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How much do olympic basketball players get paid
How much do olympic basketball players get paid
U.S. women's basketball team gets expanded training, pay for players - OlympicTalk
Associated PressJul 27, 2019, 3:16 PM EDT
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi want their USA Basketball legacy to be more than just winning medals.
The four-time Olympic gold medalists came up with an idea for a training plan for USA Basketball leading up to next year’s Tokyo Olympics that would help the Americans go for an unprecedented seventh consecutive title: USA Basketball, which usually trains together only for short periods of time during a crowded calendar, would get a core group of eight players together for five training sessions over the next year.
The players would be paid $2,000 a day at each of the training camps and games leading up to the Olympics, with the chance to also earn bonuses.
USA Basketball loved the idea. The new training plan was announced on Saturday before the All-Star Game, with Bird, Taurasi, USA Basketball coach Dawn Staley and national team director Carol Callan in attendance.![]()
“I think as you get closer to the end of your time, you understand you can 100% have an impact as a player. Go out there and move the needle on the court with your play and winning, but there are other ways that I would like to have an impact and one would be this,” Bird said. “Getting paid gives players, who want the option, to stay at home and not go overseas in the winter.”
Joining Bird and Taurasi for the training segments as part of the core group are Sylvia Fowles, Elena Delle Donne, Nneka Ogwumike, A’ja Wilson, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Chelsea Gray. The U.S. will also have a fluid group of players from the national team training pool join the core group.
Many of the U.S. players, including Bird and Taurasi, have played in the winter overseas, where they have been paid potentially 10 times their WNBA salaries. Finding time to train with USA Basketball has been difficult because of the overseas schedules and the WNBA schedule.
If the players are paid by USA Basketball, they have more of a reason to stay here.
They can earn roughly $100,000 for participating in all the training sessions.
“It’s legitimate, they knew they had to do it that way,” said Ogwumike, who has played in Russia and China in the winter. “That investment is what the players want. It’s quite amazing to afford that type of opportunity. Not just the investment in us, but the strategic nature of hitting different markets. We’ll have traveling tournaments.
“I was in a moment where I played a half-season in China. Don’t know if I can go overseas again. I have so much available to me here, it would benefit me not to go overseas. For them to put that investment in, that’s huge.”
The U.S. will get together in late September for the FIBA America’s Cup. The Americans will then get together in November and February to train and play in FIBA Olympic qualifying tournaments. The U.S. already has qualified for the Tokyo Games by winning the World Cup last fall.
The Americans will also play exhibition games against college teams to train in the fall and winter.
“Our three priorities are to train and prepare for the Olympics, amplify the profile of the women’s national team and raise the profile of women’s basketball as a whole by using the best players in the world,” USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley told The Associated Press. “Besides training they’ll be auxiliary events around our training. We’ll do some clinics for Boys & Girls clubs to spread the gospel of the women’s national team.”
Tooley said the training idea is a smaller version of what the U.S. did in 1995-96 that kicked off its run of success.
“That’s when our amazing run started,” he said. “It’s like bookends almost.”
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Ukraine Olympic champion auctions gold medals to support his country
By OlympicTalkNov 29, 2022, 12:11 PM EST
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Sprint canoeist Yuriy Cheban, Ukraine’s most decorated male Olympian, is auctioning his two gold medals and one bronze medal to support his country’s defense and recovery efforts amid the war with Russia.
“It was one of the best moments of my life that can be compared only with the birth of my child,” Cheban posted specifically about his repeat 200m gold at his last Olympics in Rio in 2016. “This Olympic finish left a great memory forever in the world history and in the hearts of Ukraine.
“Time to move on, I would like these medals to benefit Ukrainians once again.”
Cheban, a 36-year-old who coached Ukraine canoeists at the Tokyo Games, took 500m bronze in 2008 before his 200m golds in 2012 and 2016, all in individual races.
He and boxer Vasiliy Lomachenko are the only men to win two Olympic gold medals for Ukraine, which began competing independently in 1994. Cheban is the only man to win three total Olympic medals for Ukraine, according to Olympedia.org.
Swimmer Yana Klochkova won the most medals for Ukraine — four golds and five total.
All proceeds from the sales will go to Ukraine’s Olympic Circle charity, according to SCP Auctions.
Olympic Circle was created by sportsmen to help Mykolaiv, a city in southern Ukraine, fight Russian occupants, according to SCP.
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Alpine skiing TV, live stream schedule for 2022-23 World Cup season
By OlympicTalkNov 29, 2022, 12:00 PM EST
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NBC Sports and Peacock combine to air live coverage of the 2022-23 Alpine skiing season, including races on the World Cup, which starts this weekend.
Coverage begins with the traditional season-opening giant slaloms in Soelden, Austria, this Saturday and Sunday, streaming live on Peacock.
The first of four stops in the U.S. — the most in 26 years — is Thanksgiving weekend with a women’s giant slalom and slalom in Killington, Vermont. The men’s tour visits Beaver Creek, Colorado the following week, as well as Palisades Tahoe, California, and Aspen, Colorado after worlds in Courchevel and Meribel, France.
NBC Sports platforms will broadcast all four U.S. stops in the Alpine World Cup season, plus four more World Cups in other ski and snowboard disciplines. All Alpine World Cups in Austria will stream live on Peacock.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who last year won her fourth World Cup overall title, is the headliner. Shiffrin, who has 74 career World Cup race victories, will try to close the gap on the only Alpine skiers with more: Lindsey Vonn (82) and Ingemar Stenmark (86). Shiffrin won an average of five times per season the last three years and is hopeful of racing more often this season.
On the men’s side, 25-year-old Swiss Marco Odermatt returns after becoming the youngest man to win the overall, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, since Marcel Hirscher won the second of his record eight in a row in 2013.
2022-23 Alpine Skiing World Cup Broadcast Schedule
Schedule will be added to as the season progresses.
