NBA, every mention
29 scenes (2025), the whole family · ← back to NBA
tap a year for its mentions
every year 2025 anyone Ben Gilbert 51David Rosenthal 48Steve Ballmer 2Michael Mauboussin 1
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where NBA comes up
Coca-Cola: The Complete History & Strategy (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 2:00:34 David Rosenthal The Harlem Globetrotters should have become the NBA.
The Steve Ballmer Interview · Acquired
- ▶ 2:23:01 Steve Ballmer We could be great in our, I hear you own an MBA team.
- ▶ 2:39:13 Steve Ballmer And in an NBA team, you're going to know.
- ▶ 2:49:19 David Rosenthal You can't go to an NBA game for 25 bucks a game. game.
Indian Premier League Cricket (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:50 Ben Gilbert It's about how to create a massively successful sports league from scratch, something that I thought was impossible after doing our NFL and NBA episodes, which each took a hundred years to get to where they are today.
- ▶ 2:44 Ben Gilbert And of course, they carefully studied all the mechanics that made the NBA and the NFL as successful as they are today, and then applied them on steroids.
- ▶ 3:46 David Rosenthal Or an NBA game.
- ▶ 48:20 David Rosenthal The Indian Premier League, a domestic, city-based cricket league in India that Lalit is gonna set up in the model of the very best elements of the NFL, of the English Premier League, of the NBA.
- ▶ 1:57:56 David Rosenthal Next is the NBA.
- ▶ 1:57:58 David Rosenthal The NBA has a soft salary cap, which means yes, there's a salary cap, but under some exceptions, you can go beyond it, and then there's an associated luxury tax with going beyond it.
- ▶ 1:59:05 David Rosenthal Competitive dynamics in the NBA versus the NFL, you get dynasties in the NBA, like the Warriors, or the Lakers, or the Celtics, or the Spurs a few years ago.
- ▶ 1:59:36 David Rosenthal So that's the NBA.
- ▶ 1:59:44 David Rosenthal They do have what is called a quote-unquote competitive balance tax, which sort of operates like a soft salary cap like the NBA, but in practice it's a total sham.
- ▶ 1:59:56 David Rosenthal Because in the NBA there are at least strict rules about when and how and how much you can exceed the salary cap by.
- ▶ 2:40:51 Ben Gilbert They go full NBA bubble, right?
- ▶ 2:42:49 Ben Gilbert The NFL's 32 teams, the NBA,
- ▶ 3:18:34 Ben Gilbert But the NBA is the next closest at 5.3 million, so a third of soccer or cricket.
- ▶ 3:20:15 Ben Gilbert It's not NFL, it's not NBA, but it's kind of amazing that in 1617 years, these things are in the billion dollar conversation.
- ▶ 3:20:26 Ben Gilbert NBA franchises today are like five, six, seven billion dollars, something like that, but
- ▶ 3:37:57 David Rosenthal I mean, all the playbook that is run in the NFL, in the NBA, luxury suites, seat licenses, fan experiences, mixed use of the real estate, dining, shopping, cinema, Bollywood, huge opportunities.
- ▶ 4:07:21 Ben Gilbert Okay, so Playbook, you texted me an interesting question saying, for Playbook, why don't we just ask the question, could the MLB or NBA be disrupted like this?
- ▶ 4:08:40 David Rosenthal I think what is a total analogy is MLB, and there's some potential risk of early signs of the NBA too, are going in a direction that long term
- ▶ 4:08:59 Ben Gilbert I don't know why I would watch one of the first three periods of an NBA game or the first three quarters of the season.
- ▶ 4:09:14 David Rosenthal Huge, huge problem in the NBA.
- ▶ 4:09:16 David Rosenthal Now, the NBA is in a better position than MLB because they have a soft salary cap, so not as good as the NFL, but better than no salary cap in
- ▶ 4:09:55 David Rosenthal So, you know, armchair, uh, quarterback, armchair GM right now, you know, I think I would diagnose the NBA as fine, and in some sense, doing better than ever, but some early red flags that, in the long run, if they don't manage the game…
- ▶ 4:12:58 Ben Gilbert In the write-up that he did that I read to prep for this episode, he highlighted that the big four sports leagues in the US, the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL, have outperformed the stock market meaningfully, and over a period of 1961 to…
- ▶ 4:27:29 Ben Gilbert Well, if you liked this episode, go check out our other episodes on the NBA or the NFL.
Rolex (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:59 Ben Gilbert Much like how our NFL episode wasn't about football and our NBA episode wasn't about basketball, this episode isn't really about watches.