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Leagues and Governing Bodies

NBPA's Roberts Doesn't Believe Next Season Starts Before New Year

Speculation about when the next NBA season will begin has started to reach a fever pitch with recent reports it will not start before Christmas or even later into '21, and NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts is adding her voice to the discussion, saying she does not believe it “will begin in December,” according to David Gelles of the N.Y. TIMES. Roberts, as part of the Times' Corner Office feature, said, “Some bubblelike environment may be necessary. I suspect that we will have a hybrid environment, maybe with division bubbles that last for a certain number of months, and then we stop. But the concept of putting our players in a bubble for an entire season is unrealistic.” She added there “will be a revenue drop” despite remaining hopeful about the "reopening of some arenas." Roberts: “If we’re lucky we will see 25 percent of the revenue that ordinarily comes through gate receipts, etc. That’s optimistic. Hopefully we can soften the blow, but I don’t see us packing arenas.” Other highlights from her interview:

  • On why players are publicly engaging in social activism so forcefully these days: “Two words: social media. I have not stopped being amazed at the reach that is made possible through social media. … These guys feel both the power but also the responsibility that they have. If they feel passionately about an issue, and they do, they want to be able to say: 'This is wrong. This has to change.'”
  • On separating sports from societal issues: “People always say, 'When I watch sports, I just want to shut off the rest of the world.' OK. But the world is still out there. You can spend that two hours watching a basketball game, but the minute you click off that game, it’s still the case that Black men are being killed disproportionately in their contact with police. … People that want to just put blinders on and just not be bothered with events in the world that are uncomfortable, you know, shame on them" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/11).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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