June 7, 2023 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 50s and 60s, the NBA was barely a professional league. Today it is a powerhouse worth billions. Here is the story of how that happened with author Pete Croatto.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. We consider the
National Basketball Association for the NBA to be a cultural icon,
but it certainly didn't start off that way, and it
took the hiring of a man named Larry O'Brien to
get it on the path to being a serious organization.
Here with the story of the rise of the NBA
(00:32):
as a business is Pete Croado, author of From Hangtime
to Primetime. And we're telling this story because on this
day in history, in nineteen forty six, the NBA was formed.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Let's get into the story. Take it away, Pete.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
The NBA in its early days in the nineteen forties
nineteen fifties was really a regional league. It was a
league who teams were based in the Midwest and the
East coast the furthest team west was Sainton Louis. So
it really was a regional league, and it was a
league that really struggled for mainstream acceptance for years. It
(01:13):
had trouble getting a favorable national television contract for years.
It played in arenas that really were antiquated or run down,
nowhere close to the entertainment meccas that we see today.
It really was a second tier. Professional league baseball had
always been America's game. Its roots were established for years
(01:36):
and years and years, and the NFL had gained a
foothold with television thanks to the nineteen fifty eight NFL
Championship Game, which was the league's first overtime game. The
NBA didn't have anything like that. It was really an
afterthought to college basketball, which was huge in the nineteen fifties,
and even to the hom Globe Trotters. In fact, NBA
(01:57):
games typically were the previews or the first act, so
to speak, to Harlem Globetrotter games, to college basketball games,
especially in New York City. And if you read player
autobiographies or player biographies from the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties,
nineteen seventies, a lot of these players had second jobs,
you know, they had other business interests. They weren't making
(02:18):
exorbitant salaries. You know, now, if you sign a professional
contract as a highly titled rookie with any of the
four major sports, you're pretty much set for life. Back then,
that wasn't the case. So the NBA in the nineteen forties, fifties,
even into the nineteen sixties was a league that was
looking for relevance. It was looking for a foothold into
(02:41):
America's sporting culture. The NBA needed to make a leap
to become legitimate, and by putting le O'Brien in that position,
it is the first step towards saying, hey, we're a business,
we mean business. Larry O'Brien was a major fixture in
(03:07):
Democratic national politics. He was somebody who as time goes on,
I think we've forgotten just what a political figure he
was in the nineteen fifties into the early nineteen seventies.
But Larry O'Brian was part of JFK's Irish mafia. He
basically helped JFK get to.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The White House.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
He was on the plane coming back from Dallas after
JFK was assassinated. After that, he was a member of
Lynda by Johnson's comitty, who was Postmaster General, and then
after that he was the chairman of the Democratic National
Committee for two terms. He was on the cover of
Time magazine. So he was somebody who was a major,
(03:47):
major figure in national politics. But Larobryan, by the time
the mid nineteen seventies roll around, he had become a relic.
He's retired for the most part is somebody who is
really looking for something to do. And when Jay Walter
Kennedy decides that he's had enough being the NBA's commissioner,
(04:08):
he looks to Lyo Brian. He reaches out to Lyo
Brian specifically to ask him to take over, and Lyaro
Brian says no, because the thing. Here's the thing now,
when someone is elected to be the commissioner of a
sports league, that is a career pinnacle. For Roger Goodell
at the NFL, for Rob Manfred at Major League Baseball,
(04:30):
Gary Bettman at the NHL, that is a pinnacle. When
you die, they lead your obituary with the fact that
you were the commissioner of the NHL or Major League Baseball.
For laro'brian, this was a step down. So the NBA
really courted him because for two reasons. First, they knew
that he was a basketball fan, because he was someone
(04:52):
who grew up watching the Celtics. He gets season tickets
to the Knicks. But larr Brin was also somebody who's
going to give the league instant credibility. And the NBA
ultimately won laro'brian over after numerous attempts because they convinced him, Look,
you'll have absolute power here. This isn't going to be
a real figurehead position. You'll actually be able to do
(05:14):
things here. You'll be able to make decisions and carry
out policy. You'll have impact. And his election as commissioner.
His hiring as commissioner was significant for two reasons. First,
he gives the NBA, as I mentioned before, instant credibility.
This is a league that was really struggling for national relevance.
It was struggling to become a player, and laro'brien gave
(05:38):
the NBA cachet. It was headline news that he was
the NBA commissioner. It made people take notice. So there's that.
And the second thing is is that he brings order
to the NBA. The heads of the NBA before lyo'brien,
Maurice Podoloff and Jay Walter Kennedy, they came of age
of the NBA. They were ingrained in the NBA. They
(05:59):
didn't have outside influence and Laro brian came in and
he was not associated with the NBA, he didn't have allegiances.
He was somebody who just wanted what was best for
the MBA. So he came in with no biases. He
was his own man, and he also had the ability
the ability to manage. Larry O'Brien ran the best meetings.
(06:21):
And that may not sound like much, but you have
to understand that meetings before in this in the fifties
and sixties were contentious, bickering affairs, kind of like a
Thanksgiving dinner with different political opinions being bandied back and forth.
So Larry O'Brien coming in and just saying, look, this
is what we're doing. We're just going to get down.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
To brass tacks.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It doesn't sound like much, but for a league that
couldn't get out of its own way, it was huge.