All NBC Sports TV coverage also streams live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
| Date | Coverage | Network/Platform | Time (ET) |
| Sat., Oct. 22 | Women’s GS (Run 1) – Soelden (PPD) | Peacock | 4 a.m. |
| Women’s GS (Run 2) – Soelden (PPD) | Peacock | 7:05 a.m. |
| Sun., Oct. 23 | Men’s GS (Run 1) — Soelden | Peacock | 4 a.m. |
| Men’s GS (Run 2) – Soelden | Peacock | 7 a.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 12 | Women’s Parallel (Qualifying) — Lech (PPD) | Peacock | 6 a.m. |
| Women’s Parallel (Finals) — Lech (PPD) | Peacock | 12 p.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 13 | Men’s Parallel (Qualifying) — Lech (PPD) | Peacock | 4 a.m. |
| Men’s Parallel (Finals) — Lech (PPD) | Peacock | 10 a. m. |
| Sat., Nov. 19 | Women’s SL (Run 1) — Levi | Skiandsnowboard.live | 4 a.m. |
| Women’s SL (Run 2) — Levi | Skiandsnowboard.live | 7 a.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 20 | Women’s SL (Run 1) — Levi | Skiandsnowboard.live | 4:15 a.m. |
| Women’s SL (Run 2) — Levi | Skiandsnowboard.live | 7:15 a.m. |
| Fri., Nov. 25 | Men’s DH — Lake Louise (PPD) | Skiandsnowboard.live | 2:30 p.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 26 | Women’s GS (Run 2) — Killington | NBC, Peacock | 12:30 p.m. |
| Men’s DH — Lake Louise | Skiandsnowboard.live | 2:30 p.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 27 | Women’s SL (Run 2) — Killington | NBC, Peacock | 12:30 p.m. |
| Men’s SG — Lake Louise | Skiandsnowboard.live | 2:15 p.m. |
| Fri., Dec. 2 | Women’s DH — Lake Louise | Skiandsnowboard. live | 2 p.m. |
| Sat., Dec. 3 | Women’s DH — Lake Louise | Skiandsnowboard.live | 2:30 p.m. |
| Men’s DH — Beaver Creek | CNBC, Peacock | 4 p.m.* |
| Men’s DH — Beaver Creek | NBC, Peacock | 5 p.m.* |
| Sun., Dec. 4 | Women’s SG — Lake Louise | Skiandsnowboard.live | 1 p.m. |
| Men’s SG — Beaver Creek | NBC, Peacock | 5 p.m.* |
*Delayed broadcast.
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How much athletes at Beijing Olympics get for winning medals
Beijing Olympics 2022
Live: Feb. 4 - Feb. 20
- The International Olympic Committee does not pay prize money to medalists, but many countries offer monetary rewards to their athletes for the number of medals they win at either the Summer Olympics or Winter Olympics.
- Singapore rewards its gold medalists nearly 20 times more than the U.S. Players who clinch their first individual gold medal for Singapore stand to receive 1 million Singapore dollars ($737,000).
- Kazakhstan pays its athletes about $250,000 for a gold medal, Italy gives about $213,000, the Philippines around $200,000 while Malaysia also offers hefty rewards for its athletes.
Gold medalist USA's Nathan Chen celebrates at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games on February 10.
Sebastien Bozon | AFP | Getty Images
The 2022 Winter Olympics is well underway in Beijing, and more than 200 medals have already been awarded to athletes from around the world.
Finishing on the podium is a matter of national pride. For some winners, it also means taking home a cash bonus and opening doors to rare multimillion-dollar sponsorship opportunities.
The International Olympic Committee does not pay prize money to medalists, but many countries offer monetary rewards to their athletes for the number of medals they win at either the Summer Olympics or Winter Olympics.
CNBC compiled the chart below, sourcing information from various national Olympic committees, sports associations and personal finance site Money Under 30.
The data showed the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee rewards its athletes $37,500 for every gold medal won, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze. Most of that prize money is not taxable unless athletes report gross income that exceeds $1 million.
American athletes also receive other forms of support such as health insurance, access to top-tier medical facilities and college tuition assistance.
The U.S. sent more than 200 athletes to compete in Beijing. Team USA has so far bagged 7 gold medals, 6 silver and 3 bronze.
At the 2021 summer games, American athletes took home 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze — racking up the highest medal tally by any country in Tokyo.
How much do other countries pay?
Some countries and territories provide much higher monetary incentives for their athletes to finish on the podium.
Experts say some of it is an attempt to develop national sporting cultures.
Singapore, for example, rewards its gold medalists nearly 20 times more than the U.S.
Players who clinch their first individual gold medal for the city-state stand to receive 1 million Singapore dollars ($737,000). The prize money is taxable and the winning recipients are required to return a portion of it to their national sports associations for future training and development.
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Kazakhstan pays their athletes about $250,000 for a gold medal, Italy gives about $213,000, the Philippines around $200,000 while Malaysia also offers hefty rewards for its athletes. Hong Kong, which competes separately from China at the Olympics, last year offered 5 million Hong Kong dollars ($641,000) for gold winners.
When India's javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra secured the country's first gold in track-and-field in Tokyo last year, several politicians and corporate brands reportedly announced millions of rupees in monetary reward for the athlete.
Apart from medal bonuses, winners in these countries are also offered other compensations. For example when Filipino weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the country's first Olympic gold last year, she was reportedly offered two homes and free flights for life.
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To begin with, clinching a spot on the Olympics team is not an easy feat and athletes dedicate most of their time to training for the games — that makes holding down full-time employment difficult.
In some sports, equipment, coaching and access to training venues can also rack up an athlete's expenses.
While sportspeople from bigger, more competitive countries receive stipends or training grants from their national sports associations, others hold down a variety of jobs or turn to crowdsourcing to finance their Olympic dreams.
Top performers also collect prize money by winning national and international tournaments.
How hard is it to get sponsored?
Only a handful of top athletes land multimillion dollar endorsements or sponsorship deals, either before competing at the Olympics or after achieving success in the Games.
Snowboarder Shaun White, for example, received his first board sponsorship when he was 7, NBC Sports reported. After he won his first Olympic gold medal in 2006, snowboard-manufacturing company Burton signed him on to a 10-year contract and White pocketed an estimated $10 million a year in sponsorships, according to NBC.
Last year, U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles received millions in endorsements ahead of the summer games, Forbes reported. Meanwhile, tennis star Naomi Osaka reportedly made $55 million from endorsements in 12 months, and was named the highest-paid female athlete ever, according to reports.
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But scoring lucrative deals is rare, and hardly the norm.
Most Team USA athletes are not represented by sports agents and some have no sponsors or endorsements at all, according to a Forbes report.
