NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has overseen the league’s rapid growth since taking helm of the league in 2014.
To that end, the Board of Governors Chairman Larry Tanenbaum of the Toronto Raptors announced a deal that would extend Silver’s contract for another five years.
Silver led a smooth negotiation with the NBA Players Union for a new collective bargaining agreement in 2016 that saw player salaries increase thanks to a $24.1 billion, nine-year television and media rights deal that he helped forge with Disney and Turner in 2014.
Combined franchise values of all 30 NBA clubs have risen by an estimated $60 billion. Also, the league has enjoyed its fourth consecutive season of hitting an all-time high attendance.
This season also marked the launch of the first eSports venture the NBA 2K League, which Silver has raved about.
“From the NBA’s standpoint, this is our fourth league,” he said earlier this year. “Of course we have the NBA, the WNBA and the G League, and now this is the fourth league in our family, and that’s exactly as we’re treating it: one more professional league.”
Silver has also been the only commissioner of a major American professional sports league to address police brutality.
Because of his successes, his personality, and his relentless efforts of trying to better a league that most people believed was already perfect, and for having the personality to unite rather than separate and exclude, Adam Silver most certainly deserves anything he gets and possibly more.
