July 22, 2024 • 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 w/ author Pete Croatto.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
And we returned to our American stories. Founded in nineteen
forty six, 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
(00:34):
of the rise of the NBA as a business is
Pete Croudo, author of From Hang Time to Primetime. Take
it Away, Pete.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The NBA in its early days in the nineteen forties
nineteen fifties was really a regional league. It was a
league whose teams were based in the Midwest and the
East Coast. The furthest team west was Saint Lewis. So
it really was a regional league, and it was a
league that really struggled for mainstream acceptance for years. It
(01:08):
had trouble getting a favorable national television contract for years.
It played in arenas that really were antiquated or rundown,
nowhere close to the entertainment meccas that we see today.
It really was a second tier professional league.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Baseball had always been America's game.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Its roots were established for years 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.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The NBA didn't have anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It was really an afterthought to college basketball, which was
huge in the nineteen fifties, and even to the Hollom Globetrotters.
In fact, NBA games typically were the previews or the
first act, so to speak, to Hallom Globe Trotter games,
to college basketball games, especially.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
In York City.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
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 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
(02:23):
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 America's sporting culture.
The NBA needed to make a leap to become legitimate,
and by putting lario'brien in that position, it is the
(02:47):
first step towards saying, hey, we're a business, we mean business.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Larryo O'Brien was a.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Major fixture in 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 the
(03:21):
White House. 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
(03:41):
a major, 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. He
is somebody who is really looking for something to do.
And when Jay Walter Kennedy decides that he's had enough
(04:01):
being the NBA's commissioner. He looks to Lyobrian. He reaches
out to Lyo Brian specifically to ask him to take over,
and Laro 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
(04:24):
League Baseball, Gary Bettman at the NHL, that is a pinnacle.
When you died, 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,
(04:44):
they knew that he was a basketball fan, because he
was someone who grew up watching the Celtics, he had
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 Lyobrian over after numerous attempts because
they convinced him, look, you'll have absolute power here. This
(05:06):
isn't going to be a real figurehead position. You'll actually
be able to do things here.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
You'll be able to make decisions and carry out policy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
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 Larry O'Brien gave
the NBA cachet. It was headline news that he was
(05:36):
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 laro'brien,
Maurice Podoloff and Jay Walter Kennedy, they came of age
of the NBA. They were ingrained in the NBA. They
didn't have outside influence. And Laro brian came in and
(05:58):
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,
and that may now sound like much, but you have
(06:19):
to understand that meetings before 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
to brass tacks. It doesn't sound like much, but for
(06:40):
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 abaight the American Basketball Association, because Larry O'Brien,
you just wanted to get the deal done. And when
the two leagues were meeting to try and figure out
how to what teams to absorb and what money should
(07:01):
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 make make a small fortune before
(07:24):
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 much policy he enacted or edicts
(07:46):
that he handed down, though he did.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
His fair share.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
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 is outside counsel for
the NBA named David Stern, and he bought him in
as his.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Second in command.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And David Stern later went on to become the NA
Commissioner and in my mind is the most influential sports.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Commissioner of the last fifty years.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So larro'brian's ability to recognize David Stern as somebody who
could do the dirty work, who could get to know
the gms and 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
(08:40):
why he is one of the most overlooked figures in
the rise of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
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, sports, no business of entertainment. No entertainment in
the forties and fifties, Well, the league didn't extend past
Saint Louis good luck with a TV contract. In the
(09:10):
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 our American story, and we returned to our
(10:11):
American stories 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. Here again is
Pete Croudo.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Larry Bonum was 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 Stoner would go on a conference
(10:58):
call with the broadcast a 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. If it's a terrible matchup,
(11:20):
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
Stearns'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 a basketball game beyond two minutes,
(11:42):
and that.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Was with stars.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
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 3 (11:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 2 (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
Larry 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, Del Jabbar, 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 teams
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.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
As a lone wolf like I was, I.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Had parents who were not particuar really not really sports fans.
You know, my parents didn't know what hand of baseball
club went on. You're going to gravitate toward 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
(14:19):
win people over. And it also helps if you work
with a television network likes 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
(14:41):
two great players. You're focusing on the two sterling franchises
of the NBA and the 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
(15:04):
just a sporting event that becomes an episode of television.
Where the same way that if 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 CBS.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You get a beginning, middle, and end.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
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 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
(15:43):
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 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
(16:05):
five forty years. But Marvin Gay's 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.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Became the world's cool sport.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
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 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
(16:48):
Marvin gay Who's motown and sexual healing singing the song.
