The Commish Does Harlem

NBA Commissioner David Stern knows how to schmooze. That's no pejorative either - the man's just super business saavy and people smart. I remember meeting him in Istanbul at a preseason game where, with that ever-present smirk, he created instant banter with jokes about how bad my Turkish was, though he knew none himself. And, man oh man, can he offer a warm hand to shake.

Stern goes at it again in the video below, this time at Mosaic Cuts Unisex barbershop in the heart of Harlem. Watch him deftly deal with all questions flung his way. Despite youtube comments, I don't think the questions were prepared - queries on the dress code, age limit and court brawls should be pretty commonplace to him by now.



One of the more interesting sidebars - and apropos to the article I wrote in the previous post - deals with the possibility of talented players leaving to Europe, never to return/or enter the NBA. Stern responds that 1) With more than $2 billion shunted to players' pockets last year, the NBA is too efficient a money-making machine to worry about about mass defections to Europe and 2) With the likes of superstar imports Yao, Nowitzki, Parker, Gasol etc., foreign leagues are worrying more about the NBA siphoning their talent than the other way around.

Fair points, Stern, that may hold up well enough in the short term. But two emergent forces may turn, or at least stem, the tide: 1) the accelerated growth of GDP and basketball interest in China, and to a lesser extent south Mediterranean nations, will generate higher salaries to lure NBA players for longer and 2) More mid-tier NBA players (like Josh Childress or Fred Jones) may begin steering their careers to the Olde World because they, unlike superstars or marginal players, can lock multi-year, multi-million contracts eclipsing anything they could make stateside.

NBA Growth into China Unswervingly Meteoric

Despite world-wide economic woes, the NBA's relentless push into China continues. The latest news comes during a press conference at the O2 arena in London, in which NBA head David Stern - and the head of the company who built the O2 - announced plans to build 12 (!) arenas in China at unspecified locales on an unspecified schedule...

"We weren't going to start construction in the next couple of weeks," Stern said at a joint news conference with AEG president and CEO Timothy J. Leiweke. "We anticipate that in a relatively short order we will have laid out a road map of a dozen buildings or so throughout China."

Leiweke said it could take decades to complete the project.

"We think of this over the next 20 years, not the next year or two," he said, adding some would be new arenas and others would be created by renovating existing facilities.

One likely site for an arena is Guangzhou, a city of over 7.5 million, which has recently hosted its first NBA preseason game in a beautiful, though relatively small (sits up to 13,000), gymnasium.


View Larger Map


Besides Guangzhou, the NBA has also played on the mainland in Shanghai, Beijing, Macao, and Hong Kong since it the Washington Wizards played the Chinese National Team in 1979. The NBA returned with two teams in 2004 and two in 2007.

It semi-astounded me to learn that some Chinese paid upwards to $550 to watch last year's Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers preseason game.

But, then again, with 2007 statistics like the below testifying to the NBA's popularity in his nation, what well-moneyed Chinese basketball fanatic wouldn't give a unequivocal thumbs-up to finally see his heroes in vivo?

NBA merchandise is available in 50,000 retail outlets, and Spalding sold more than 1 million NBA basketballs last year. NBA games are carried by 51 networks and television stations (up from 32 last season), reaching an average of 36 million viewers.

After all, as David Stern and the O2 builders well know, sometimes TV exposure just doesn't do it: when it comes to reaping in revenue, nothing beats good ol-fashioned vis-a-vis marketing.