This really comes across in the NBA's absorption of the ABA,
the American Basketball Association, because Larry O'Brien, you know, just
wanted to get the deal done. When the two leagues
were meeting to try and figure out how to what
(07:03):
teams to absorb and what money should change hands, you know,
the meetings are going on and on in nineteen seventy six,
and in the closing days, Larry Brin just says to
the owners, look up or down, meaning we could stay
here and bicker about these contracts, or you can take
the money, get into a plane, cash your checks and
(07:26):
make make a small fortune before the day's ends. And
for the ABA, which had a lot of bankrupt owners
and financially struggling owners, laro brian was able to just
distill their problem into a simple question up or down,
and that's what the NBA needed. The NBA needed someone
to just get down to the brass tacks of running
a business. But one of his greatest gifts wasn't so
(07:49):
much policy he enacted or edicts that he handed down,
though he did his fair share. What Larry O'Brian did
was he recognized talent and he could delegate. And one
thing that he did is that he hired a young
lawyer who was outside counsel for the NBA named David Stern,
(08:10):
and he bought him in as his second in command.
And David Stern later went on to become the na
Commissioner and in my mind is the most influential sports
commissioner of the last fifty years. So Larry O'Brian's ability
to recognize David Stern as somebody who could do the
dirty work, who could get to know the gms and
(08:31):
the keym owners and the union representatives. Having David Stern
clear a path and basically get a five year start
to become the commissioner of the NBA. That was Larry
O'Brien's greatest legacy, and I think that's why he is
one of the most overlooked figures in the rise of
the NBA.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And we're listening to Pete Croano telling the story of
the NBA. And what's so interesting about this take is
he's looking at it from a business angle. No business
of sports, no sports, no business of entertainment, no entertainment.
Capitalism in this way fuels so many of the pleasures
of our daily life in the forties and fifties, Well,
(09:16):
the league didn't extend past Saint Louis good luck with
a TV contract and in the old days, NBA players
had summer job. And then comes Larry O'Brien and then
comes David Stern, his second in command. When we come
back more of the remarkable story of the NBA with
Pete Croado, author of From Hangtime to Primetime, here on
(09:39):
our American story, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and the story of the NBA when we last left
off NBA commissioner Larry O'Brien had hired a young lawyer
by the name of David Stern to be his second
in command, and Stern himself would soon take over Larry's job,
changing the NBA forever.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Here again is Pete Croudo. Larry Baum was.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
One of those bosses where he came in at nine o'clock,
he went to his office, shut the door, and you
saw him at five o'clock. David Stern was everywhere. He
was at the arenas, he was talking to the gms,
he was talking to the press, he was talking to
the network that aired NBA games. So every week David
(10:57):
Steerer would go on a conference call with the broadcast
crew at USA Network, the cable station that aired NBA games,
And there's one meeting where David Stearns says, look, guys,
focus on the stars. Don't worry about the records, don't
worry about who's winning, who's losing. Focus on the stars.
(11:19):
If it's a terrible matchup, let's say the Clippers are
playing the Celtics, let's say focus on John Halchek, focus
on Dave Cowens. There are folks that people know, and
that to me was David Stearn's genius was that he
was able to recognize that to generate interest, he had
to identify ways for Joe and Jane public to watch
(11:39):
a basketball game beyond two minutes. And that was with stars.
That was with Magic Johnson and Larry Byrd and Julius
Irving focus on them, and that star system is what
sustained the NBA and what sustains.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That is David Searn's baby, and it comes about in
a number of ways. First is the establishment of NBA Entertainment,
which is what David Stern creates. So NBA and him
becomes this sort of archive of game footage and player interviews,
(12:14):
and all this material gets called into halftime features and
advertisements that extol the best and broadest of the NBA.
Later on, NBA Entertainment takes all this footage that they've
stored from games and whatnot, and they turn that into
videos highlighting players. So you have a Michael Jordan video cassette,
(12:36):
you have a Magic Johnson video cassette, you have a
Lary Bird video cassette. David Stern partners with the television station,
specifically with CBS, and comes up with a game plan.
Each game was going to have at least two players
Larry Bird, Kareem app Deli, Jabar Julia serving Magic Johnson
(12:58):
because that's who the casual fan wanted to see. They
wanted to see stars. So you have MBA Entertainment, you
have the television coverage, and you also have NBA properties,
which again is a David Stern led development, which focuses
on apparel that focuses on players, players faces, what they do.
(13:20):
So you know, it's not just getting a seventy six
ers T shirt, it's getting a Julius Irvin T shirt,
is getting a Charles Barkley T shirt, It's getting a
Magic Johnson hat or a Magic Johnson sweatshirt. So it
is a multi pronged attack that David Stern leads, and
it all comes down to the players because think of
(13:43):
it this way. Kids, I think get their sports tcens
from their parents, right or from their grandparents, or from
their family, or from allegiances in town. If you are
somebody who's getting into the NBA as a lone wolf
like I was, I had parents who were not particularly
not really sports fans. You know, my parents didn't know
(14:03):
what hand a baseball club went on. You're going to
gravitate for players, then code toward a team. And if
you know the players through commercials, if you highlight their
best attributes like Magic Johnson's smile or Larry Bird's competitiveness,
you are going to win people over. And it also
helps if you work with a television network like CBS
(14:25):
and CBS Sports that knows how to frame the games
as television promise. When you have Magic versus Larry, you're
not just focusing on these two great players. You're focusing
on the two sterling franchises in the NBA, and the
(14:46):
Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. You're focusing on
East versus West, and you're turning all those components into
a narrative that anybody can get behind. So the NBA Finals,
any NBA game, isn't just a sporting event that becomes
an episode of television. Where the same way that if
(15:09):
you watch a television pilot, you get the characters, you
get the storyline, and you get a happy ending or
an ending, the same thing happens with NBA games on CPS.