And it's also the sign that the NBA wasn't gonna
play by the rules of the NFL of Major League Baseball.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
It was going to do its own thing, because here.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
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 the style
of play. That national anthem, if anyone hasn't.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Heard, it is a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Soulful, stirring rendition that incorporates R and B gospel. He's
singing it over a pre recorded beat. It reflected what
the NBA was and what it could be.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It was a cool sport.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
It wasn't a sport for your mom and your dad
and your grandma and your grandpa. It was the sport
that was for the cool kids at the table, for
the teenagers, for the young Americans who wanted something different,
that wanted to me, that was hip, that belonged to them.
And that national anthem set the stage for everything that
(17:55):
happened afterward in the NBA's cultural history, because it was
defiantly non traditional, but in a way that was entertaining
and fun and.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Exciting and different.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
And for any young sports fan who's 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
(18:32):
NBA organized its All Star games.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
It became more.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
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. And to hear this story told so well
by someone like Pete, well, it brings back a lot
of memories.
Speaker 3 (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. When we last
left off. 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
(20:01):
at a high point and they were about to partner
with a growing cultural force that would take them even higher.
Here again is Pete Proudo.
Speaker 2 (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
partner with hip hop, was really a no brainer. Hip
Hop has a youthful audience that has need 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 rolling 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. That the
game really was a way for city kids to assimilate
(21:49):
in 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 not. As the NBA
is becoming a youthful hip league that's going mainstream thanks
to stars like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, hip hop
(22:11):
is enjoying the same renaissance. MTV 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 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 appealing 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
(23:00):
instrum that also generates a line of culture.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And a line of.
Speaker 2 (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 Hen
packaged his team oriented stars such as Magic Johnson and
Larry Bird part of a rivalry, or they were just born.
(23:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
It is completely foreign.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And then you have Michael Jordan, who embodies the spirit
of that shoe because he is a soloist. He is
not part 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.
(24:26):
He's an extraordinary player. And he is somebody that looks
good on camera. He's extremely attractive, he's a manageable height
at six foot six. He is a matinee idol for basketball.
So all those things come together and turn this shoe
into a cultural force. It's not just a shoe. You
(24:50):
are buying the nineteen eighties version of the leather jacket
or the Davy crockettat And when it's embraced by not
only basketball fans, but by by hip hop artists, by
city kids, by whomever. And when clothing comes out to
match the shoes, the cats out of the band. So
(25:10):
Michael Jordan really represents the beginning of the sneaker clothing
fashion trend in popular culture. I think because he was
somebody who you could represent, who you could aspire to be,
(25:32):
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
hundred and 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 player as Michael
(25:54):
Jordan is. It's a very easy association to make and
it persists. So if you want to be like Steph
Curry or Kevin Durant or God Forrivid Kyrie Irving, buying
their shoe, buying their pal is a way to get
closer to them, and Michael Jordan is the start of that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
The NBA now is a global business. I mean it is.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It is worth billions and billions of dollars, and it
has thousands of employees across the globe. It is constantly
trying to so its seeds of development in different areas
of the world. I mean, I think Africa is now
the latest continent to come under.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
The NBA's purview. So it is it is.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Just now this behemoth, and the NBA is part 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, their culture institutions. I think we forget
that the NBA wasn't always like this. The NBA wasn't
(27:07):
always a colossus, an international colossus.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
What's amazing to.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
But the NBA's rise.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Is the result of so many people that have fallen
into the cracks of history. Men and women like Paul Gilbert, A. Gesser,
Bill Fickett, Ted Shaker, and Arlene Weltman. These men and
women who who worked tirelessly and sacrificed and sometimes embarrassed
(28:04):
themselves to turn the NBA into a part of our lives.
Their efforts have been forgotten, and it's.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
A crying shame.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
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 (28:37):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and his special thanks to author Pete Corrado. His book
From Hangtime to Prime Time is available on Amazon and
the usual suspects and what a story it tells, and
it starts early baseball was America's pastime football second by
the late fifties. But it took Larry O'Brien, David Stern,
(29:00):
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 forces. The partnership between the two
a match made in heaven. As Pete said, then came Jordan,
(29:20):
Nike and the market. Let's face it, Jordan was a
matinee idol a master salesman and a virtuoso performer, 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 The
NBA is still a cultural force. The story of the
(29:44):
NBA here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Six batt
And we returned to our American stories. Founded in nineteen
forty six, 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
(00:34):
of the rise of the NBA as a business is
Pete Croudo, author of From Hang Time to Primetime. Take
it Away, Pete.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The NBA in its early days in the nineteen forties
nineteen fifties was really a regional league. It was a
league whose teams were based in the Midwest and the
East Coast. The furthest team west was Saint Lewis. So
it really was a regional league, and it was a
league that really struggled for mainstream acceptance for years. It
(01:08):
had trouble getting a favorable national television contract for years.