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
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Both Russian 3x3 basketball teams went down in history, Nagorny is third in the individual all-around. Results of the day in Tokyo
Highlights:
- Men's Russian team (Martin Malyutin, Ivan Girev, Evgeny Rylov, Mikhail Dovgalyuk) won the silver medal in the Pride of the Nation 4x200m freestyle relay
- Judoka Madina Taimazova - bronze medalist of the Games in weight up to 70 kg. The 22-year-old Russian woman did not get into the final due to "judicial arbitrariness"
- Gymnast Nikita Nagorny became the third in the individual all-around, losing to the representatives of Asia, and Artur Dalaloyan finished his performance in Tokyo in sixth place
- The Russian women's 3x3 basketball team won the Olympic silver medal, losing to the Americans in the final, the men's team won silver medals in the fight against Latvian basketball players
- Second racket of the world Daniil Medvedev reached the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, and then put a journalist from Chile in his place.
9 will also compete for the semi-finals tomorrow0006 Karen Khachanov - The ROC team continues to rank fourth in the unofficial team standings with 23 medals (7-10-6)
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All medals July 28:
Rowing. Women's double sculls: Romania, New Zealand, Netherlands
Rowing. Men's double sculls: France, the Netherlands, China
Rowing. Women's coxswain quad: Australia, Netherlands, Ireland
Rowing. Men, coxless four: Australia, Romania, Italy
Swimming. Women. Freestyle. 200 m: Erian Titmus (Australia), Shibon Hoey (Hong Kong), Penny Oleksiak (Canada)
Rowing. Men's quadruple sculls: Netherlands, UK, Australia
Swimming. Men. Butterfly. 200m: Krishtof Milak (Hungary), Tomoru Honda (Japan), Federico Burdisso (Italy)
Rowing. Women's quadruple sculls: China, Poland, Australia
Swimming.
Women. Complex. 200m: Yui Ohashi (Japan), Alexandra Walsh (USA), Kate Douglass (USA)
Swimming. Women. Freestyle. 1500 m: Cathy Ledecky (USA), Erika Sullivan (USA), Sarah Koehler (Germany)
Swimming. Men. Freestyle. Relay 4×200: Great Britain, Russia (Martin Malyutin, Ivan Girev, Evgeny Rylov, Mikhail Dovgalyuk), Australia
Cycling. Women. Highway. Time Trial: Annemiek van Vloiten (Netherlands), Marlene Reusser (Switzerland), Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands)
Diving. Men. Springboard, 3m. Synchronized jumps: 1. Wang Zongyuan/Xie Siyi (China) — 467.82. 2. Andrew Capobianco / Michael Hickson (USA) - 444.36. 3. Patrick Hausding / Lars Rudiger (Germany) - 404.73
Cycling. Men. Highway. Time Trial: 1. Primos Roglic (Slovenia) - 55.04.19, 2. Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) - + 1.01.39. 3. Rohan Dennis (Australia) - +1.03.90
Rugby-7. Men: 1. Fiji. 2. New Zealand. 3. Argentina
Judo.
Women. 70 kg: 1. Chizuru Arai (Japan). 2. Michaela Pollers (Austria) 3. Madina Taimazova (Russia) and Sanna Van Dijk (Netherlands)
Fencing. Men. Saber. Teams: 1. South Korea. 2. Italy. 3. Hungary
Judo. Men. 90 kg: 1. Lasha Bekauri (Georgia). 2. Eduard Trippel (Germany). 3. Davlat Bobonov (Uzbekistan) and Krizhtian Tot (Hungary).
Equestrian sport. Dressage. Individual championship: 1. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dahler - 91.732. 2. Isabelle Werth and Bella Rosa (both couples - Germany) - 89.567. 3. Charlotte Dujardin and Gio (Great Britain) - 88.543
Weightlifting. Men. 73 kg: 1. Shi Zhiyong (China) - 364 kg (166 kg in snatch + 198 in clean and jerk). 2. Julio Mayora (Venezuela) - 346 (156 + 190). 3. Rahmat Abdullah (Indonesia) — 342 (180+190)
Artistic gymnastics. Men. Individual all-around: 1. Daiki Hashimoto (Japan) - 88.465. 2. Xiao Ruoten (China) - 88.065. 3. Nikita Nagorny — 88.031
Basketball 3×3.
Women: 1. USA. 2. Russia. 3. China
Basketball 3×3. Men: 1. Latvia. 2. Russia. 3. Serbia
Chronicle of the day:
18:30 Our correspondent Sergei Lisin watched the gymnasts in the all-around competition, talked with Nikita Nagorny after the third place and the bronze medal:
- into the toilet." Nagorny on anger at himself after bronze in the all-around at OI
18:10 Velikaya Ekaterina Gamova in the Match TV studio with Sofia Tartakova sums up the results of the Russia-Brazil match, talks about the motivation to continue playing Maxim Mikhailov and makes predictions for the future results of Russian volleyball players.
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17:50 Another victory! Russian volleyball players dealt with the Brazilians without any problems in three sets - 25:22, 25:20, 25:20. On July 30, the Russian team will play another group stage match against the French team.
17:10 Gymnast Artur Dalaloyan told the Match TV correspondent what he wants most now:
— I hope that's all and I'll go and eat a piece of pizza in the canteen. I've been waiting for her all these days! - admitted Arthur
- Do the guys from the national team also limit themselves in nutrition?
- Of course! For me personally, this is important. I cannot afford to eat too much, because this leads to an extra 2-3 kilograms, which can crush you soft-boiled on a projectile.
— What else do you want besides pizza?
- I want to call home: my wife, children, relatives. And it's better to fly. But this will not happen soon. The management of the team was told that we would be met at the airport, so we are obliged to fly with the whole team together. Moreover, I am the second spare on the rings, which does not allow me to go home before the final.
17:00 Our beach-goers Konstantin Semyonov and Ilya Leshukov achieved another victory in Tokyo and reached the 1/8 finals from the first place in the group!
16:53 Russian men's 3x3 basketball team with Olympic silver! Russian basketball players lost to the Latvians at the last moments - 18:21.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420382281009618945
16:50 Alexander Zuev, Ilya Karpenkov, Kirill Pisklov, Stanislav Sharov fight with the Latvians in the final of the Olympics, one of our guys left in the heat of the fight sole on the court:
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16:20 The Russian women's 3x3 basketball team is the vice-champion of the 2020 Games! The Russians are inferior to the Americans - 15:18, but Yulia Kozik, Anastasia Logunova, Evgenia and Olga Frolkin have already entered their names in history.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420373169727234054?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
- "Those five days were the best of our lives." Russian basketball players talk about silver at the Olympics
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IOC President Thomas Bach talked to Russian basketball players after the final, and they presented him with a signed ball.
16:10 Gymnasts in the individual all-around competition at the Ariake arena has ended - we have a medal again! Nikita Nagorny did not start his performance very well, showing not the best result in floor exercises, but then he gathered himself and confidently passed the rest of the apparatus. As a result, Nikita got bronze! Nagorny has three more individual event finals ahead!