You get a beginning, middle, and end. You get a
flashy introduction. You're caught up the speed with where things are,
and then you get a game that is filmed almost
like a movie, with quick cuts and close ups and
(15:32):
reaction shots. You get personality into the game, and that
personality bleeds through every product. Whether it's a VHS tape,
whether it's a T shirt, doesn't matter what it is, because,
as David Stern said, it's not what people think about you,
it's how they feel about you. That is the mantra
(15:54):
of the NBA. It is an emotional league, and that
is the lifeline for the NBA's story, for its success
over the past thirty five forty years. But Marvin Gaye's
(16:16):
national Anthem at the nineteen eighty three NBA All Starting
in Los Angeles, to me, is a pivotal point in
the NBA's history because that's when the NBA became the
world's cool sport. You have to remember that for the
longest time, the national anthem was performed in a very
straight ahead fashion. But Marvin Gaye's national anthem comes at
(16:40):
the right time. It's when hip hop is making its
ways into the American culture, and it's also a major
cultural figure in Marvin gay Who's motown and sexual healing
singing the song, and it's also the sign that the
NBA wasn't going to play by the rules of the
NFL of Major League Baseball. It was going to do
(17:02):
its own thing because here was an unabashedly African American
version of that song that reflected who was on the court.
You had a majority of African American players playing, but
it also represented what you saw on the court in
terms of style of play. That national anthem, if anyone
hasn't heard, it is a soulful, stirring rendition that incorporates
(17:24):
R and B gospel. He's singing it over a pre
recorded beat. It reflected what the NBA was and what
it could be. It was a cool sport. It wasn't
a sport for your mom and your dad and your
grandma and your grandpa. It was a sport that was
for the cool kids at the table, for the teenagers,
for the young Americans who wanted something different, that wanted me,
(17:48):
that was hip that belonged to them. And that national
anthem set the stage for everything that happened afterward in
the NBA's cultural history because it was defiantly non traditional,
but in a way that was entertaining and fun and
exciting and different. And for any young sports fan who
(18:12):
growing up in that era and afterward, that's what the
NBA represented when you first saw a basketball team. It
represents something different. The players looked different, they carry themselves
in a different way. The game was filmed differently, the
players did things differently, they talked differently. That anthem also
changed the way the NBA organized its All Star games.
(18:34):
It became more than just East versus West, your best
versus my best. It also became what can we do
to give the audience the best time possible. So Marvin Gay,
in a lot of ways, launched a business revolution.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And you've been listening to Pete Croato tell a heck
of a story about the NBA, and we're huge hoops
in my house. Heck, when I was a kid, I
did Bobby Knight's camp, captain of my high school basketball
team twice.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And to hear this story told.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So well by someone like Pete, well, it brings back
a lot of memories.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
When we come back more.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Of Pete Croato on the story of not only Larry O'Brien,
but how David Stern helped turn the NBA into the
cool game, the cool thing in American culture, and we
(19:38):
returned to our American stories and the final segment on
the rise of the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
When we last left off.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Pete Croato, author of From Hangtime to Primetime, was telling
us about how David Stern Marvin Gay, the television drama
of the NBA and its superstar players, launched it into
the success it is today. The NBA was at a
high point and they were about to partner with a
growing cultural force that would take them even higher. Here
(20:07):
again is Pete Proudo.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The NBA really started to become a mainstream force in
nineteen seventy nine with the arrival of Magic Johnson and
Ladder Bird. Nineteen seventy nine is also the year that
Rapper's Delight hits the airwaves. Hip hop rapper and the
overall culture is a youth culture. It was especially a
(20:37):
youth culture in the nineteen eighties into the early nineteen nineties.
The NBA has always been about doing what's new, what's relevant.
The NBA's tradition is that it has no tradition, So
partnering hip hop with the NBA, or rather the NBA
partnering with hip hop was really a no brainer. Hip
hop has a youthful audience that has money to spend
(21:01):
and want something that's new. Doesn't want the same old thing,
doesn't want They don't want to listen to Mick Jagger
their own stone. They don't want to hear a story
about Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown. They want what's new.
The NBA's partnership with hip hop was a match made
in heaven. It's also not surprising because hip hop really
(21:27):
started as a byproduct of city culture. Basketball is very
much a city game. It did take place in gymnasiums, obviously,
and it did take place in the suburbs, but basketball's
biggest influence is in the cities. You don't need much
room to put up a basketball court, you don't need
much room to put up even a hoop. The game
really was a way for city kids who assimilate into
(21:50):
American culture, especially Jews and African Americans. So it may
seem odd or unusual that the NBA would partner with
hip hop, but really it's as the NBA is becoming
a youthful hip league that's going mainstream thanks to stars
like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Hip hop is enjoying
(22:12):
the same renaissance, and TV starts playing rap videos. Rap
starts to mimic pop songs with choruses and hooks and
also incorporate elements of rock music, for example, walk this way.