It played in arenas that really were antiquated or rundown,
nowhere close to the entertainment meccas that we see today.
It really was a second tier professional league.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Baseball had always been America's game.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Its roots were established for years 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.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The NBA didn't have anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It was really an afterthought to college basketball, which was
huge in the nineteen fifties, and even to the Hollom Globetrotters.
In fact, NBA games typically were the previews or the
first act, so to speak, to Hallom Globe Trotter games,
to college basketball games, especially.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
In York City.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
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 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
(02:23):
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 America's sporting culture.
The NBA needed to make a leap to become legitimate,
and by putting lario'brien in that position, it is the
(02:47):
first step towards saying, hey, we're a business, we mean business.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Larryo O'Brien was a.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Major fixture in 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 the
(03:21):
White House. 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
(03:41):
a major, 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. He
is somebody who is really looking for something to do.
And when Jay Walter Kennedy decides that he's had enough
(04:01):
being the NBA's commissioner. He looks to Lyobrian. He reaches
out to Lyo Brian specifically to ask him to take over,
and Laro 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
(04:24):
League Baseball, Gary Bettman at the NHL, that is a pinnacle.
When you died, 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,
(04:44):
they knew that he was a basketball fan, because he
was someone who grew up watching the Celtics, he had
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 Lyobrian over after numerous attempts because
they convinced him, look, you'll have absolute power here. This
(05:06):
isn't going to be a real figurehead position. You'll actually
be able to do things here.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
You'll be able to make decisions and carry out policy.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
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 Larry O'Brien gave
the NBA cachet. It was headline news that he was
(05:36):
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 laro'brien,
Maurice Podoloff and Jay Walter Kennedy, they came of age
of the NBA. They were ingrained in the NBA. They
didn't have outside influence. And Laro brian came in and
(05:58):
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,
and that may now sound like much, but you have
(06:19):
to understand that meetings before 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
to brass tacks. It doesn't sound like much, but for
(06:40):
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 abaight the American Basketball Association, because Larry O'Brien,
you just wanted to get the deal done. And when
the two leagues were meeting to try and figure out
how to what teams to absorb and what money should
(07:01):
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 make make a small fortune before
(07:24):
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 much policy he enacted or edicts
(07:46):
that he handed down, though he did.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
His fair share.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
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 is outside counsel for
the NBA named David Stern, and he bought him in
as his.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Second in command.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And David Stern later went on to become the NA
Commissioner and in my mind is the most influential sports.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Commissioner of the last fifty years.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So larro'brian's ability to recognize David Stern as somebody who
could do the dirty work, who could get to know
the gms and 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
(08:40):
why he is one of the most overlooked figures in
the rise of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
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, sports, no business of entertainment. No entertainment in
the forties and fifties, Well, the league didn't extend past
Saint Louis good luck with a TV contract. In the
(09:10):
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 our American story, and we returned to our
(10:11):
American stories 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. Here again is
Pete Croudo.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Larry Bonum was 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 Stoner would go on a conference
(10:58):
call with the broadcast a 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. If it's a terrible matchup,
(11:20):
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
Stearns'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 a basketball game beyond two minutes,
(11:42):
and that.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Was with stars.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
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 3 (11:52):
It to this day.
Speaker 2 (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
Larry 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, Del Jabbar, 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 teams
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.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
As a lone wolf like I was, I.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Had parents who were not particuar really not really sports fans.
You know, my parents didn't know what hand of baseball
club went on. You're going to gravitate toward 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
(14:19):
win people over. And it also helps if you work
with a television network likes 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
(14:41):
two great players. You're focusing on the two sterling franchises
of the NBA and the 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
(15:04):
just a sporting event that becomes an episode of television.
Where the same way that if 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 CBS.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You get a beginning, middle, and end.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
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 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
(15:43):
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 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
(16:05):
five forty years. But Marvin Gay's 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.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Became the world's cool sport.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
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 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
(16:48):
Marvin gay Who's motown and sexual healing singing the song.
