrote she is "one of just a handful of women to serve in such a visible role with a franchise in one of North America’s four major team sports, and as such she has already received feedback from other women who see her as a groundbreaker and a role model." As much as the former Auto Club Speedway President "misses motorsports," her strengths as an exec "just seem a better fit in the more progressive NBA." Part of a "normal day" in the NBA, for example, includes the "melding of sport, entertainment and celebrity." With the Auto Club, she was "responsible for everything involving the track," including parking complaints, ticket prices, and "even the condition of the track surface." With the Clippers, she can "concentrate on the business operation; if anyone has complaints with the facility, she can just refer them to AEG." That narrower focus "provides more opportunities to come up with ideas and implement them, although another difference is that instead of two or three big events a season, now there are 41 plus playoffs." Zucker said that if something "isn’t right at an NBA game it can be changed in short order; at the track, the wait is measured in months rather than days." Alexander noted this is "almost a blank canvas, an opportunity for reinvention -- from making the game experience the most technologically advanced in sports," which is a goal of Clippers Owner STEVE BALLMER, "all the way down to figuring out how the seats at the top of the arena become the most desirable in the building" (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 1/20).