You've got to fight for your right to party. Those
songs have hooks that a young fan can get into
(22:37):
even if they don't like rap, and it's different. It's
the new rock and roll, and that's a pealing of kids.
And also you have artists that now are really more
like entertainers coming to the forefront. You have Will Smith,
you have MC hammer, you have God help us in
all Ice. They all kind of come into that era.
So as the NBA became mainstream, hip hop became the
(23:01):
instrument that also generates a line of culture.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
And a line of.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Clothing that specifically sneakers that hooks not only a young
audience but the players. So it is a natural marriage
of the two. The two go hand in hand even
to this day. And all the forces aligned with Michael
(23:27):
Jordan and with Nike and with the market. And here's why.
For a number of years, the NBA stars were always
quote unquote model citizens, such as Julius Irving, that he
can packaged. His team oriented stars such as Magic Johnson
and Larry Bird part of a rivalry or they were
(23:48):
just born. So Michael Jordan comes along with a shoe
that is quote unquote banned by the NBA. It doesn't
look like any shoe you've ever seen. It's got white
and black and red. It is completely foreign. And then
you have Michael Jordan, who embodies the spirit of that
shoe because he is a soloist. He is not part
(24:12):
of a team. He's not established, he is brand new.
He is marketed as a rebel by going over players,
by putting the ball in the hoop in ways that
many people have not seen. And he can play. He's
an extraordinary player. And he is somebody that looks good
on camera. He's extremely attractive, he's a manageable height at
(24:37):
six foot six. He is a matinate idol for basketball.
So all those things come together and turn this shoe
into a cultural force. It's not just a shoe. You
are buying the nineteen eighties version of the leather jacket
or the Davy Crockett haat. And when it's embraced by
(24:58):
not only basketball fans, by hip hop artists, by city
kids by whomever, and when clothing comes out to match
the shoes, the cat out of the band. So Michael
Jordan really represents the beginning of the sneaker clothing fashion
(25:20):
trend in popular culture. I think because he was somebody
who you could represent, who you could aspire to be,
just by wearing his shoe. And if you're a teenager
and you want to be rebellious, it's very easy to
chalk up sixty five dollars or one hundred dollars one
(25:43):
hundred fifty dollars to become rebellious, to become part of
a movement, especially when that movement is represented by somebody
who is as magnetic, who's as brilliant a player as
Michael Jordan is. It's a very easy association to make
and it persists. So you want to be like Steph
Curry or Kevin Durant or god forbid, Kyrie Irving. Buying
(26:07):
their shoe, buying their pal is a way to get
closer to them, and Michael Jordan is the start of that.
The NBA now is a global business. I mean it
is worth billions and billions of dollars and it has
(26:30):
thousands of employees, across the globe. It is constantly trying
to so it's seeds of development in different areas of
the world. I mean, I think Africa is now the
latest continent to come under the NBA's purview. So it
is just now this behemoth and the NBA is part
(26:50):
of our part of our life, whether we're online or
watching it on TV. I mean, it's you know, I
think most people know who Lebron James is, they know
who Kevin Durant is. They're cultural institutions. I think we
forget that the NBA wasn't always like this. The NBA
wasn't always a colossus, an international colossus. What's amazing to
(27:14):
me is that the NBA we see today came about
because of the efforts of people who loved basketball, who
just loved the NBA and loved what it could be.
These are people that just worked tirelessly to elevate a
game that they loved and were passionate about. David Stern,
Leo Brian Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan. But the
(27:39):
NBA's rise is the result of so many people that
have fallen into the cracks of history.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Men and women like.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Paul Gilbert a desert, Bill Fickett, Ted Shaker and Arlene Weltman.
These men and women who who worked tirelessly and sacrificed
and sometimes embarrassed themselves to turn the NBA into a
part of our lives. Their efforts have been forgotten. And
(28:15):
it's a crying shame. The NBA's rise to success didn't
come about because of Michael Jordan, David Stern, Larry Bird,
and Magic Johnson. It's a story of dozens and dozens
of people working together to create what we see today.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and his special thanks to author Pete Corano. His book
From Hangtime to Prime Time is available on Amazon and
the usual suspects and what a story it tells, and.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
It starts early.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Baseball was America's pastime football second by the late fifties.
But it took Larry O'Brien, David Stern, and a bunch
of others to put the NBA on the map. And
indeed it took some great players too. Bird and Magic
also combining with rap music in this remarkable markable merger
of cultural of cultural forces. The partnership between the two
(29:21):
a match made in heaven. As Pete said, then came Jordan,
Nike and the market. Let's face it, Jordan was a
matinee idol, a master salesman and a virtuoso performer, and
and the NBA turned into a pop culture force. Indeed,
my own daughter Reagan for Christmas one of the Nike
Blue North Carolina air Jordan's proving that he's still in
(29:46):
the NBA is still a cultural force. The story of
the rise of the NBA, which was formed on this
day in history in nineteen forty six.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Here on our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Hild
And we returned to our American stories. We consider the
National Basketball Association for the NBA to be a cultural icon,
but it certainly didn't start off that way, and it
took the hiring of a man named Larry O'Brien to
get it on the path to being a serious organization.
