David Levy (right) said Stern painted an accurate picture of the importance of media partners to the NBA.nbae / getty images
A big part of David Stern’s legacy can be seen in the media business, where he made big bets that usually paid off — from his early embrace of prime-time playoff games to his 2002 decision to become the first professional sports league to embrace cable television.
During his time as commissioner, Stern developed close relationships with media executives, most of whom consistently describe him as a mentor and a friend.
NBC’s Mark Lazarus first got to know Stern in 1989, when the media executive worked on the Miller account for an ad agency. As Lazarus moved from the agency to Turner to NBC, he remained close with Stern, and is one of dozens of sports business executives who describe him as a mentor.
“David was never an ‘official’ mentor to anybody — he never considered himself a mentor,” Lazarus said. “But he had the type of leadership skills that made people view him with that lens.”
As an example, Lazarus pointed to a lunch the two shared in New York in early November. Stern “was as vivacious and cantankerous as ever,” Lazarus joked.
The conversation was dominated by talk of new sports businesses that the two could explore, like esports and gambling.
During the lunch, Stern told Lazarus, “You’re not thinking big enough.”
“That was not a throwaway line — I took it as a lesson,” Lazarus said. “He always challenged me to think differently about things.”
In 2007, Stern orchestrated a media rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports that, combined, neared the $1 billion per year benchmark.
Network executives pushed Stern to give them more access during games, including putting microphones on players and coaches, and allowing cameras inside coaching huddles.
Stern invited ESPN’s John Skipper and Turner’s David Levy to explain their plans at a meeting that fall that included most of the league’s coaches. After Skipper and Levy made their presentations, one of the league’s older coaches spoke up and said his team was not going to participate.
At that point, Stern’s hand came crashing down on the table, creating a large bang. He looked around the room to make sure that everyone was paying attention and said, “Gentlemen, these two men represent companies that are paying us $1 billion per year. We are going to provide them some value. This is not a democracy. You are going to do this. Are there any questions?”
“That spoke to the fact that David was a very strong leader who had vision and knew what the league had to do in order to grow,” Skipper said.
Levy referenced Stern’s vision when he spoke of the part of that 2007 deal that had Turner operate the NBA’s digital businesses, including NBA TV. Levy recalled that Stern pushed for a profit-sharing deal with Turner, believing that building and operating media businesses is not a smart strategy for sports leagues.
“That is still a very important piece of his legacy,” Levy said. “David was always a leader in the digital arena, from executing that deal to understanding that his players should be on social media.”
