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