Here with the story of the rise of the NBA
(00:32):
as a business is Pete Croado, author of From Hangtime
to Primetime. And we're telling this story because on this
day in history, in nineteen forty six, the NBA was formed.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Let's get into the story. Take it away, Pete.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
The NBA in its early days in the nineteen forties
nineteen fifties was really a regional league. It was a
league who teams were based in the Midwest and the
East coast the furthest team west was Sainton Louis. So
it really was a regional league, and it was a
league that really struggled for mainstream acceptance for years. It
(01:13):
had trouble getting a favorable national television contract for years.
It played in arenas that really were antiquated or run down,
nowhere close to the entertainment meccas that we see today.
It really was a second tier. Professional league baseball had
always been America's game. Its roots were established for years
(01:36):
and years and years, and the NFL had gained a
foothold with television thanks to the nineteen fifty eight NFL
Championship Game, which was the league's first overtime game. The
NBA didn't have anything like that. It was really an
afterthought to college basketball, which was huge in the nineteen fifties,
and even to the hom Globe Trotters. In fact, NBA
(01:57):
games typically were the previews or the first act, so
to speak, to Harlem Globetrotter games, to college basketball games,
especially in New York City. And if you read player
autobiographies or player biographies from the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties,
nineteen seventies, a lot of these players had second jobs,
you know, they had other business interests. They weren't making
(02:18):
exorbitant salaries. You know, now, if you sign a professional
contract as a highly titled rookie with any of the
four major sports, you're pretty much set for life. Back then,
that wasn't the case. So the NBA in the nineteen forties, fifties,
even into the nineteen sixties was a league that was
looking for relevance. It was looking for a foothold into
(02:41):
America's sporting culture. The NBA needed to make a leap
to become legitimate, and by putting le O'Brien in that position,
it is the first step towards saying, hey, we're a business,
we mean business. Larry O'Brien was a major fixture in
(03:07):
Democratic national politics. He was somebody who as time goes on,
I think we've forgotten just what a political figure he
was in the nineteen fifties into the early nineteen seventies.
But Larry O'Brian was part of JFK's Irish mafia. He
basically helped JFK get to.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The White House.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
He was on the plane coming back from Dallas after
JFK was assassinated. After that, he was a member of
Lynda by Johnson's comitty, who was Postmaster General, and then
after that he was the chairman of the Democratic National
Committee for two terms. He was on the cover of
Time magazine. So he was somebody who was a major,
(03:47):
major figure in national politics. But Larobryan, by the time
the mid nineteen seventies roll around, he had become a relic.
He's retired for the most part is somebody who is
really looking for something to do. And when Jay Walter
Kennedy decides that he's had enough being the NBA's commissioner,
(04:08):
he looks to Lyo Brian. He reaches out to Lyo
Brian specifically to ask him to take over, and Lyaro
Brian says no, because the thing. Here's the thing now,
when someone is elected to be the commissioner of a
sports league, that is a career pinnacle. For Roger Goodell
at the NFL, for Rob Manfred at Major League Baseball,
(04:30):
Gary Bettman at the NHL, that is a pinnacle. When
you die, they lead your obituary with the fact that
you were the commissioner of the NHL or Major League Baseball.
For laro'brian, this was a step down. So the NBA
really courted him because for two reasons. First, they knew
that he was a basketball fan, because he was someone
(04:52):
who grew up watching the Celtics. He gets season tickets
to the Knicks. But larr Brin was also somebody who's
going to give the league instant credibility. And the NBA
ultimately won laro'brian over after numerous attempts because they convinced him, Look,
you'll have absolute power here. This isn't going to be
a real figurehead position. You'll actually be able to do
(05:14):
things here. You'll be able to make decisions and carry
out policy. You'll have impact. And his election as commissioner.
His hiring as commissioner was significant for two reasons. First,
he gives the NBA, as I mentioned before, instant credibility.
This is a league that was really struggling for national relevance.
It was struggling to become a player, and laro'brien gave
(05:38):
the NBA cachet. It was headline news that he was
the NBA commissioner. It made people take notice. So there's that.
And the second thing is is that he brings order
to the NBA. The heads of the NBA before lyo'brien,
Maurice Podoloff and Jay Walter Kennedy, they came of age
of the NBA. They were ingrained in the NBA. They
(05:59):
didn't have outside influence and Laro brian came in and
he was not associated with the NBA, he didn't have allegiances.
He was somebody who just wanted what was best for
the MBA. So he came in with no biases. He
was his own man, and he also had the ability
the ability to manage. Larry O'Brien ran the best meetings.
(06:21):
And that may not sound like much, but you have
to understand that meetings before in this in the fifties
and sixties were contentious, bickering affairs, kind of like a
Thanksgiving dinner with different political opinions being bandied back and forth.
So Larry O'Brien coming in and just saying, look, this
is what we're doing. We're just going to get down.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
To brass tacks.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It doesn't sound like much, but for a league that
couldn't get out of its own way, it was huge.
