SAN FRANCISCO – NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had no idea 25 years ago that the Tech Summit would turn into much of anything, much less one of the hottest tickets at All-Star weekend.
Then again, nobody could have seen this coming.
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The NBA celebrated 25 years of tech summits on Friday, a full-circle moment of sorts. The event started when the league's All-Star weekend was most recently in the Bay Area in 2000 — and now, a quarter-century later, with this weekend's events in San Francisco the tech summit is back and still growing.
The question at that first summit was a simple one: "What's next?" Turns out, nobody had the entire answer.
“Our first Tech Summit feels like a distant memory because there has been so much innovation around media and technology over the past 25 years,” said Silver, who was president of NBA Entertainment when the tech summit was born. “We started the Tech Summit in San Francisco during the early days of the internet. At that time, there were skeptics, including many of the prominent leaders in sports media, who felt the ’World Wide Web' wouldn’t become as transformational as some were forecasting.
"Of course, the internet went on to impact virtually every aspect of our lives and create enormous disruption in every industry, with sports being no exception.”
Among the speakers at the first summit: A tech star named Mark Cuban, who was about to take over as owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Many team owners have been part of the tech summit since; Golden State co-chairman and CEO Joe Lacob was one of the panelists at this year's event.
“I give the NBA credit for having the forethought,” Cuban said in an email to The Associated Press. “And of course, back then, I said streaming would dominate.”
He was right: The first panel on Friday was a conversation between leaders from major streaming services — Netflix, Apple, Amazon and YouTube, along with ESPN and NBC Sports. The NBA releases a schedule and list of panelists for the summit, but to promote a robust exchange of ideas all attendees and participants agree that almost everything said during the event is off the record.
Other panelists on Friday included National Basketball Players Association executive director Andre Iguodala, All-Star players Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio and Jalen Brunson of New York, WNBA champion Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty, and USA Basketball chairperson Gen. Martin E. Dempsey — a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It was generally thought that the first Tech Summit was going to also be the last. The All-Star Game was in the Bay Area, a global tech capital, and it just made sense to talk about how the world was rapidly changing.
But the event worked. So, it came back — and keeps coming back.
It has grown into a very hot ticket, a who’s-who of the NBA featuring team owners, billionaires from other walks of industry, media moguls and more. Silver said he’s also enjoyed the 1-on-1 on-stage interviews that have highlighted past summits, such as conversations with NBA greats including Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. The conversation this year: broadcaster Bob Costas interviewing Golden State coach Steve Kerr.
“It was something we had created uniquely for that moment in time in Silicon Valley,” Silver said. “And while the event has grown over the years, we’ve also managed to keep it fairly intimate because the smaller size leads to more thoughtful and engaging conversations.”
Silver wouldn't have known what to guess when asked in 2000 what the conversations would be about in 2025.
And when asked to predict what the topics at the Tech Summit in 2050 will be, he didn't know where to begin — because, of course, nobody knows what's coming in the next quarter-century.
“Other than the game of basketball, I really have no idea.” Silver said. “We’re featuring AI and robotics at this year’s event. Who knew?”
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