Observations and comments from cleaning out the notebook last week — before heading to Daytona to see one of the most ambitious projects in sports: Daytona Rising and the adjacent One Daytona.
> SILVER STILL GOLD: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver knows it won’t always be this smooth; he knows the other shoe eventually is going to drop on his administration. But after spending time in Toronto for the NBA All-Star Game, it’s clearly evident Silver’s honeymoon is continuing.
I can’t recall such a relaxed, upbeat and tension-free vibe to a major event weekend as what I observed in Toronto. Last year, the self-effacing commissioner opened the NBA All-Star Technology Summit by putting on a virtual reality headset and lightheartedly showcasing the promise of the new technology. This year, he pushed the boundary again, playfully interacting with a hologram of Dr. James Naismith in front of the 400-plus in attendance at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. While he didn’t hit every note, you had to admire his effort not to take himself too seriously while introducing technology that was pretty compelling.
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Adam Silver is enjoying a smooth second year as NBA commissioner.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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fter his opening, Silver took a seat in the middle of the ballroom and spent the morning taking notes from the panels. The carefree vibe continued during his state of the league address, where it struck me how vastly different the issues Silver is dealing with are from those
facing his NFL counterpart Roger Goodell, whom I wrote about after the Super Bowl. Yes, the microscopes are different, but they’re also worthy of comparison. A careful Goodell faced challenging questions on the league leaving St. Louis for Los Angeles, the health and safety of players, and even the future of youth participation in football. In contrast, a relaxed Silver touted the NBA reaching 1 billion social media followers and was asked about the cold weather in Toronto, “hack-a-Shaq” fouling, and the pie-in-the-sky possibility of taking the All-Star Game to Europe or China. It was 10 questions into the press conference before Silver was asked about the new cash flowing into the league and how that could affect the collective-bargaining agreement, market discrepancy and competitive balance. Talk about easy lifting.
Perhaps anticipating player issues coming to the forefront in the future, Silver’s remarks were filled with concern on player demands. He brought up the impact on traveling across time zones, adjusting player sleep patterns, player fatigue, reducing back-to-back games and four games in five nights, as well as talking to the National Basketball Players Association about the length of the preseason and regular season. He sounded in tune with the demands on today’s players and on fostering a spirit of collaboration one year before a possible opt-out in the CBA.
Yes, the NBA is in a good place, but this was as placid a state of the league as Silver will ever face. He knows it won’t always be this way.
> LESSONS OF LEADERSHIP: I liked this definition of leadership from former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, who shared it recently while being interviewed by the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum. I wanted to pass it along for your files.
“What is leadership? I get a lot of credit for leadership, and I think part of it is simply being a decent human being and caring for people. I always felt that one of the great things about an individual is how you treat people who cannot do anything for you. That, to me, is a litmus test of a human being. How do you treat the waiter at the restaurant? How do you treat the janitor in the hall in your institution? Do you treat them like you would the president? If you don’t, why don’t you? That is part of leadership. The other part is knowing when to pull: knowing you feel something very strongly and you have got to bring people to that. Equally important is to know when you are being pushed: knowing that there is a force behind you and you need to try and identify that force and go with it as long as you believe it is appropriate. Obviously, if you don’t, you need to fight it off.
“None of us are the do all, end all. All of the ideas do not come from one person. They come from all of our people. A good leader is somebody who is comfortable being pushed and pulling. When you are pulling and people are not agreeing with you, you have to deal with that and be able to bring them all around. When we did the SEC Network, before we did it, we had to take away everyone’s rights. There was a lot of pulling and shoving. We felt strongly about it, so we kept doing it. Then there were occasions about certain championships where I was pushed, and ultimately the pushers were correct. Leadership is managing a combination of all of that.”
> POLITICAL SCIENCE: If you are glued to the presidential primaries like me, you don’t want to miss Showtime’s excellent series “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth.” In the style of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” content is gathered during the week and edited immediately to offer timely material while offering perspective from journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, as well as longtime political operative Mark McKinnon. It hits Sunday night, but I watch it Monday evenings after I play basketball. It offers the most original and raw access and footage of a presidential race I have ever seen. It also reinforces the “pro sport-like” nature of this year’s primary season — including grand candidate entrances, national anthems before debates, and ratings that rival some live sports events. If you’re a political or news junkie, check “The Circus” out. …
Another political correlation to the sports industry is how the campaigns — like sports and most of society — grapple with how to reach millennials. This generation is seriously affecting the presidential race, and a front-page piece in The Wall Street Journal detailed how for the first time millennials will match baby boomers as a share of the electorate and the difficulty campaigns were having in reaching this ethnically diverse generation that is less religious and slower to marry. The takeaway for me was the notion that young people are “shaping the debate on public issues,” and quotes GOP pollster Bill McInturff as saying, “Their views are becoming the dominant public view.” A vivid example of how powerful/influential this generation born after 1980 is proving to be.
Abraham D. Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportbusinessjournal.com.
