The future of the National Basketball Development League rests in part with David Kahn, who believes the struggling offshoot of the NBA will grow into a full-blown minor league operation now that its teams will have direct affiliation with NBA clubs.
It’s that sense of opportunity, in part, that drove Kahn to buy four NBDL franchises in the Southwest earlier this year.
Of the NBDL’s eight teams slated to play next season, only Fayetteville, N.C., and Roanoke, Va., remain from the markets the league picked for its 2001 debut. Kahn’s investment group will run teams in Tulsa, Okla.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, which become the league’s four top markets by population (see chart).
According to Kahn, the league’s difficulties to date have simply been a function of the NBA misjudging the NBDL’s debut markets.
“In fairness to [NBA Commissioner David Stern], the league has had success in every way but economically,” Kahn said. “But I’m really pleased with the progress, and the next five months [in preparing for his first season] will tell if we have a profit in year one or in year two.”
| MOVING UP |
| The NBDL will compete this fall in markets mostly larger than the cities that held the league’s debut franchises in 2001. The 2005-06 team markets are in bold. |
| City | Population (2003) |
| Austin, Texas | 672,011 |
| Fort Worth, Texas | 585,122 |
| Albuquerque, N.M. | 471,856 |
| Tulsa, Okla. | 387,807 |
| Mobile, Ala. | 193,464 |
| Columbus, Ga. | 185,781 |
| Little Rock, Ark. | 184,053 |
| Huntsville, Ala. | 164,237 |
| Fayetteville, N.C. | 124,372 |
| Roanoke, Va. | 92,863 |
| North Charleston, S.C. | 81,577 |
| Asheville, N.C. | 69,045 |
| Greenville, S.C. | 55,926 |
| Fort Myers, Fla. | 51,028 |
| Research by Brandon McClungSource: U.S. Census Bureau |
The predictions of profit aren’t from some wide-eyed local entrepreneur star-struck over running a professional sports franchise.
Kahn’s ties to the NBA date to 1984 and a six-year stint covering the league as a reporter for The Oregonian in Portland. That experience led to an interest in working on the franchise side of the business, so Kahn, who graduated from UCLA with a degree in English, enrolled in law school at New York University in 1990 as an entree to the executive side of the business.
“When I was a sportswriter, a ton of lawyers were working in sports, and I knew that having a law degree was imperative in becoming a [sports] executive,” he said.
While in law school, Kahn moonlighted as a consultant for NBC’s “Showtime” NBA program. He spent two years at the law firm Proskauer Rose after graduation before, in 1995, landing a job with the Indiana Pacers as assistant to team President Donnie Walsh. He was named assistant general manager one year later and general manager in 1999.
“I knew David when he was a sportswriter, and we talked about the path of becoming a general manager,” Walsh said of Kahn, whom he hired. “When he was in law school, he talked about working for me, and when we were getting a new arena, I brought him in.”
Kahn resigned as Indiana’s general manager in 2003 because of a move back to Portland, where his wife runs an advertising agency, though he remained affiliated with the Pacers as a special adviser. In Portland, he turned his attention to baseball, joining the effort to bring a big league franchise to Portland, but the NBA came calling again last spring, when Stern, impressed by Kahn’s quick rise in the industry, targeted him for investment in the NBDL.
The prospect of an NBDL affiliation with NBA clubs played a part in Kahn’s decision to buy, but he said putting the NBDL in bigger markets was critical, too.
He wouldn’t disclose the amount of his investment in the league.
“[Stern] came at me a couple of times when I was visiting back in New York, and he was very persuasive in laying out the vision,” Kahn said. “With each passing conversation, I could see his determination and his deep motivation to see it succeed.”
