Build a Global Business

During his three-decade tenure as commissioner of the National Basketball Association David Stern built the model for professional sports in league operations, public service, global marketing and digital technology. But perhaps his greatest legacy, which he attributes to his administrative colleagues and the players themselves, is one of diversity. When other sports were slow to integrate both on and off the field, the NBA led the way in hiring African-American head coaches and general managers...

As just one indicator of success during David Stern’s tenure at the NBA, the organization’s licensing revenue increased from 40 million dollars to around three billion. This massive growth was only possible because early on, Stern and his team focused not only on basketball, but on the meaning and value of the National Basketball Association itself. This entailed establishing core values such as doing good in addition to doing well, becoming a great partner to networks, sponsors, and merchandi...

A successful brand is an integral part of its customers’ lives. It meets them where they live and work, and enables them to consume and interact with its products in the ways they want to. Under David Stern, the NBA made it a mission to develop new and lasting touchpoints with its audiences. It took risks, experimenting in emerging spaces such as YouTube and social media, always with the goal of being there for its fans in the places where they chose to spend their time.

‘Micromanagement’ is a pejorative. It conjures up the image of an annoying boss who’s unable to trust employees enough to give them autonomy in their work. This kind of micromanager, we believe, suffocates employee motivation and ultimately ends up overwhelmed, unable to delegate on the one hand or to handle everybody else’s work on the other.But if David Stern, the undeniably, staggeringly successful former commissioner of the NBA were to write a business book, he says he’d call it “Episo...

How does a world-class institution maintain brand integrity while expanding globally and evolving into new areas? Under David Stern, the NBA faced exactly this challenge, with extraordinary success. Stern suggests a two-pronged approach: creating an outstanding product while guarding your reputation fiercely.

Expanding into international markets isn’t just translating what you’re already doing into new languages. Done right, it will transform your business entirely, and for the better. David Stern’s experience in growing the NBA from a national institution into an international one holds powerful lessons for any company newly charting foreign waters.