NBA Commissioner Adam Silver appeared on ESPN Radio's "Mike & Mike" this morning to mark the start of the '14-15 season and hit on a couple of topics that have generated conversation in recent weeks. The league and the NBPA can opt out of the current CBA following the '16-17 season, but Silver again said it is "premature to start talking about work stoppages three years from now." He said he and new NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts have already had several meetings, as they are "getting to know each other." Silver said, "We’re trying to talk regularly by phone. I know she’s setting out this season to try to get to every club before (the) All-Star (break). I think it’s helpful to have strong leadership at the union. The stronger the union is in many ways, the better bargaining we are going to have because when they’re aligned, they can speak with one voice." He added there is "plenty that both sides can negotiate about if that’s where we go, but I’m hopeful that, over the next several years as she spends more time studying the system’s elements, as we have a new labor relations committee, as we start looking at it whether we need to tinker, we’ll see." Silver: "It would be a failure on both our parts if it ultimately resulted in a work stoppage.” He also touched on the 44-minute preseason game the Celtics and Nets played, saying the idea "came directly out of a coaches meeting that I attended in mid-September." Silver: "The coaches were interested in, in addition to cutting the number of minutes -- your bosses at ESPN won't like this -- but we cut the number of commercial breaks as well. We were experimenting with the flow of the game and the format, and we were also curious to see how it would affect the minutes for starters." However, he said it is "highly unlikely that we’re going to see a change in the number of minutes anytime soon" (“Mike & Mike,” ESPN Radio, 10/29).
MAN OF THE HOUR: MULTICHANNEL NEWS has named Silver its Sports Exec of the Year, and he sat for a wide-ranging interview with the magazine's Reynolds and Umstead. Silver noted there are "no plans to expand anywhere at this time," though European expansion "is something we'll continue to look at." He said, "It's a long-term project, but we're seeing the emergence of true state-of-the-art facilities in Europe. ... But there are still economic issues in southern Europe that are an impediment to expanding in Europe." ESPN is partnering with the NBA on an OTT service, and Silver said, "It's going to be a 24/7 streamed service to mobile devices. It will contain a full package of NBA games, and will likely include other live sports as well. It'll be a package that is going to be made available directly to the consumer and possibly paid through their mobile provider, with potentially some sort of surcharge on top of whatever their monthly fee is in order to get that additional programming. ... There potentially will be a surcharge for the content but won't be an additional charge for the additional bandwidth that that service is using on a monthly basis, making it more affordable. But we think it'll be a very attractive offering." Meanwhile, Silver was asked if Turner was "ever in the mix for The Finals in some capacity, on a shared, alternating-years basis." He replied, "I can say that over the course of many months of negotiations we discussed several different permutations in terms of The Finals and (the) All-Star (Game) and the other marquee properties. I think all sides agreed that in order to get these deals done on the timeframe, we weren't going to be able to do it if we rejuggled where all the properties went" (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 10/27 issue).
OFF TO A GREAT START: TNT's Charles Barkley said Silver has "done amazing" during his brief tenure as commissioner. Barkley said, "Can you imagine handling the Donald Sterling situation and he handled it perfectly." He jokingly added, "The one thing about Adam Silver is there is nowhere to go but down." Barkley: "I'm a big David Stern fan and when Adam had his first press conference, we were all debating what Adam was going to do with Donald Sterling. We thought it would be a big fine, suspended for a short period of time. When he came out and said, Donald Sterling is banned for life, we looked at each other and said, Are you sh---- me? That was amazing. ... But I do think he needs to come out on domestic violence. We should not be idiots like the NFL. You can't wait. You have to get ahead of it" (SI.com, 10/28).