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420370952962117634Open video
Artur Dalaloyan finishes his performance at these Games with the sixth place in the all-around. Still, Arthur is the hero of the 2020 Olympics, having contributed to the all-around team gold just three months after the Achilles rupture.
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16:00 The Argentina national team with Adolfo Gaich in the squad escaped defeat in the match with Spain, but could not get into the quarterfinals of the Olympics.
15:45 And here, watch the group stage match of the volleyball tournament: Tuomas Sammelvuo's team will fight with the Brazilians (remember the Rio 2016 final). This is a fiery confrontation, we wish our only victory!
15:40 Chinese weightlifter Shi Zhiyong won the world record in the weight category up to 73 kg - the final result of 364 kilograms in the biathlon.
15:30 The legendary Chinese basketball player Yao Ming arrived in Tokyo and will see the matches of the Russian national teams in streetbasket live, but this is what he said to Match TV correspondent Pavel Lysenkov:
— We are waiting for excellent finals with the participation of the Russian teams. Russian basketball is cool! Say hello to my friend Andrei Kirilenko.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420367944463405057
15:20 "Match TV" will show both basketball finals, where the Russian women's and then the men's teams will fight for historical gold!
The broadcast of the match Russia - USA for women starts at 15:55 (Moscow time), don't miss it! And already at 16:20 (Moscow time) - the broadcast of the men's final Russia - Latvia under the sparkling commentary of Roman Skvortsov.
15:15 Important: The International Tennis Federation has postponed the start of matches at the Olympics to a later date. More — here
15:10 0006 Inessa Merkulova , ranked 31st.
2:30 pm Fresh news from the swimming pool:
- Evgeny Rylov (meow) and Grigory Tarasevich - in the semi-finals of the 200m backstroke Games;
- Evgenia Chikunova and Maria Temnikova - in the semifinals of the Games in the 200m breaststroke;
- Women's relay four ( Anastasia Guzhenkova, Valeria Salamatina, Veronika Andrusenko, Anna Egorova ) - in the final of the freestyle relay 4 × 200 m;
- Andrey Zhilkin reached the semi-finals of the 200m individual medley, Maxim Stupin - no;
- Maria Kameneva completed the 100m crawl at the stage of preliminary heats.
14:15 Misses his chance Mikhail Igolnikov in the judo tournament in the weight up to 90 kg.
The Russian did not have enough strength in the fight for bronze.
14:10 Korean saber fencers take gold in the team tournament, and the trio from Russia is on the seventh line of the final protocol of the competition.
13:45 Our tennis players are top! Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Andrey Rublev lost the first set to the Croatian duet and snatched victory in a tie-break - the meeting ended with a score of 5:7, 6:4, 11:9. We are in the quarterfinals!
13:30 Russian boxers continue to please: Albert Batyrgaziev got a ticket to the quarterfinals of the Olympics in the weight up to 57 kilograms.
13:20 There is a medal! Madina Taimazova fought all this Olympic day to the last and was rewarded with a bronze medal. For us, it has a golden sheen.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420328431405998082
In the bronze fight in the weight up to 70 kilograms, a native of Ossetia overcame Barbara Matic from Croatia.
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And here is what she said about the controversial moment of the semi-final:
- I think there was an assessment. It was a judicial arbitrariness. The coach and I believe that this was an assessment. I think this is a mistake. I never make excuses. In any case, I should have quit and won, but if you look at this moment, there was an assessment. It doesn't justify me. I still had to fight. I fought. The support of the fans helped me. I love everyone.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420340662218657794
13:00 Russian judoka Mikhail Igolnikov is past the final of the Games. Georgian Lasha Bekauri did not let Mikhail into the main fight. Like Madina Taimazova, he will compete for the bronze of the Olympics.
13:00 The opponent of the Russian men's team in the finals in 3x3 basketball has been determined - this is the Latvian team. There will be a kill!
12:40 Badminton player Sergey Sirant lost to Antoni Sinisuke Ginting from Indonesia in the second match at the Tokyo Olympics and leaves the tournament.
12:30 RUSSIA MAKES HISTORY IN 3X3 BASKETBALL! The women's team follows the men's team to the finals of the Olympiad! YEAAAAA!
The Russians in the semi-finals broke the resistance of the basketball players of the Celestial Empire - 21:14 and in the match for gold (the first Olympic gold) they will play with the Americans.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420315987124146183
Basketball is definitely the best ball game ever!
12:20 Another set of awards was played in Tokyo: the Fiji team is two-time Olympic champions in rugby-7. In the final, the islanders were stronger than the New Zealanders - 27:12.
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12:10 President of the Russian Basketball Federation Andrey Kirilenko - about the entry of the Russian team into the finals of the Games:
- History is happening before our eyes. It was necessary to play the perfect game against Serbia - and the guys played it./cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69666606/1234398364.0.jpg)
I congratulate everyone on the victory and on the fact that we already have at least one Olympic medal. All with victory! We continue further,” Kirilenko told our correspondent Anton Solomin. - This is the merit of both those players who are now in Tokyo and those who participated in the preparation - their role in this success is also huge. And I am very happy for our entire large organization, for the 3x3 Basketball Department of the RFB and personally for its leader Oleg Ushakov. How much effort they spent on organizing, preparing this Olympic team, which began four years ago with the inclusion of 3x3 basketball in the Games program.
+1 authoritative opinion:
- Ilona Korstin about the Russian 3x3 team reaching the Olympic final: “The guys have every chance to become champions”
12:02 lost to the world champion from Japan in the fight for getting into the final of the Olympics. The rivals went beyond the set time, Tizuru Arai had an advantage, but the Russian did not give up until the very end, breaking the applause in the arena and shouting "well done" to her.
In the end, the Japanese judoist held a choke - Madina could not do anything else.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/14203011809281
Taimazova left the mat only after receiving medical care, the main thing is to have time to recover before the fight for third place. Mentally send the girl our strength!
12:00 Zenfira Magomedalieva goes further: the Russian woman will perform in the quarterfinals of the boxing tournament. In the 1/8 finals, Zenfira defeated American Naomi Graham - 4:1.
11:55 YES! YES! YES! The Russian 3×3 basketball team is in the final of the Tokyo Olympics! Our guys beat the tournament favorites the Serbs with a score of 21:10! We will have a medal, WE WILL HAVE A MEDAL!
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420319460309753860
Our heroes interview:
View video
We remind you that 3×3 basketball was included in the program of the Olympic Games for the first time.
