The Sacramento Bee
January 1, 2020
By Marcos Bretón
We would have no NBA basketball in Sacramento and the Kings would be a relic of the past without the power and influence of David Stern, the former NBA commissioner who died Wednesday after initially suffering a brain hemorrhage in New York on Dec. 12.
Stern was 77 and his loss is mourned deeply and widely because the diminutive, bespectacled lawyer-turned-commissioner is credited with elevating the NBA from a niche league to a global sensation over his 30 years at the helm, between 1984 and 2014.
Sacramento benefited immeasurably from Stern’s support when he expertly deployed his formidable levers of authority to rebuff efforts to move the Kings to Orange County and Seattle. That bought Sacramento leaders enough time to recruit a new ownership group that would give NBA owners the option of keeping the Kings in the state capital, which Stern clearly wanted to do.
This years-long effort resulted in the construction of Golden 1 Center, home of the Kings, and the DOCO entertainment and shopping complex around G1C. These are now tangible symbols of Stern’s expansive vision for the NBA and of Sacramento’s thriving new downtown.
“Sacramento will owe David Stern a deep debt of gratitude for generations to come,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
“Without his willingness to step out and believe in us, our city would be missing a major piece of its ongoing resurgence. Thank you does not begin to express what David Stern has meant to our city.”
Today, there is a street outside Golden 1 Center bearing Stern’s name. That is the address of the arena, 500 David J. Stern Walk.
And throughout the world of sports and business, Stern was known as one of the most effective leaders of a major American brand in the last half-century.
“Commissioner Stern defined the gold standard of being a sports commissioner,” said Kunal Merchant, who was chief of staff to former Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson during the years when Johnson led the local effort to save the Kings.
“(Stern) understood the full magnitude of what sports could be in society, in entertainment, in real estate, in technology, in international relations, in philanthropy,” he said. “He was a person who was not (tall) and whose life intersected with human beings who were 6-feet-6 or taller, and yet he was a towering figure in whatever room he walked into.”
CREATES MODERN NBA
When Stern took over the NBA, its premier games – the NBA Finals – were still aired on tape-delay. That meant championship games were sometimes shown on TV hours after the final buzzer had sounded because the TV networks thought they were a drag on prime time programming. By the time Stern retired in 2014, the NBA had surpassed baseball and rivaled the NFL in ratings power and billions in revenues earned.
“The league’s annual revenue from its television contract increased by 40 times,“ ESPN wrote last week. “The average player salary jumped from $250,000 a year in 1984 to more than $5 million, and the value of franchises skyrocketed.”
Stern accomplished this by always being the smartest guy in the room. He celebrated star players and exciting rivalries. He understood contracts, marketing, real estate and power better than anyone who crossed his path and arguably better than any commissioner of any sport.
Stern’s huge personality belied his modest stature. He was raised in New Jersey and Stern seemed to relish unleashing his inner Jersey and powerful intellect on friends and foes alike. When you were in his presence, you were in the company of a formidable combination of wit and cunning that intimidated as much as it charmed.
Stern loved to mix it up with anyone and, above all else, this was a man who knew who he was and woe to the fool who underestimated him.
“He is the only person I ever met who could exhibit extraordinary compassion and ruthlessness in the same sentence,” Merchant said.
Because Stern made so much money for players and owners, he locked down their respect and obedience. The NBA is a democracy wrapped in a monopoly with NBA owners as partners. The commissioner represents them. Stern played that role like a fine instrument but his voice and vote always counted most because of who he was and what he did to elevate the league.
SACRAMENTO GETS, KEEPS KINGS
As a consequence of his unquestioned power, Sacramento got an NBA team in 1985 and kept it in early 2010s when the Maloof brothers, the former Kings owners, sought to relocate to Orange County and then Seattle. Stern was with Sacramento every step of the way. He was on hand at the first Arco Arena when the Kings played their inaugural game. And he was the most powerful player in the decade-long saga of keeping the Kings from leaving.
“David (was) consistently our greatest fan and supporter of Sacramento,” said Gregg Lukenbill, who brought the Kings to Sacramento and led the first local ownership group. “His support is unique in NBA history. He was our original sixth man for 35 years, privately supporting us in a (then) 23-league team in a temporary 10,000 seat building.”
The Maloofs first wanted to move the team in 2011. Stern persuaded them to give the Kings another year.
The relationship between the Maloofs and Sacramento soured greatly at this point and a certain newspaper columnist – well, me – was really letting them have it in The Bee. That made me persona non grata with all the Kings’ horses and all the Kings’ men. You have not lived until Grant Napear, voice of the Kings, is routinely fire-breathing your name into his 50,000-watt microphone with every Long Island fiber of his being. I loved it.
Then one afternoon, my phone rang, I picked it up and immediately recognized the deep and biting New York accent on the other line. All he said was, “This is David Stern,” and all I could muster was – gulp!
Stern started out scolding me, which was unnerving to say the least. But he listened as well. I told him that Sacramento didn’t want to lose the Kings. It was an ownership issue, not a market issue. Many others told him the same and though he never revealed what he was thinking, Stern kept returning to Sacramento to find a solution to the Kings ownership crisis.
Orange County materialized in 2011 as a Kings destination and Stern led the NBA’s rejection of that plan. Seattle became a real contender for the Kings and Stern spelled out for Johnson what Sacramento needed to do to stay in the game.
Namely, Sacramento needed to prove it had corporate support – which Johnson secured. The locals needed to find a funding mechanism to build an arena, which they did. They needed to prove to NBA owners that a new arena would not be bogged down in lawsuits, which Steinberg delivered by crafting legislation that effectively blocked nuisance suits while he was the leader of the State Senate.
In time, Vivek Randadive materialized as the leader of a new ownership group for the Kings. And once that was secured, Stern had the votes to keep the Kings in Sacramento.
“He believed it was in the best interests of the NBA to stay in Sacramento because this market proved it loved this game,” Merchant said. “He believed Sacramento had the ability to build an arena if it has the right ownership group.”
Said Lukenbill: “He personally stood firmly against threatened and attempted franchise moves from here. I asked him why and he sincerely stated that our fans deserved his wholehearted support. Simply put, he loves Sacramento.”
Stern kept a low profile after his retirement. The last time I saw him was in 2015, at the screening of a subsequently shelved ESPN film about Sacramento’s effort to keep the Kings. He had let his hair grow longer and I remember him seeming frailer than I had ever seen him.
At the end of the screening, he eschewed the after-party and wanted to head home with his wife. We watched him walking gingerly to his vehicle, seeming a little bit lost and vulnerable in the hustle and bustle of a Friday night in Manhattan. To his everlasting credit, Merchant raced out after him and led the Sterns to their waiting car. They got in and I never saw him again.
My regret is that I never thanked David Stern for what he did for my city. Some people are called giants, but he really was one in the truest sense of the phrase. Commissioner Stern was also one of the most unforgettable figures any of us will ever meet.