This really comes across in the NBA's absorption of the ABA,
the American Basketball Association, because Larry O'Brien, you know, just
wanted to get the deal done. When the two leagues
were meeting to try and figure out how to what
(07:03):
teams to absorb and what money should change hands, you know,
the meetings are going on and on in nineteen seventy six,
and in the closing days, Larry Brin just says to
the owners, look up or down, meaning we could stay
here and bicker about these contracts, or you can take
the money, get into a plane, cash your checks and
(07:26):
make make a small fortune before the day's ends. And
for the ABA, which had a lot of bankrupt owners
and financially struggling owners, laro brian was able to just
distill their problem into a simple question up or down,
and that's what the NBA needed. The NBA needed someone
to just get down to the brass tacks of running
a business. But one of his greatest gifts wasn't so
(07:49):
much policy he enacted or edicts that he handed down,
though he did his fair share. What Larry O'Brian did
was he recognized talent and he could delegate. And one
thing that he did is that he hired a young
lawyer who was outside counsel for the NBA named David Stern,
(08:10):
and he bought him in as his second in command.
And David Stern later went on to become the na
Commissioner and in my mind is the most influential sports
commissioner of the last fifty years. So Larry O'Brian's ability
to recognize David Stern as somebody who could do the
dirty work, who could get to know the gms and
(08:31):
the keym owners and the union representatives. Having David Stern
clear a path and basically get a five year start
to become the commissioner of the NBA. That was Larry
O'Brien's greatest legacy, and I think that's why he is
one of the most overlooked figures in the rise of
the NBA.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And we're listening to Pete Croano telling the story of
the NBA. And what's so interesting about this take is
he's looking at it from a business angle. No business
of sports, no sports, no business of entertainment, no entertainment.
Capitalism in this way fuels so many of the pleasures
of our daily life in the forties and fifties, Well,
(09:16):
the league didn't extend past Saint Louis good luck with
a TV contract and in the old days, NBA players
had summer job. And then comes Larry O'Brien and then
comes David Stern, his second in command. When we come
back more of the remarkable story of the NBA with
Pete Croado, author of From Hangtime to Primetime, here on
(09:39):
our American story, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and the story of the NBA when we last left
off NBA commissioner Larry O'Brien had hired a young lawyer
by the name of David Stern to be his second
in command, and Stern himself would soon take over Larry's job,
changing the NBA forever.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Here again is Pete Croudo. Larry Baum was.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
One of those bosses where he came in at nine o'clock,
he went to his office, shut the door, and you
saw him at five o'clock. David Stern was everywhere. He
was at the arenas, he was talking to the gms,
he was talking to the press, he was talking to
the network that aired NBA games. So every week David
(10:57):
Steerer would go on a conference call with the broadcast
crew at USA Network, the cable station that aired NBA games,
And there's one meeting where David Stearns says, look, guys,
focus on the stars. Don't worry about the records, don't
worry about who's winning, who's losing. Focus on the stars.
(11:19):
If it's a terrible matchup, let's say the Clippers are
playing the Celtics, let's say focus on John Halchek, focus
on Dave Cowens. There are folks that people know, and
that to me was David Stearn's genius was that he
was able to recognize that to generate interest, he had
to identify ways for Joe and Jane public to watch
(11:39):
a basketball game beyond two minutes. And that was with stars.
That was with Magic Johnson and Larry Byrd and Julius
Irving focus on them, and that star system is what
sustained the NBA and what sustains.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That is David Searn's baby, and it comes about in
a number of ways. First is the establishment of NBA Entertainment,
which is what David Stern creates. So NBA and him
becomes this sort of archive of game footage and player interviews,
(12:14):
and all this material gets called into halftime features and
advertisements that extol the best and broadest of the NBA.
Later on, NBA Entertainment takes all this footage that they've
stored from games and whatnot, and they turn that into
videos highlighting players. So you have a Michael Jordan video cassette,
(12:36):
you have a Magic Johnson video cassette, you have a
Lary Bird video cassette. David Stern partners with the television station,
specifically with CBS, and comes up with a game plan.
Each game was going to have at least two players
Larry Bird, Kareem app Deli, Jabar Julia serving Magic Johnson
(12:58):
because that's who the casual fan wanted to see. They
wanted to see stars. So you have MBA Entertainment, you
have the television coverage, and you also have NBA properties,
which again is a David Stern led development, which focuses
on apparel that focuses on players, players faces, what they do.
(13:20):
So you know, it's not just getting a seventy six
ers T shirt, it's getting a Julius Irvin T shirt,
is getting a Charles Barkley T shirt, It's getting a
Magic Johnson hat or a Magic Johnson sweatshirt. So it
is a multi pronged attack that David Stern leads, and
it all comes down to the players because think of
(13:43):
it this way. Kids, I think get their sports tcens
from their parents, right or from their grandparents, or from
their family, or from allegiances in town. If you are
somebody who's getting into the NBA as a lone wolf
like I was, I had parents who were not particularly
not really sports fans. You know, my parents didn't know
(14:03):
what hand a baseball club went on. You're going to
gravitate for players, then code toward a team. And if
you know the players through commercials, if you highlight their
best attributes like Magic Johnson's smile or Larry Bird's competitiveness,
you are going to win people over. And it also
helps if you work with a television network like CBS
(14:25):
and CBS Sports that knows how to frame the games
as television promise. When you have Magic versus Larry, you're
not just focusing on these two great players. You're focusing
on the two sterling franchises in the NBA, and the
(14:46):
Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. You're focusing on
East versus West, and you're turning all those components into
a narrative that anybody can get behind. So the NBA Finals,
any NBA game, isn't just a sporting event that becomes
an episode of television. Where the same way that if
(15:09):
you watch a television pilot, you get the characters, you
get the storyline, and you get a happy ending or
an ending, the same thing happens with NBA games on CPS.