11:20 Today is a special day for half of the Russian women's 3×3 basketball team: twin sisters Evgenia and Olga Frolkin celebrate their 24th birthday, but that's not all: our basketball players will compete for the Games awards. First, we are waiting for the semi-finals with the Chinese women, but for now, read the warm family interview of the birthday girls - exclusively on Match TV:
- “What do we do in Tokyo? We erase! The Frolkin sisters go for Olympic medals on their birthday
11:12 Pavel Eigel will perform in the semi-final in the single row slalom rowing event, and this action will take place on July 30. We believe!
11:10 Slovenian Primos Roglic, who twice won the overall standings of the Vuelta, is the champion of the Games in the road race with a separate start, and our Alexander Vlasov reached the finish line 20th.
10:35 Nadezhda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina secured a place in the playoffs of the beach volleyball tournament (1/8 finals)! The Russians defeated the Cubans Lidianni Echevarria and Layla Martinez - 2:0, scoring their second victory in Japan.
10:30 Finally positive: the debutant of the Games Alsu Minazova remains in the fight for awards in canoe singles rowing slalom. Tomorrow from 9:30, watch the live broadcast of the semi-finals and the final in this discipline on Match TV.
10:15 We have a series of failures: Russian Galsan Bazarzhapov lost to India's Pravin Jadhav in the 1/32 finals of the Olympic individual archery tournament.
10:00 Today we have not only good news from the tennis court - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova covers her racket in singles, losing to Belinda Bencic in the quarterfinals. But for today, Nastya's struggle is not over yet - in an hour she will go to the doubles meeting together with Andrey Rublev .
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Also, the opponent of Karen Khachanova in the quarterfinals was determined, and it was not Stefanos Tsitsipas (traditionally uncomfortable for our tennis players), but the Frenchman Hugo Humbert who beat him.
9:55 But this is the disappointment of the day - Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nikita Shleikher became the last in the final of the synchronized diving from the three-meter springboard, although before the sixth jump they had every chance of medals. In a fatal attempt, Nikita made a mistake in a swoop, because of which our duet failed the jump, receiving zero points from the judges.
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- Nikita made a mistake in the charge, as I understand it, he could not make the jump declared by us. A very unfortunate mistake cost us a medal,” Evgeny noted. - We have not discussed this yet, now we will come to the village and there will be a meeting. Let's get to the reason why this happened. I was 100% sure of this jump and did it with dignity. In diving, our Olympic champions fly, they get 4 points each. Our jump was not counted, it happens, but infrequently. How will Nikita cope with this before personal performances? He should discuss this with his coach.
I will also prepare. The main thing now is not to hang your nose and work on.
The 2020 Games champions are Chinese Wang Zongyuan and Xie Xiyi, who won by a large margin against the American vice-champions of the last Olympics Andrew Capobianco and Michael Hickson. Bronze went to the Germans Patrick Hausding (this is his fourth Olympics) and Lars Rudiger.
9:43 Well, what handsome men! Elena Vesnina and Aslan Karatsev are in the quarterfinals of the Games! The Russian duet outplayed the French Kristina Mladenovic and Nicolas Mayu in two sets - 6:4, 6:2, who were the first seeded in the Olympic tournament! We are still waiting for opponents in the next match.
And we separately note the heroism of Vesnina - the 34-year-old tennis player previously reached the semifinals in the women's doubles together with Veronika Kudermetova. This is the day!
9:25 Wow! Four-time Olympic champion in gymnastics American Simone Biles withdrew from the individual all-around at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
The US Gymnastics Federation notes that the girl will focus on her mental health.
https://twitter.com/USAGym/status/1420266286441922562?s=20
9:20 An interesting situation occurred after the Medvedev-Fognini match. A foreign journalist asked Medvedev a question, calling Russian athletes cheaters. Daniil refused to answer this and turned to representatives of the International Tennis Federation with a demand to expel the journalist.
“For the first time in my life I won’t answer a journalist’s question and I demand that I don’t see this person here anymore,” Medvedev said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
Daniil Medvedev / Photo: © Dmitry Chelyapin / Match TV
9:00 am All of a sudden! American saber fencers refused to compete with the Russians at the 2020 Olympics.
The US team was supposed to go to the match against Russia for 7-8 places, but they refused due to problems with the squad.
- The US team refused to participate in the match. They have two injuries, so a forfeit defeat will be counted. It was only decided whether we would formally go on the track or not, - explained the head coach of the Russian national team Dmitry Glotov in an interview with RIA Novosti.
Thus, Russian saber fencers took 7th place in the Olympic tournament.
8:40 Mikhail Dovgalyuk admitted that the Australian swimmer was better at the finish, but everything was decided by a touch.
- In fact, I have not seen the guys who are swimming across the paths from me. But I had to fight with the Australian. He turned out to be a strong, powerful guy. It seems like I won a touch from him. We need to rethink the swim. But in the end he already started to eat me. He was stronger at the finish line," said Dovgalyuk.
8:30 Yes! Karen Khachanov made it to the quarterfinals, beating Diego Schwartzman in three games (6:1,2:6, 6:1).
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420255770369798145?s=20
How it was:
View video
How the opponent reacted:
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status /1420285084024950786
8:10 Daniil Medvedev told Match TV, which is why he took advantage of the medical break in the match against Fognini.
- Tough match. First set, medical assistance… What happened there?
- Aperture blocked, if that's the right way to say it. It was hard to breathe, so I called the physio to help. Otherwise, it would have been hard to play, although it was hard to play anyway - it was the wettest and hottest day, I think, in all the time I've been here. I hoped for a miracle, and it happened. This is the Olympics, I knew that people watch and get sick, it would be a shame to lose.
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8:00 Russian Madina Taimazova made it to the semi-finals of the Olympics in judo in the weight category up to 70 kg.
In the ¼ finals she defeated Elizaveta Teltsida from Greece.
7:35 It was difficult, but Medvedev managed to finish off the Spaniard Fognini. In the quarterfinals, Pablo Carreno-Busta awaits him.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420241664740896772?s=20
7:20 Here comes the award ceremony. Our swimmers have SILVER !
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6:50 The Russian team lost to Germany with a score of 28:45 in the ¼ final of the men's team saber fencers championship. The Russian team included Kamil Ibragimov, Konstantin Lokhanov, Veniamin Reshetnikov and Dmitry Danilenko.
