Mark Cuban NFL Criticisms in Perspective (3)

Adam Silver

I posted the following on Google+:

Even as I urge NFL owners to listen to what Mark Cuban is saying, I think his message is more urgently, albeit tacitly, directed at his fellow NBA owners.

I think that strategically, the NBA is vulnerable, because it's in the midst of a top leadership transition, that is, from David Stern to Adam Silver. Yes, Silver is officially set as the commissioner, and apparently Stern spent years grooming him. But he hasn't had the battle-tested years under his belt, and the world he faces is radically different from what Stern faced in the last couple of decades.

Think of the transition from Jack Welch to Jeff Immelt. Immelt got A-bombed with 9/11, soon after taking the helm, and there is no way GE was ever the same in the post-Welch era. What will Silver be slapped with?

As a successful businessman, Cuban knows that media is really where the big sports battles are won and lost. We might talk up social media in a lot of blah blah blah punditry, but in fact traditional media - TV, in particular - is very much alive and kicking. The NFL-CBS deal for more Thursday Night games grabbed Cuban's attention, in ways that apparently it hasn't grabbed the attention of other NBA owners. That deal is huge, so these lackadaisical owners better listen up.

I'm sure their comeback is that they are listening and that they are aware of this cutthroat cross-sport competition. Great. But now that one of their own has stirred the pot in a major way, what are they going to do next? I suggest that NBA owners also do some soul-searching and some behind-the-obvious look at market trends, before deciding what to do next. 

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD