Adam Silver Is the Winner in the Battle for the NBA’s Rights Future

Over the last decade, Silver, whom owners recently rewarded with a long-term contract extension, has more than doubled the NBA’s annual revenue to $12 billion from $4.8 billion. With 22,538,518 fans attending games, the league set an all-time regular-season record this year, and the average NBA franchise is now worth $3.85 billion, according to For... See more

Yet the 62-year-old commissioner is poised to break the bank thanks to cunning planning. Silver has consistently orchestrated efforts to increase the media value of each property; for example, by breaking events like the All-Star Game and early playoff games into distinct, sellable parts, and creating bidding wars wherever possible. It also helps t... See more

The league entered talks at a time when the sports rights market was tightening, economic headwinds were rising, and TV ratings were flattening. Before negotiations started, some thought the NBA would struggle to achieve a significant increase over its current nine-year, $24 billion deal. Instead, as Front Office Sports has learned, the league coul... See more

In November 2014—only seven years after the Tim Donaghy betting scandal—he shook up the sports world with his New York Times editorial declaring “sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight.” That made Silver the only commissioner to support legalized sports betting. A decade later, virtually all pro sports league... See more