6:35 BRAVO! The Russian team snatched silver in the men's 4 × 200 freestyle relay. Martin Malyutin, Ivan Girev, Evgeny Rylov and Mikhail Dovgalyuk won another medal for our team.
The British won the heat, while the Australians won the bronze.
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6:15 American Cathy Ledecky won the 1500m freestyle.
Her compatriot Erika Sullivan lost 4 seconds to her, German Sarah Koehler took bronze.
Russian Anastasia Kirpichnikova finished seventh.
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6:10 Elena Vesnina and Veronika Kudermetova made it to the semi-finals of the Olympic Games doubles tennis tournament. In the quarterfinals, our athletes defeated the Ukrainians in two sets (6:2, 6:1).
In the semi-finals, our tennis players will meet with Czechs or Australians.
https://twitter.com/MatchTV/status/1420220260423196672?s=20
6:00 Head of the Russian Wrestling Federation Mikhial Mamiashvili spoke with our correspondent Evgeny Dzichkovsky about wrestling at the Olympic Games.
— With such difficulty to get to the Games through thorns, illnesses and doubts, in order to then go on about a moment of weakness? I don't understand this. Why then take responsibility at all? I am convinced that our guys and girls are going to fight.
Medals are good, but the main thing is the struggle and battle on any part of the carpet. Only then will the awards come,” Mamiashvili said.
“It is not silver medals that make you angry, but lack of will and indifference. We're going to fight." Interview with Mikhail Mamiashvili
Mikhail Mamiashvili / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Trefilov
5:55 Medical team on the court in Tokyo. Daniil Medvedev felt unwell during the match against Italian Fabio Fognini in the 1/8 finals of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
But everything is in order, our tennis player continues his performance.
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5:50 Japan's Yui Ohashi won gold in the 200m individual medley. American Alexandra Walsh lost to her 7 hundredths of a second, her compatriot Kate Douglass took bronze.
5:35 Thin! Anton Chupkov made it to the finals of the 200-meter breaststroke with the seventh result.
Kirill Prigoda was ninth in the overall standings of the semi-final, he was just a little behind.
5:20 Kliment Kolesnikov commented on his 100-meter freestyle swim, in which a European and Russian record was set.
- Well, a record is a record. All clear. But we haven’t passed the final yet, so I won’t say anything about this record. Well, yes, I'm satisfied. But I immediately began to tune in to tomorrow's final. I think this will not scare anyone at the Olympics. Maybe for juniors, yes. But here it’s not at all the same level, ”Kolesnikov said in an interview with Match TV correspondent Pavel Lysenkov.
5:10 Russian athlete Svetlana Chimrova will represent her country in the finals of the 200m butterfly swim.
In the first semi-final, the Russian woman showed a time of 2:08.62 minutes, finishing third behind two Americans - Hali Flickinger and Regan Smith. This result was enough for Chimrova to qualify for the main heat of the competition.
Svetlana Chimrova / Photo: © RIA Novosti / Grigory Sysoev
4:55 Hungarian Krishtof Milak won the 200-meter butterfly with an Olympic record, almost 2 seconds behind Japanese Tomor Honda, bronze went to Italian Federico Burdisso.
Legendary South African Chad Le Clos stayed out of the top 3, finishing fifth.
4:45 Australian Erian Titmus won the 200m freestyle final with an Olympic record. Shibon Houi (Hong Kong) took silver, and Penny Oleksiak (Canada) took bronze.
4:35 Kliment Kolesnikov qualified for the 100m freestyle final with the best time, setting a European and Russian record (47.11). Andrey Minakov showed the 10th time among all the participants in the semi-final and was left out of the final.
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4:20 And then the Australian men's team repeated the women's achievement, setting an Olympic record. Romanians and Italians finished behind them.
4:00 The Australian team won the gold medal in women's quad rowing.
Their running time was 6:15.37, which is a new Olympic record. The second place was taken by the Dutch - 6:15.71. The Irish crew closed the top three - 6:20.46.
3:40 First medals of the day! The Romanian national team won gold in women's double sculls rowing. New Zealand finished second, followed by the Netherlands.
The Russian couple, alas, became only the 12th.
In the men's competition, France was the strongest, silver and bronze went to the Netherlands and China. Ilya Kondratiev and Andrey Potapkin became the seventh.
1:05 In a couple of hours, the first medal competition of the new day will take place - in rowing. Until then, we are taking a short break.
0:50 Despite the information about the impending typhoon, it has not become less hot in Tokyo, except that there will be more humidity. Now it is almost seven in the morning in the capital of the Olympic Games 2020, but the temperature is already felt at +30!
0:25 We also make sure to leave links to interviews with our most recent Tokyo champions:
- “Are you vaccinated against falls? "She can't, she's small!" Jokes, laughter and devastation after the victory of our gymnasts in the OWG 9 team tournament0007
- “There is no more strength left! I put everything on the line!” Vladislav Larin became another Russian hero in taekwondo
- “Americans never lost their back! But we took away their gold and silver.
” Triumph of Rylov and Kolesnikov in Tokyo Basin
0:01 Let's go! First, a video for those who missed yesterday's competition day in Tokyo. There are the main moments with Russian medals:
- Rylov's gold and Kolesnikov's silver (swimming)
- Silver of Batsarashkina and Chernousov (pistol)
- Bronze of Karimova and Kamensky (rifle)
- Gold of Melnikova, Akhaimova, Urazova and Listunova (gymnastics)
- Gold Larina (taekwondo)
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How the NBA started making billions of dollars with David Stern
David Stern, the former commissioner of the US National Basketball Association (NBA), passed away on January 1st. He led the NBA for 30 consecutive years from 1984 to 2014.
His marketing talent and business sense helped to pull the association out of existence, and make basketball players the same world stars as football players and millionaires.
Before Stern's appointment as commissioner, it seemed very real that the NBA would disappear. This basketball association looked very faded against the backdrop of the leagues of American football and baseball. And when Stern retired in 2014, the NBA had annual revenues of $5.5 billion, its broadcast revenues had grown 40 times over $1 billion in 30 years. The NBA had offices in 15 cities outside the United States. Her games have been broadcast in over 200 countries in over 40 languages. Compare for yourself: how much do you know about American football or baseball, but how much about American basketball?
The attractiveness of business for investors has also grown. Shortly after Stern's arrival, the Chicago Bulls were sold for $16 million. And after 30 years of his work, the Los Angeles Clippers changed hands for $2 billion. Salaries also increased. The famous basketball player Charles Barkley recalled that in 1984 the average salary of players was $250,000. Now it is almost $9 million.
