Exclusive: Adam Silver on winning the Edison Achievement Award: ‘Sports remind us that some of the most important forms of innovation are human’ |
Exclusive: Adam Silver on winning the Edison Achievement Award: ‘Sports remind us that some of the most important forms of innovation are human’
If you look at Adam Silver’s background, you wouldn’t think he’d eventually come to lead the NBA, nor bring it to be the massive marketing and media powerhouse it is today.
The son of a labor lawyer, he grew up in Rye, New York, editing at his high school newspaper and running cross country. He studied political science at Duke University, clerked for a federal judge, and then made partner at a major New York law firm. None of that would have screamed sports mogul.
But in 1992, when he joined the NBA as a junior staffer under then-Commissioner David Stern, Silver quickly rose over a three-decade-plus career from special assistant to chief of staff, to president of NBA Entertainment and finally, deputy commissioner. It wasn’t until February 2014 that he was elected to be the league’s fifth commissioner.
Over the course of his 12-year tenure in the position, Silver brought the league back from what many fans initially saw as a fledging sport struggling to keep up with the growing viewership of the NFL and MLB. The hey-day of the entertainment era: (Dr. Jerry Buss screaming “Showtime!” after giving Paula Abdul her big start probably emphasizes this most prominently) from growing cross-country feuds to the sport taking on a global stage during the 1992 Olympics was largely seen as the height of the sport. Silver, learning from Stern who brought the league from a league where fans would tape delay the finals to a $5 billion-a-year global industry, took that leadership to another level.
And on Thursday night, we was awarded for that leadership: Silver became the first sports executive in the award’s 35-year history........