NBA commissioner Adam Silver extends league contract

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The contract of NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been extended through to the 2024 finals, NBA board of governors chairman Larry Tanenbaum announced on Wednesday. No financial terms were disclosed.

The deal means that Silver will probably host the negotiation to help the NBA and players reach their next collective bargaining agreement. The current one is effective until the 2023-24 season with both sides allowed to opt out it in 2023 to renegotiate the terms.

(L-R) Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Wizards, John Skipper, ESPN president and Disney Media Networks co-chairman and Adam Silver, NBA commissioner announce the NBA has expanded its partnerships with Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and The Walt Disney Company through new, nine-year agreements under which ABC, TNT, and ESPN will televise NBA games beginning with the 2016-17 season through the 2024-25 season, October 06, 2014, in New York City, New York. /VCG Photo

Silver, 56, joined the NBA in 1992 and became deputy commissioner and chief operating officer under David Stern in 2005. He took over from Stern as the league’s new chief in 2014.

In his first year, Silver hosted successful negotiations that led to a nine-year television and media rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports that will pay NBA around 24 billion US dollars in total. This deal has also hugely raised the league’s salary cap from the 58.7 million dollars in the 2013-14 season to over 100 million in the coming 2018-19 season.

Silver has also been seeking other sources of revenue growth for the NBA including adding advertising patches to jerseys and striving for the legalization of sports gaming from which the league could draw a dividend.

Team LeBron and Team Curry at the 2017-18 NBA All-Star Weekend which is one of the reforms by Adam Silver. /VCG Photo

Silver is also a reformer who started the 2017-18 season earlier than before, made it longer than before and reduced back-to-back games to bring down the intensity of the games for the players. He also promoted changes to some rules including reducing the number of timeouts a team can call and launching “Harden Rules” to make games faster and more fluent to attract younger audiences. As for All-Star Weekend, Silver authorized “captains” of the two teams to pick players to make the event more interesting and dramatic.

There are good reasons to believe that Silver will not stop after he suggested that the NBA should change the age-limit entry rule as well as raise the possibility of introducing a hard salary cap.