Yeah.

So I'm not gonna say in Ted's, you know, to his defense that I have no angst over that.

I come at it from a different direction.

I mean, yes, there's private equity now in the NBA than the NFL, NHL that's allowed in, on the cap table, but principal owners still have to be, you know-- It can, it can be corporate in certain circumstances, but not private equity, but it's largely individuals.

And from that standpoint, especially now, if you look at the increase in valuations, individuals have multiples more invested these t- in these teams than any time in history.

So, you know, in terms of, you know, skin in the game, completely independent of PE funds, you know, this is a huge part of these individuals' net worth, much more so than in the early nineties when I joined the league.

So I don't really have any concern somehow that interests aren't aligned or that these particular control owners aren't sufficiently incentivized.

With the other owners, how did-- Were they pushing for that? And what was their reaction once, once they saw that?

did you end up as chair of the FPPC? What does that career path look like? Talk us through that.

That's a great question.

Honestly, it's a gubernatorial appointment, so you'd have to ask the governor, right? If you would have asked me when I graduated law school what I was going to be doing, I would have told you I was going to be hopefully, fingers crossed, a partner at a bankruptcy law firm right now.

That was my plan coming out of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles was to practice bankruptcy law.

But I got a call from what's known as the Capital Fellows Program, which is run by California State University Sacramento.

and the governor's office.

And they said, hey, do you want to move up to Sacramento and be part of our program? We had somebody drop out from the program.

I'm curious, as someone who's been doing this or in this area for a while now, how has it changed? And how big of a piece is the tech piece in that, in how this space is changing?

Now, do you-- does everybody get together? Help me understand when you're preparing for pronouncing these names, uh, how does that work where you need to learn how to pronounce those who might be drafted?

Well, first of all, in terms of everyone getting together, actually right after this interview, um, across the street from our office at Rockefeller Center, and there is a luncheon for all the lottery picks and their families and friends.

Um, some of them bring their coaches, um, high school coaches.

It's, it's a, it's a really cool event, and, uh, Andre Iguodala, head of the Players Association, will speak to them.

I will as well.

Um, but it's really an opportunity to welcome them to the NBA family a- and opportunity for the Players Association to talk to them a little bit about joining this unique fraternity.

I'm always amazed.

Yeah

Yeah

... not the first pick, not a top five pick, but the fifteenth.

So it shows how deep the talent is in this league.

And it's the, the majority of our players are still American.

It's r- roughly seventy percent of the league are American.

So you know, I think if anything, that rash of international MVPs has gotten the attention of youth development in the US and the programs, or whether that's just happenstance or there's a better job we all need to do collectively.

No question there's enormous talent coming out of the US.

Tanking or flopping, uh, what do you spend more time on?

Now, do you-- does everybody get together? Help me understand when you're preparing for announcing these names, uh, how does that work where you need to learn how to pronounce those who might be drafted?

Well, first of all, in terms of everyone getting together, actually right after this interview, um, across the street from our office at Rockefeller Center, and there is a luncheon for all the lottery picks and their families and friends.

Um, some of them bring their coaches, um, high school coaches.

It's, it's a, it's a really cool event.

And, uh, Andre Iguodala, head of the Players Association, will speak to them.

I will as well.

Um, but it's really an opportunity to welcome them to the NBA family a- and opportunity for the Player Association to talk to them a little bit about joining this unique fraternity.

Yeah

[laughs]

Yeah.

Well, you know what? Everybody sort of takes a stab at y- you know, trying to decipher or figure out what it is, and I don't think there is really o- o- o- one element that you can put your finger on.

But I saw something last night on Instagram, and I've heard of it before, but a new AI company is now producing a, a, a couple of films, and I don't remember the names of who's involved, and it's not really important.

But what I saw is the props and the locations, and they were compositing, you know, the actors on a blue... on, on a green screen, and all the locations were being generated.

I went, "Oh, there goes that career." And that's essentially what I've been hearing and, and it's sad because of, one, it was a beautiful craft for many craftspeople that do what I do around the world, and it really is a brethren and sisterhood position.

Mm

... uh, growing wheat, and I asked, uh, a farmer that I'd spoken to at the co-op, I said, "I'm in southern California.

Mm.