He broke the record of the head of the National Football League, Pete Rozelle, for a year (1960–1989).
From deli to basketball
David Joel Stern was born on September 22, 1942 in Manhattan (New York, USA). His father ran the family's deli, Stern's Deli, where all three of his children worked from childhood. Stern chose a profession far from both trade and sports. First he received a degree in history from the prestigious Rutgers University (New Jersey). Then - a law degree from Columbia University. In 1966 he joined the law firm Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn.
David's parents divorced when he was young. Like his father, he became a fan of the New York Knicks basketball team and often went to games with his dad.
Stern himself played for a while, and played well. His height was not basketball - about 176 cm (although, according to the sports website ESPN, he still turned out to be taller than the leaders of other US national sports leagues).
“I played for my law firm's team in the New York Lawyers Basketball League. And it cost me most of the cartilage in my right knee,” Stern joked in an interview with The New York Times (NYT).
Being a basketball player is more profitable than being a football player at the end of the season), writes the author of the blog in Sports.ru. But even, for example, the 51st number in the NBA rating Malcolm Brogdon from the Indiana Pacers (Indianapolis) should receive $ 20 million. That is, he earns more than such football stars as the striker of the English Manchester City and Argentina national team Sergio or the goalkeeper and captain of the German Bayern München and the German national team Manuel Neuer. Brogdon's name doesn't mean much to the average person, and he's not the only one in the NBA: according to the rules of the NBA, based on its projected income, 51 players should receive at least $20 million this season.
His work as a lawyer also turned out to be related to sports.
Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn represented the NBA. Stern has been involved in several high-profile cases, including a 1970 antitrust lawsuit in which NBA player union president Oscar Robertson interfered with the NBA's merger with rival American Basketball Association (ABA). As a result, the merger had to be postponed for six years - the case in court dragged on until 1976. It had other important consequences. For example, before the players were actually serfs of the club: they did not have the right to negotiate a transfer to another team, at the same time they could be fired at any time.
How Stern increased the competition
In 1978, Stern was lured to the NBA, where he became general counsel. Then the post of vice president was created for him. In addition to resolving legal issues, he was responsible for marketing, PR, negotiations with television companies and much more.
The NBA star was waning in those years. In the 1980/81 season, out of 23 teams, 16 were unprofitable.
The finals of the games were often not live, but recorded, and at an unpopular time - at 23.30. At 1980 a drug scandal erupted. An article in The Los Angeles Times claimed that 40 to 75% of gamblers use cocaine. The press then wrote about the NBA as an association overflowing with black players and drug addicts, Stern recalled in a conversation with ESPN. As vice president, he entered into negotiations with NBA member clubs to introduce anti-drug tests before games. The NBA was the first sports league in North America to implement this innovation.
In 1984, Stern took over the NBA. Other candidates were not even considered. He was number two in the NBA for several years, and his appointment seemed like a no-brainer. One of his first steps was to help small clubs. Restrictions were introduced on the size of the players' pay fund, which was tied to income from basketball activities (BRI, basketball-related income), and, accordingly, it is different every year. The first time it was $3.
8 million per team (in the 2018/19 season- $ 109.14 million, according to the Sports.ru blog dedicated to salaries in the NBA). This to some extent leveled the rich and the poor clubs - the rich now could not buy up all the stars who had to pay a lot - and led to a new round of rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, which seemed to have faded back in 1969.
Now the system of remuneration of players is arranged according to the principle of soft and hard ceiling, so it is permissible to exceed the originally announced limit. But there is an amount starting from which the NBA will have to pay the so-called "luxury tax" - in the 2018/19 seasonthe tax threshold was set at $132.627 million. And finally, there is a hard ceiling that cannot be broken under any pretext: in the season just ended it is $138.928 million. club owners to find a compromise regarding remuneration: basketball players received the right to 53% of the income.
People, not teams
Current NBA commissioner Adam Silver says Stern was among the founders of modern sports marketing - "one of the people who took modern marketing techniques and applied them to the sports league.
"
He founded the licensing and sponsorship division of the NBA. Together with its director, he compiled a “dream list” of NBA partners (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, etc.) and went on a trip around the country to persuade them to cooperate.
While still a vice president, Stern helped launch NBA Entertainment's basketball-related content division. And becoming a commissioner, he expanded the staff, agreed with video game manufacturers, and in the end, with his participation, a hit appeared - a series of sports simulators NBA Jam (the first came out at 1993).
He decided to promote star players rather than whole teams. If in the 1960s the rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers was a battle of clubs, then under Stern it became the confrontation between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Stern's other star was Michael Jordan, who joined the Chicago Bulls in 1994.
In his first year as commissioner, Stern sold the rights to broadcast NBA matches to an Argentinean TV channel for a ridiculous $2,000 a year.
Every Sunday in a country where children dreamed of football, they showed that the ball can be dribbled with their hands. And it has borne fruit. When Argentinean Emanuel Ginobili was a child, he looked at Michael Jordan and thought he was from another planet. Since then, Ginobili has won the NBA championship four times with the San Antonio Spurs, although there had not been a single one of his compatriots in the league before.
Women, Greek and Canadian
David Stern added seven new teams to the NBA for a total of 30. The NBA Women's League was born in 1997 and the NBA minor league for the G League farm clubs in 2001. According to Stern, we need to work with young talents so that there are as many boys and girls as possible who “will start to dribble the ball with their hands instead of kicking it.”
The NBA was a purely American league. And now the title of its most valuable player is Giannis Antetokounmpo, a Greek born to Nigerian immigrants, and the NBA champion is the Canadian team Toronto Raptors with players from three continents.
In 1989, Stern waited four hours in Beijing to meet Chinese CCTV representatives, then persuaded them to broadcast the games for free. Now 18 million people watch the NBA games in China, and last year the Chinese Tencent and the NBA announced a five-year contract for $1.5 billion.
NBA - and defeated all rivals. That team was called the dream team, and upon their return they were honored, as Stern told the NYT, as if it were the Bolshoi Theater, the Philharmonic and The Beatles put together. “The dream team ignited interest in basketball around the world,” Stern recalled ESPN last year. – Before the Olympics-92 NBA games were shown in about 80 countries, today - in 215.
The following fact testifies to Stern's attitude towards the players. In 1991, Magic Johnson announced that he had HIV and was retiring from playing. The disease in those days caused irrational fear and disgust in society. Some did not want to play on the same site with Johnson, for fear of getting infected through scratches.