And it's also the sign that the NBA wasn't gonna
play by the rules of the NFL of Major League Baseball.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
It was going to do its own thing, because here.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
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 the style
of play. That national anthem, if anyone hasn't.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Heard, it is a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Soulful, stirring rendition that incorporates R and B gospel. He's
singing it over a pre recorded beat. It reflected what
the NBA was and what it could be.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It was a cool sport.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
It wasn't a sport for your mom and your dad
and your grandma and your grandpa. It was the sport
that was for the cool kids at the table, for
the teenagers, for the young Americans who wanted something different,
that wanted to me, that was hip, that belonged to them.
And that national anthem set the stage for everything that
(17:55):
happened afterward in the NBA's cultural history, because it was
defiantly non traditional, but in a way that was entertaining
and fun and.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Exciting and different.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
And for any young sports fan who's 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
(18:32):
NBA organized its All Star games.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
It became more.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
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. And to hear this story told so well
by someone like Pete, well, it brings back a lot
of memories.
Speaker 3 (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. When we last
left off. 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
(20:01):
at a high point and they were about to partner
with a growing cultural force that would take them even higher.
Here again is Pete Proudo.
Speaker 2 (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
partner with hip hop, was really a no brainer. Hip
Hop has a youthful audience that has need 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 rolling 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. That the
game really was a way for city kids to assimilate
(21:49):
in 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 not. As the NBA
is becoming a youthful hip league that's going mainstream thanks
to stars like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, hip hop
(22:11):
is enjoying the same renaissance. MTV 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 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 appealing 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
(23:00):
instrum that also generates a line of culture.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And a line of.
Speaker 2 (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 Hen
packaged his team oriented stars such as Magic Johnson and
Larry Bird part of a rivalry, or they were just born.
(23:49):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
It is completely foreign.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And then you have Michael Jordan, who embodies the spirit
of that shoe because he is a soloist. He is
not part 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.
(24:26):
He's an extraordinary player. And he is somebody that looks
good on camera. He's extremely attractive, he's a manageable height
at six foot six. He is a matinee idol for basketball.
So all those things come together and turn this shoe
into a cultural force. It's not just a shoe. You
(24:50):
are buying the nineteen eighties version of the leather jacket
or the Davy crockettat And when it's embraced by not
only basketball fans, but by by hip hop artists, by
city kids, by whomever. And when clothing comes out to
match the shoes, the cats out of the band. So
(25:10):
Michael Jordan really represents the beginning of the sneaker clothing
fashion trend in popular culture. I think because he was
somebody who you could represent, who you could aspire to be,
(25:32):
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
hundred and 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 player as Michael
(25:54):
Jordan is. It's a very easy association to make and
it persists. So if you want to be like Steph
Curry or Kevin Durant or God Forrivid Kyrie Irving, buying
their shoe, buying their pal is a way to get
closer to them, and Michael Jordan is the start of that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
The NBA now is a global business. I mean it is.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
It is worth billions and billions of dollars, and it
has thousands of employees across the globe. It is constantly
trying to so its seeds of development in different areas
of the world. I mean, I think Africa is now
the latest continent to come under.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
The NBA's purview. So it is it is.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Just now this behemoth, and the NBA is part 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, their culture institutions. I think we forget
that the NBA wasn't always like this. The NBA wasn't
(27:07):
always a colossus, an international colossus.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
What's amazing to.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
But the NBA's rise.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Is the result of so many people that have fallen
into the cracks of history. Men and women like Paul Gilbert, A. Gesser,
Bill Fickett, Ted Shaker, and Arlene Weltman. These men and
women who who worked tirelessly and sacrificed and sometimes embarrassed
(28:04):
themselves to turn the NBA into a part of our lives.
Their efforts have been forgotten, and it's.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
A crying shame.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
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 (28:37):
And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery
and his special thanks to author Pete Corrado. His book
From Hangtime to Prime Time is available on Amazon and
the usual suspects and what a story it tells, and
it starts early baseball was America's pastime football second by
the late fifties. But it took Larry O'Brien, David Stern,
(29:00):
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 forces. The partnership between the two
a match made in heaven. As Pete said, then came Jordan,
(29:20):
Nike and the market. Let's face it, Jordan was a
matinee idol a master salesman and a virtuoso performer, 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 The
NBA is still a cultural force. The story of the
(29:44):
NBA here on our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Six batt
Host
Lee Habeeb
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