But I think where we ended up this year where, you know, make up, make the num- you know, eight teams, nine teams, 10 teams, whatever, which were s- essentially racing to the bottom, you know, again, i- in a desire to win, [laughs] not to lose, was not acceptable.

And, you know, w- what exactly we could have done about it in hindsight, you know, we're about to make significant changes and we have a already scheduled a board meeting of our owners for late May.

There's a few different proposals that are still floating around on exactly how to change it.

But arguably we should have made the change a year ago or, or longer before we ended up in the position we are.

So ultimately that's my responsibility, so you know, that, that's, that's something we're focused on.

There's other things.

Have you given any thought, like, if you had your preference, are we looking at doing two teams at once, two new teams, or is it gonna be a rollout where we go one expansion team followed a couple years later by another?

Ideally, what are you looking for in the next media

rights deal? We're looking for a few things.

I'd say number one is reach.

It's still very important that we have the ability to talk to our fans and reach our fans directly.

And while somebody might say, well, reach, therefore broadcast television, Broadcast television is a critical component, but broadcast television isn't reaching large swaths of our fan base anymore.

And I'm just talking about the United States right now because for a lot of young fans in particular, broadcast television is, in essence, just another cable or satellite channel.

So I think we need to find ways using technology, digital technology, streaming technology, so that to the extent there are fans out there that consume media through their phones or tablets or whatever other devices, that all our games become accessible to them.

Other than media rights, what are the issues and deals keeping you up at night right now? Boy,

Ah.

I mean, these guys are keeping busy in college even when they're not on the floor.

But, but to answer your question in terms of old and new, I mean, look at Luka.

I mean, I... you know, I don't know if you guys have seen sort of his transformed body.

You know, he, he, um, he completely retrained himself, you know, o- o- over the...

in the, in the off season.

You know, uh, you know, he was obviously upset with the trade, but I think is using it as motivation now to show everybody that he's one of the greatest in the game and wants to be viewed as one of the greatest ever.

And then when it comes to the gambling, do you feel like you have to set a precedent now with this? 'Cause, like, r- to the players obviously, do you feel like we gotta kinda make sure we nip this in the bud before it gets big? Or, or are, like, you all just kinda riding the wave together to see what fits the situation best each time?

Facts.

Yes.

Like, most of us...

I, I, I'm from the suburbs of New York.But I grew up in a town, Rye, New York, that had 15,000 people.

(laughs) Yeah.

And, and so, and, and in my growing up, yeah, New York City wasn't that far away, but it seemed like it was a million miles away.

That was my town- Right.

Yeah.

Is it just a narrative? Is it just like, nah, y'all not really tuned in to the actual product?

You know, I could say so much about that.

A few things I'll say.

One of the points I made the other night was, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of NFL fans here.

When the Steelers and the Packers play, you know, Pittsburgh and Green Bay, nobody says two small market teams.

Instead, it's two storied franchises.

And I want to emulate the NFL from that standpoint.

But is anything like you would suggest for some of the guys who might retire at the age of like 30, 31, is there anything you could suggest to help them with that process?

(laughs)

The weekend itself, which we're not judged on, for those who are there, is fantastic.

I mean I think anybody who was in the Bay Area and San Francisco last year, I mean there's tons of events and parties and there's a fan festival kind of like this.

I mean people love that experience there.

The game itself, as we have not put our best foot forward, and I- I think the players recognize that, we recognize that.

So as you mentioned, we're talking about changing the concept, doing something maybe close to what the NHL did in their Four-Nation Faceoff.

I mean I- I think it, if it were just straight up USA World, as much as fans would love that, I'm not sure it would be fair to the players because roughly 30% of the players are from outside the United States, so i- it wouldn't be fair to pick half the team from 30% and the other half from 70%, but I think we're looki- we- we I know we're looking at different formats now, talking to the Players Association 'cause we need their agreement where we would use that concept, again similar to the NHL did, um, where you'd create that passion around the USA playing other countries, other regions in the world.

Yeah.

(laughs)

The weekend itself, which we're not judged on for those who are there, is fantastic.

I mean, I think anybody who was in the Bay Area and San Francisco last year, I mean, there's tons of events and parties and there's a fan festival kind of like this.

I mean, people love that experience there.