You get a beginning, middle, and end. You get a
flashy introduction. You're caught up the speed with where things are,
and then you get a game that is filmed almost
like a movie, with quick cuts and close ups and
(15:32):
reaction shots. You get personality into the game, and that
personality bleeds through every product. Whether it's a VHS tape,
whether it's a T shirt, doesn't matter what it is, because,
as David Stern said, it's not what people think about you,
it's how they feel about you. That is the mantra
(15:54):
of the NBA. It is an emotional league, and that
is the lifeline for the NBA's story, for its success
over the past thirty five forty years. But Marvin Gaye's
(16:16):
national Anthem at the nineteen eighty three NBA All Starting
in Los Angeles, to me, is a pivotal point in
the NBA's history because that's when the NBA became the
world's cool sport. You have to remember that for the
longest time, the national anthem was performed in a very
straight ahead fashion. But Marvin Gaye's national anthem comes at
(16:40):
the right time. It's when hip hop is making its
ways into the American culture, and it's also a major
cultural figure in Marvin gay Who's motown and sexual healing
singing the song, and it's also the sign that the
NBA wasn't going to play by the rules of the
NFL of Major League Baseball. It was going to do
(17:02):
its own thing because here was an unabashedly African American
version of that song that reflected who was on the court.
You had a majority of African American players playing, but
it also represented what you saw on the court in
terms of style of play. That national anthem, if anyone
hasn't heard, it is a soulful, stirring rendition that incorporates
(17:24):
R and B gospel. He's singing it over a pre
recorded beat. It reflected what the NBA was and what
it could be. It was a cool sport. It wasn't
a sport for your mom and your dad and your
grandma and your grandpa. It was a sport that was
for the cool kids at the table, for the teenagers,
for the young Americans who wanted something different, that wanted me,
(17:48):
that was hip that belonged to them. And that national
anthem set the stage for everything that happened afterward in
the NBA's cultural history because it was defiantly non traditional,
but in a way that was entertaining and fun and
exciting and different. And for any young sports fan who
(18:12):
growing up in that era and afterward, that's what the
NBA represented when you first saw a basketball team. It
represents something different. The players looked different, they carry themselves
in a different way. The game was filmed differently, the
players did things differently, they talked differently. That anthem also
changed the way the NBA organized its All Star games.
(18:34):
It became more than just East versus West, your best
versus my best. It also became what can we do
to give the audience the best time possible. So Marvin Gay,
in a lot of ways, launched a business revolution.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And you've been listening to Pete Croato tell a heck
of a story about the NBA, and we're huge hoops
in my house. Heck, when I was a kid, I
did Bobby Knight's camp, captain of my high school basketball
team twice.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And to hear this story told.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So well by someone like Pete, well, it brings back
a lot of memories.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
When we come back more.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Of Pete Croato on the story of not only Larry O'Brien,
but how David Stern helped turn the NBA into the
cool game, the cool thing in American culture, and we
(19:38):
returned to our American stories and the final segment on
the rise of the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
When we last left off.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Pete Croato, author of From Hangtime to Primetime, was telling
us about how David Stern Marvin Gay, the television drama
of the NBA and its superstar players, launched it into
the success it is today. The NBA was at a
high point and they were about to partner with a
growing cultural force that would take them even higher. Here
(20:07):
again is Pete Proudo.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
The NBA really started to become a mainstream force in
nineteen seventy nine with the arrival of Magic Johnson and
Ladder Bird. Nineteen seventy nine is also the year that
Rapper's Delight hits the airwaves. Hip hop rapper and the
overall culture is a youth culture. It was especially a
(20:37):
youth culture in the nineteen eighties into the early nineteen nineties.
The NBA has always been about doing what's new, what's relevant.
The NBA's tradition is that it has no tradition, So
partnering hip hop with the NBA, or rather the NBA
partnering with hip hop was really a no brainer. Hip
hop has a youthful audience that has money to spend
(21:01):
and want something that's new. Doesn't want the same old thing,
doesn't want They don't want to listen to Mick Jagger
their own stone. They don't want to hear a story
about Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown. They want what's new.
The NBA's partnership with hip hop was a match made
in heaven. It's also not surprising because hip hop really
(21:27):
started as a byproduct of city culture. Basketball is very
much a city game. It did take place in gymnasiums, obviously,
and it did take place in the suburbs, but basketball's
biggest influence is in the cities. You don't need much
room to put up a basketball court, you don't need
much room to put up even a hoop. The game
really was a way for city kids who assimilate into
(21:50):
American culture, especially Jews and African Americans. So it may
seem odd or unusual that the NBA would partner with
hip hop, but really it's as the NBA is becoming
a youthful hip league that's going mainstream thanks to stars
like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Hip hop is enjoying
(22:12):
the same renaissance, and TV starts playing rap videos. Rap
starts to mimic pop songs with choruses and hooks and
also incorporate elements of rock music, for example, walk this way.
