During his five years as NBA commissioner, Adam Silver has received inquiries from several NFL team owners about whether he’d be interested in switching leagues and becoming the NFL’s commissioner, sources tell ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. Silver has also been approached by Fortune 500 companies about potential job opportunities, Shelburne reports.
Although Silver didn’t explicitly confirm that he has received interest from NFL owners or other companies looking to lure him away from the NBA, he tells Shelburne that he’s not considering leaving his current position.
“I’ll just say I have not given it any thought,” Silver said. “I feel very fortunate to be in this position. As a longtime fan, as a long time league employee, the opportunity to become the commissioner of this league was beyond anything I even ever dreamed of as a kid.
“I’ve loved every day I’ve been in this job, and I think there’s nothing but enormous opportunity ahead for this league. And ultimately, I realize I’m just passing through like every player who’s gone through this league and ultimately like every owner, and I feel an enormous obligation to the fans and to this greater NBA family to do my best and try my hardest every day. But that’s where 100% of my focus is.”
While the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell have had to deal with controversies related to player protests, head injuries, domestic incidents, and – of course – “Deflate-gate” in recent years, the NBA has been relatively scandal-free during Silver’s tenure.
As Shelburne’s story observes, Silver has helped grow the sport by embracing eSports, legalized sports betting, and patch advertisements on jerseys, while tweaking rules related to referee accountability, game flow, and the draft lottery. And as we noted when we relayed Forbes’ annual franchise valuations last week, the average value of an NBA franchise has tripled over the last five years.
Be sure to check out Pro Football Rumors for the NFL-centric perspective on Shelburne’s report.
I think Adam Silver has been the best commissioner amongst all of them in the NBA, MLB, and NFL in the last 20 years.
Only by default because baseball, hockey and football commissioners are awful
paul tagliabue was a good commissioner
I think Bettman is still denying head injuries are a problem in the NHL…
Manfred is better than the sickly looking Silver, but they’re all snakes regardless.
Manfred is pretty decent I think.
Rozelle retired and Giamatti died in the same year ’89, so you could make that 30 years.
Yes you could make that claim about Silver. Bid Selig, ultimately, was a terrific commissioner, oversaw a really difficult era for the game and got the game through that.
Selig’s bad stuff is pretty bad, but there’s a lot more to the picture than that. He did do a lot for the game.
Silver lets Rich Paul do whatever he wants
david sterns “special assistant” 22 yrs to running the entertainment division and becoming deputy commissioner in 2006 – this snake’s going no where
I just thought about what it would be like having Goddell as NBA commissioner and almost puked.
Given a choice between Silver and his cohorts in the other leagues, I’d take him.
Why would He even think about. You want to deal the owners in football. The CTE is just going to get worse. You are soon going to have a league of all white conservative owners . Almost all black players who the owners will throw away in a second. The my kid is not playing football is going to grow with people with options.
Why would he think about it? Because the NFL job would pay ten times what he makes with the NBA,that’s why.
Why wouldn’t Silver look at it if there’s an opportunity, for the money and the challenge? He’d handle the transition well enough, put in a smart team to help him run things. Roger has plenty of detractors and if a majority of NFL owners were of a mind to replace him, Silver is on the short list.