But Stern launched a whole campaign of tolerant attitude towards HIV patients - doctors came to the players and talked about the disease. He insisted that Johnson not be crossed off the voting lists for the most outstanding player of the season - and he earned the award. The photo of Stern presenting the prize to Johnson was posted by the NBA commissioner in a prominent place in his office. He also pushed for Johnson to be included in the Olympic Dream Team.
Stern soft and hard
Stern liked to call himself Easy Dave, which can be translated as "Easy Dave" and "Easy Dave". But among those around him, he earned a reputation as a tyrant. In 2005, Stern became concerned about the image of the players and introduced a dress code. At official NBA events, they were ordered to stick to business attire, abandoning shorts, wide pants, massive chains, bandanas and other attributes of gangsters and hip-hop fans.
This sparked strong protests from players, fans and even African American rights activists.
The dress code was clearly infringing on the style that black players were used to. However, it brought a positive effect, Sports.ru noted: basketball players thought about their appearance, hired stylists, and developed their own clothing style. And, as a result, articles about their life outside the basketball court began to appear more often in the media.
Dress code - yes, it has entered the life of the players. But in another important issue, Stern did not succeed in insisting on his own. In the 2006/07 season, he introduced synthetic turf balls into the game, despite the dissatisfaction of the players: after test drives, they complained that the ball bounced off the floor differently. Already in December 2006, it was necessary to announce that the NBA was returning to the good old leather balls.
Stern was not soft on the guilty. Latrell Sprewell was suspended for the entire season-19 for assaulting a coach during training.97/98 - 82 games. In court, Sprewell's lawyer managed to reduce this period to 68 games, for which the NBA legal counsel received a severe scolding from Stern.
In 2004, during a match, the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers teams fought - first with each other, and then with the audience. Nine players were suspended for a total of over 100 matches without pay, which resulted in a loss of about $11 million. “We couldn't let the barrier between players and fans break down. This would deprive us of the most accessible game in the world, where you could literally sit on the edge of the court and almost touch the players running past, ”Stern explained. But at the same time, he visited the family of Indiana Pacers player Ron Artest, who was suspended for as many as 86 games at his insistence, and helped his sick relatives get the necessary medical care.
He also interfered in the affairs of teams. In 2011, he banned New Orleans from trading players. For many years, Stern explained this decision briefly in all interviews: “It was in the interests of basketball.” And only two years ago, already retired, he condescended to details: “I offered the best option <.
..> But [Dell, who was in charge at that time of New Orleans] Demps, turned out to be a lousy general manager” (quoted from Championat.com). What is a lockout? . The first lockout began in the summer of 1995 and stretched out for two months, but ended before the start of the season. Only the summer fees suffered. The second lockout lasted only three hours in 1996. The third lasted from July 1998 to January 1999, due to which the start of the season had to be postponed and the number of games in it was reduced from 82 to 50. The last one was from July to December 2011 ., due to which the season was reduced to 66 games.
Player income was the key issue. For example, during the 1996 three-hour lockout, basketball players demanded more TV revenue, and the NBA agreed to increase payouts by a compromise amount.
Stern represented club owners during the lockouts who wanted to save money on players, but played more of an intermediary role. Reviews about him were mixed. Stern threatened the players.
“I know where the bodies are buried in the NBA — I personally buried some there,” he said, appearing in the locker room of the basketball players during Star Weekend. True, the cases of his revenge were unknown to anyone, ESPN assures: he was an explosive person, but quick-witted.
"You can't be too nice a guy"
In 1986, just two years after his appointment as commissioner, David Stern interviewed former basketball player Rod Thorne for the position of vice president in charge of discipline. "They say you're a nice guy," Stern said thoughtfully. “Well, at our job, you can’t be too nice a guy.” “There was nothing soft about him,” recalled Thorn, who was hired and served as vice president of the NBA for 14 years. He expected you to do your job. And if not, he will not hesitate to tell you about it. From time to time I listened to similar things, sometimes in very harsh terms. But most of the time [Stern] was right." Stern loved to arrange mini-exams: ask subordinates questions, the answers to which he knew, and if they found it difficult to answer, he gave them a dressing down.
One of the top managers of the NBA admitted that many times he left work with the thought of being fired. But at 10 p.m., Stern called, talking about new goals and how great it would be when they were achieved: “And I was ready to go through walls for Stern.”
The permanent commissar was forgiven a lot for his ability to ignite people, and for his ability to foresee the future of sports, and for the fact that he gushed with ideas. For example, in the 1990s a subordinate gave him the idea of holding a press conference about a new deal with Coca-Cola, showing clips on video screens. Stern immediately ordered to figure out how to organize an event in a cinema: on a huge screen, the commercials would look unbelievably better. “You walk into his office thinking you've thought of everything,” the subordinate concluded. “And he says something that didn’t occur to you - and, damn it, he’s right!”
Sociologist Harry Edwards, who studies the characteristics of African American athletes, assured that Stern's reputation among the players only strengthened as a result of negotiations.
But HBO sportswriter Bryant Gumbel called him egocentric and compared his negotiating tactics to the diplomacy of a plantation overseer. Stern himself, many years later, having already retired from the NBA commissioners, publicly responded to Gumbel: he called him an “idiot” in an interview with The Washington Post - another touch to his harsh character.
19 season lockout98/99 ended with the victory of the owners of the clubs, who set the maximum salary cap they needed for players, mainly due to Stern's actions, wrote the NYT. He sowed distrust between the players and agents, so that the athletes no longer knew who to listen to.
During the 2011 lockout, club owners were able to increase their share from 43% to 50% of revenues.
But even Stern's opponents recognized his merits. “Stern realized that the game is about the players, and raised their market appeal to such heights as never before,” said lawyer Jeff Kessler, who represented the union in numerous battles with Stern.
“He was a worthy adversary and sometimes a pain in the ass, but I loved him despite all the difficulties.”
Commissioner farewell
As NBA commissioner, Stern made about $9 million a year, according to ESPN. In February 2014, he retired and could have lived an idle and comfortable life. But he is a natural workaholic. He actively advised his successor, taking the post of honorary commissioner of the NBA. He has served as an advisor to investment bank PJT Partners, venture capital firm Greycroft Partners, consulting business PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a number of other smaller firms.
Last November, Thorne, a former NBA vice president, and his wife dined with Stern and his wife. He was in good health and in excellent spirits. But on December 12, Stern suffered a stroke and emergency surgery, which, unfortunately, could not save his life. On January 1, he died at the age of 78. Shortly before his death, he was asked what he would have done differently in the NBA if he had had a chance to work those 30 years as commissioner again.