You've got to fight for your right to party. Those
songs have hooks that a young fan can get into
(22:37):
even if they don't like rap, and it's different. It's
the new rock and roll, and that's a pealing of kids.
And also you have artists that now are really more
like entertainers coming to the forefront. You have Will Smith,
you have MC hammer, you have God help us in
all Ice. They all kind of come into that era.
So as the NBA became mainstream, hip hop became the
(23:01):
instrument that also generates a line of culture.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
And a line of.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Clothing that specifically sneakers that hooks not only a young
audience but the players. So it is a natural marriage
of the two. The two go hand in hand even
to this day. And all the forces aligned with Michael
(23:27):
Jordan and with Nike and with the market. And here's why.
For a number of years, the NBA stars were always
quote unquote model citizens, such as Julius Irving, that he
can packaged. His team oriented stars such as Magic Johnson
and Larry Bird part of a rivalry or they were
(23:48):
just born. So Michael Jordan comes along with a shoe
that is quote unquote banned by the NBA. It doesn't
look like any shoe you've ever seen. It's got white
and black and red. It is completely foreign. And then
you have Michael Jordan, who embodies the spirit of that
shoe because he is a soloist. He is not part
(24:12):
of a team. He's not established, he is brand new.
He is marketed as a rebel by going over players,
by putting the ball in the hoop in ways that
many people have not seen. And he can play. He's
an extraordinary player. And he is somebody that looks good
on camera. He's extremely attractive, he's a manageable height at
(24:37):
six foot six. He is a matinate idol for basketball.
So all those things come together and turn this shoe
into a cultural force. It's not just a shoe. You
are buying the nineteen eighties version of the leather jacket
or the Davy Crockett haat. And when it's embraced by
(24:58):
not only basketball fans, by hip hop artists, by city
kids by whomever, and when clothing comes out to match
the shoes, the cat out of the band. So Michael
Jordan really represents the beginning of the sneaker clothing fashion
(25:20):
trend in popular culture. I think because he was somebody
who you could represent, who you could aspire to be,
just by wearing his shoe. And if you're a teenager
and you want to be rebellious, it's very easy to
chalk up sixty five dollars or one hundred dollars one
(25:43):
hundred fifty dollars to become rebellious, to become part of
a movement, especially when that movement is represented by somebody
who is as magnetic, who's as brilliant a player as
Michael Jordan is. It's a very easy association to make
and it persists. So you want to be like Steph
Curry or Kevin Durant or god forbid, Kyrie Irving. Buying
(26:07):
their shoe, buying their pal is a way to get
closer to them, and Michael Jordan is the start of that.
The NBA now is a global business. I mean it
is worth billions and billions of dollars and it has
(26:30):
thousands of employees, across the globe. It is constantly trying
to so it's seeds of development in different areas of
the world. I mean, I think Africa is now the
latest continent to come under the NBA's purview. So it
is just now this behemoth and the NBA is part
(26:50):
of our part of our life, whether we're online or
watching it on TV. I mean, it's you know, I
think most people know who Lebron James is, they know
who Kevin Durant is. They're cultural institutions. I think we
forget that the NBA wasn't always like this. The NBA
wasn't always a colossus, an international colossus. What's amazing to
(27:14):
me is that the NBA we see today came about
because of the efforts of people who loved basketball, who
just loved the NBA and loved what it could be.
These are people that just worked tirelessly to elevate a
game that they loved and were passionate about. David Stern,
Leo Brian Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan. But the
(27:39):
NBA's rise is the result of so many people that
have fallen into the cracks of history.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Men and women like.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Paul Gilbert a desert, Bill Fickett, Ted Shaker and Arlene Weltman.
These men and women who who worked tirelessly and sacrificed
and sometimes embarrassed themselves to turn the NBA into a
part of our lives. Their efforts have been forgotten. And
(28:15):
it's a crying shame. The NBA's rise to success didn't
come about because of Michael Jordan, David Stern, Larry Bird,
and Magic Johnson. It's a story of dozens and dozens
of people working together to create what we see today.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and his special thanks to author Pete Corano. His book
From Hangtime to Prime Time is available on Amazon and
the usual suspects and what a story it tells, and.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
It starts early.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Baseball was America's pastime football second by the late fifties.
But it took Larry O'Brien, David Stern, and a bunch
of others to put the NBA on the map. And
indeed it took some great players too. Bird and Magic
also combining with rap music in this remarkable markable merger
of cultural of cultural forces. The partnership between the two
(29:21):
a match made in heaven. As Pete said, then came Jordan,
Nike and the market. Let's face it, Jordan was a
matinee idol, a master salesman and a virtuoso performer, and
and the NBA turned into a pop culture force. Indeed,
my own daughter Reagan for Christmas one of the Nike
Blue North Carolina air Jordan's proving that he's still in
(29:46):
the NBA is still a cultural force. The story of
the rise of the NBA, which was formed on this
day in history in nineteen forty six.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Here on our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Hild
Host
Lee Habeeb
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