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was that ESPN’s opportunity was to replace Turner, because we were going to stay with NBC—we had such a longtime and strong personal relationship with Dick Ebersol, and we had so much success in those NBC years. I even remember Mark calling me over a weekend to discuss sharing the package with Turner, which is something we hadn’t previously considered possible. We said we were willing to do that if Disney bought the network package for ABC as well. He deserves credit for that because I think it was very creative on his part. It wasn’t the way people in the industry thought it would go. And I think most of the observers out there thought we would stay with NBC. Mark’s willingness to co-partner with Turner opened the door for the relationship that we ended up having. So I give him a lot of credit on the business side.

MARK SHAPIRO:

David Stern was by far the best and most intimidating negotiator I’d ever faced. No one stands up to David, and to have me standing up to him, not just once, but multiple times over the course of the relationship, especially given that “who the hell is this kid versus me” thing of his, never went well. I tried to be respectful, but I wasn’t afraid to push back. David would just scream and yell. Scream and yell. He’d even scream and yell at George; he didn’t care. We got off on the wrong foot over the WNBA. He wanted the WNBA on the air. I told him the WNBA stinks, it doesn’t rate, and I didn’t want it. No one watches it. Men don’t watch it. Women don’t watch it! My goal was to get it off the air. It wasn’t a diversity thing because I think diversity of programming is very important, which is why we amped up the number of women’s college basketball hours because at least there’s a demand and an audience for that. The WNBA didn’t have either. I told that to Stern, and he hated me for it. I wanted it off altogether, but he went above me to George—and, I think, Iger—and won. It was one of the few times George ever overruled me. At least I got it put on ESPN2, where it couldn’t hurt us.

DAVID STERN, NBA Commissioner:

I can say this for the record: Mark Shapiro was strong-willed and quite opinionated, and we had some differing views with respect to the presentation of our brand. In the name of diplomacy, we had some very open and frank dialogues with Mark, and, yes, sometimes that led to me talking with George.

ADAM SILVER:

A lot of what people say about there being a difficult relationship between David and Mark was not about business dealings. And it wasn’t about editorial. I hope even Mark would acknowledge it was not over content per se. It wasn’t “How dare you report that such and such player got fined or suspended,” or that attendance is down or whatever else. We always recognized that they were in the news business and they had an independent obligation to report the news as they saw it.

MIKE TIRICO:

David Stern has had as much of an impact on the way his sport is presented as any commissioner. I certainly think commissioner Tagliabue had, and Goodell now has, a huge impact on how football appears on TV, but I think the NBA has done more of the steering of the ship over time. David’s impact on how games are broadcast over the last couple of decades is one of the reasons the NBA is so television-friendly.

MARK SHAPIRO:

We paid around $400 million a year for six years when we first acquired the NBA. It was crazy, but Stern is as good as it gets. Even after the WNBA situation had been resolved, he never liked me. You might think it was because he saw me as wet behind the ears, but in reality it was because I pushed back—pushed back on using Brad Nessler as our first play-by-play announcer over Marv Albert in order to establish our own identity (I was wrong), pushed back on scheduling, pushed back on Stephen A. Smith when Stern didn’t want us to put him on, and pushed back when he tried to disadvantage ESPN against Turner, or treat us like the ugly stepsister to ABC. He’d always make his position widely known, even calling Iger frequently when he wasn’t getting his way. To his credit, he