The game itself, as we've not put our best foot forward, and I, I think the players recognize that, we recognize that.

So as you mentioned, we're talking about changing the concept, doing something maybe close to what the NHL did in the Four Nation Face-Off.

I mean, I think if, if it were just straight up USA World, as much as fans would love that, I'm not sure it would be fair to the players because roughly 30% of the players are from outside the United States.

Yeah.

(laughs)

... from, of the NFL that, that's never...

You know, Steelers and Packers, the storyline is, it's unimaginable it would be.

Can you believe two small markets are meeting in, in the Super Bowl this year? It's two storied franchises.

And in the NBA, I think because there was so much outsized success of certain franchises over the first several decades of the league, I mean, I th- the statistic is roughly over the first 65 years of the league, three teams won 60% of the championships.

And so it's understandable that Lakers, Celtics, Bulls still globally have these huge followings because it gets almost passed on generationally.

And to make ourselves more like the NFL, I think we're, we're moving in that direction where we have a system now where Oklahoma City and, and the, the, In- India- Indianapolis can compete in the same way that larger markets can because of a, a cap system and tax and all that stuff.

Why does the All-Star game have to be competitive?

(laughs)

... 100 million people had viewed him playing chess.

And it was just anecdotally anyone I would ask because it was also on a lot of the morning shows.

They said, "Did you see Victor?" "Oh yeah, that was the guy from France.

He played ch-" Now the question is, seeing that he also plays chess and he's by definition you could say a multidimensional guy, there's far more to him than ball playing, he speaks multiple languages, even the fact that he's, you know, grew up outside of Paris, et cetera, how do we as the league use that to bring people to the set to watch live games? Because I, I would say, uh, looking back, we've gotten distracted at times and forgotten sort of, or I've forgotten that my core responsibility is to get more people to be passionate about NBA basketball and watch our games.

That's what sustains our business.

I mean, it's of course ticket sales, but ticket sales are as high as they've been in the history of the league.

Why does the All Star game have to be competitive?

(laughs)

... 100 million people had viewed him playing chess.

And it was just anecdotally, anyone I would ask, because it was also on a lot of the morning shows.

They said, "Did you see Victor?" Oh, yeah.

That was the guy from France.

He played ch-" Now, the question is, seeing that he also plays chess and he's by definition you could say a multi-dimensional guy, there's far more to him than ball playing, he speaks multiple languages, even the fact that he's, you know, grew up outside of Paris, et cetera, how do we as the league use that to bring people to the set to watch live games? Because I, I would say, uh, looking back, we've gotten distracted at times and forgotten, sort of, or I've forgotten that my core responsibility is to get more people to be passionate about NBA basketball and watch our games.

That's what sustains our business.

Why does the All Star game have to be competitive?

Mm-hmm.

So they bring a certain knowledge of the game.

And I think in the old days, NBC, under Dick Ebersol, did a fantastic job celebrating the game of basketball.

And now we also have Amazon as a new partner as well.

And I think they come at it sort of a somewhat new entrant into the sports television business, but nobody does be- digital media better than Amazon does.

Nobody understands their customers better than Amazon.

And so that in itself brings enormous excitement.

Wow.

I think post-All Star Game, everything up, right? Do you agree with that sentiment? And-

Yeah.

It, it...

You know, Pat, it's a great way to put it because you remember the narrative early in the season was that the ratings were down, and in fact, they were down.

We- there was a competitive World Series, a presidential election.

There were a bunch of factors, I think, that led to our ratings being down early on.

But in order to end up down 2% or relatively flat for the season, which is a victory these days, especially with declining television viewership from traditional television, you know, that's a victory.

That's journalism out of Boston 00000000.

Right

... who's sending me things.

And, and i- in all seriousness, I, I actually find it very helpful because if you work in an industry where you're so closely covered and you have fans and a section of the newspaper devoted to you, that you get a lot of unsolicited ideas.

And so one, I think when you look at things we've done over the last several years, the play-in tournament, the, the in-season tournament now known as the NBA Cup, all those ideas came from i- i- initially outside of the league.

And then sort of it's a question of processing those ideas.

And also, there's understandably fans want changes.

Some, you know, you get criticism.

... that's a very cool story.