Every now and again, I’ll be catching up with those who call sports or elements of sports their job, profession, livelihood — to help give those outside of the business a better understanding of what goes on around the game.
This “Around The Game” installment features, Phil Evans, former NBA Development President.
In the fall of 2001 and after years of watching players called up from the Continental Basketball Association, the NBA launched an early formed minor league concept with eight teams located in the Southwest. Soon after, then NBA Commissioner, David Stern turned in-house to Phil Evans, a former CBA executive and Director of Legal and Business Affairs, to be appointed the first President of the NBDL. Evans recently shared his thoughts on those uncertain early days of building the D-League, the challenges the D-League faces today and Evans’ current basketball/business ventures.
Back in 2002, you were named the first president of the NBA Development League. Can you take us back to that time and the venture of rolling out this new D-League concept?
I was named the first President of the National Basketball Development League (“NBDL”), as it was known at the time, in May 2002, shortly after the NBDL completed its inaugural season. (Between April 2001 and May 2002, I served as the NBDL’s Director of Legal & Business Affairs.) I believe the NBA made me the league’s first President because I had consistently, but politely, challenged a number of decisions the league made during the 2001-02 season which I believed defied conventional wisdom based on my experience at the CBA. Since the NBA also decided it wanted to create a separately dedicated league office for the NBDL to be located in the southeast amongst the teams, Commissioner Stern also thought I was well suited for the position because of my “southern roots.”
The 2001-2002 season was a success operationally. By and large, we got the players we wanted, and we began to provide a much needed service to NBA teams. From a financial and “relevance” standpoint, however, we had a lot of work to do.
We initially budgeted from the “top down.” In other words, we looked at what the NBA had and needed, decided what the NBDL could do without and created our budget in that manner as opposed to starting from scratch and creating a budget from the “bottom up.” We also depended heavily on “shared resources,” meaning we needed NBA league office personnel to do NBDL work on top of their NBA and WNBA responsibilities. The NBA had (and still has) tremendously talented people in its league office, but many of them were already overworked and the NBDL tended to drop to the bottom of their priority list. As a result, we spent a significant amount of money prior to the start of our first season, and we lost a tremendous amount of money during our first year of operation.
On the relevance front, I think the NBA presumed that the cities in which it had agreed to make the homes of NBDL teams had never seen the likes of the quality of minor league sports that we would be bringing, and that therefore selling tickets and getting “butts in seats” would not be particularly difficult. The NBA also presumed, as a result of its partnership with Clear Channel, it would make the arenas in its NBDL markets much more vibrant places, resulting in strong attendance figures. The NBDL didn’t even sell local sponsorships initially because it didn’t want to be blamed for taking sponsorship dollars away from the other local pro sports teams (e.g., hockey) and effectively running them out of town. Not surprisingly, the NBDL did a poor job selling tickets in its first year, we couldn’t get people to come to our games and local businesses wouldn’t support the league.
Following my appointment as President in May 2002, we created a separately dedicated league office in Greenville, SC (which was home to a team and which was centrally located among the other teams) and a small group of us “rolled up our sleeves” and headed south to begin the painstakingly difficult job of making the NBDL relevant in its markets and improving the league’s financial situation while continuing to serve the NBA and NBA teams as a development league.
What did you feel were some key areas to target when starting to build the foundation for the D-League?
We did a tremendous job in year one of getting the players we wanted in the league thanks in large part to the efforts of Karl Hicks (now Associate AD at Florida State) and Milt Newton (now GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves). We knew that continuing to attract the kind of players NBA teams would “call up” during the season would be critical to our success, and we also knew we didn’t have much money to pay them. We therefore devoted a lot of time and resources to “basketball operations” and “player matters” and to developing relationships with individual NBA teams.
Initially, as you may recall, the NBDL operated similarly to the old CBA. Any NBA team could “call up” any player from the NBDL at anytime during the season. That was a nice benefit for NBA teams, but not nearly as nice as today where an NBA team with a single affiliate can: (1) select its own coaching and training staffs; (2) run its own offensive and defensive schemes; (3) play the players they want at the positions they want them to play; and (4) “assign” certain of its NBA team players to its D-League affiliate without fear that another NBA team might call them up.
In addition to continuing to ensure we got the right players in the league and keeping NBA teams happy, I also wanted to make the NBDL a development league in every sense of the word. I wanted the NBA and the NBA teams to use the league: (1) to train its referees, (2) to give former NBA players coaching experience; (3) as a human resources pool where young front office executives could gain experience and prove themselves for NBA and NBA team jobs; and (4) to experiment with new equipment, rule changes, camera angles and television broadcasts and sponsor benefits (e.g., company names on jerseys). In addition, I wanted to “develop” NBA fans in our NBDL markets. I wanted our NBDL fans to care about the NBA teams to which “their” player was called up – to go to that NBA team’s games, to watch them on TV, to buy their merchandise, etc.
In 2007, you stepped away from your role with the D-League. What are you most proud of during your time/experience with the league?
That I was fortunate enough to be part of a small group of unappreciated “pioneers” who worked tirelessly – in the face of a lot of criticism and negativity — to dig the league out of a very deep hole and to position it for the success it’s enjoying today.
It wasn’t clear after our first year of operation the league would survive. In fact, even with the substantial progress we made in the next few years, it still wasn’t clear the league would make it. A lot of people jumped off the NBDL bandwagon after its difficult first season, and it took a long while to get them back, but during those early years, a handful of people in the league office and at the team level (and they know who they are) not only kept the league alive, but transformed it to the point where it finally became clear the league would not only survive, but thrive.
What did you learn the most about yourself in working with league that you apply to your work today?
It’s not about the type of work you do; it’s about who you do it with. In addition, it’s all about perseverance. Never give up.
What projects, sports business ventures are you currently working on?
I perform “fractional general counsel” services for a handful of companies. I am also providing consulting services to a group which intends to launch a pro basketball summer league in California in 2017, and to another group that would like to buy a D-League expansion team and play outside of Rochester, NY. In addition, I bought a 9Round Kickboxing Fitness franchise that I’m operating in Midlothian, VA. I’m definitely staying busy!
How close do you follow the league today and what obstacles do you feel the D-League still needs to overcome?
I go to the D-League All-Star game every year, and I chat with current NBDL President, Malcolm Turner and a few other folks every now and then, but I don’t have the time to follow the league as closely as I would like. I think the D-League still has work to do in some of its existing markets making its teams relevant and an important part of the “community fabric.” I think the primary obstacle the D-League faces today, however, is how to grow to 30 teams most efficiently so each NBA team can have its own affiliate. I just wish that was the primary obstacle we had to deal with back in the day!
Prior to working with the D-League, you worked in minor league basketball in the CBA. What is your opinion of the current minor league basketball/semi-pro basketball model?
I loved my time at the CBA, and I am a sucker for the benefits of a well run league which is comprised of teams with the “right” local ownership groups in the “right” venues in the “right” markets. I think, for example, of the expansion Idaho Stampede in 1997-98 or the Sioux Falls Skyforce before them in the old CBA; it’s no wonder those teams ultimately made their way into the D-League and continue to operate successfully today.
It’s not easy to operate a professional minor league basketball organization, however. If you’re a basketball fan, there’s the NBA, there’s college basketball and there’s high school basketball. That doesn’t leave much of a niche for minor league professional basketball. And, if you’re thinking about focusing on a wider audience than the basketball fan — by providing an “affordable family-friendly entertainment experience” – you’ll find you have more competition today for the entertainment dollar than ever before. The D-League, however, with the benefits it provides to the NBA and the NBA teams, is clearly here to stay. I also think a summer league like the proposed USBA with its college affinity concept has a legitimate opportunity to succeed. Otherwise, I’d be wary. There are plenty of easier ways to make a dime. Minor league basketball is a tough way to make a living, but I wouldn’t trade my experience in that industry for anything in the world.
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