Sports Business Program At NBA Summer League Gives Inside Look At Pro Basketball’s Biz World

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Ahmad Eletreby has owned Papa John’s Pizza shops and works as a computer contractor, but wants a new career path. The 41-year-old father of two from Irvine, California wants to work as a salary cap specialist for an NBA team.

 

He figured his experience in the business word combined with his passion for the NBA could be fused together and result in a job with an NBA club one day. “I’m looking for a chance,” the computer contractor told LVSportsBiz.com Sunday.

 

Eletreby is trying to find that chance via the “Sports Business Classroom,” now in its third year at the NBA Summer League.

 

Aspiring NBA team salary cap and analytics workers and others trying to find a job in an NBA team front office are attending the Sunday to Saturday schedule, with the sports business program cost running $3,500.

 

In return, the students, who vary in ages and backgrounds, will get a crash course on understanding the ins and outs of the complex salary cap world; networking opportunities with NBA team executives; hear from NBA experts on hot topics such as analytics; and immersion into the NBA Summer League.

 

NBA Summer League founder Warren LeGarie, the summer league’s executive director, and Albert Hall, summer league’s VP for business operations, gave the program’s 61 students a pep talk Sunday. Their main message was find a niche you love, check your ego at the door and work your ass off to make it happen.

 

 

 

Running the sports business program is Larry Coon, a computer scientist and IT leader at University of California, Irvine who is an NBA salary cap expert.

 

Coon said the students will hear from 60 NBA execs, mentors and industry players throughout the week. Former team general managers to current team analytics staffers to salary cap experts will be talking business with the students, with the summer league drawing the professional basketball industry’s top leaders to Las Vegas for the July 6-17 Burning Man of Basketball.

 

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Steve Kyler, publisher of basketballinsiders.com from Tampa who will serve as a mentor for the students, said the salary cap students will be taking salary data and crunching the numbers like front office staffers to simulate what it’s like to build and structure a team roster.

 

If you think the students are all fresh out of college, you would be missing out on the older students who are in the position in their lives to pursue their sports management dreams such as Eletreby from Irvine, California.

 

“I have the flexibility to chase my dreams,” said Eletreby, noting he would move to another NBA city for a job with a team.

 

Kevin Cottrell, a social media specialist and researcher with NBA TV who will speak during the week, said he was not surprised by the older students because the sports business program gives people a “chance to dip your toe in the water. A lot of people don’t know the first step of getting into the business. This gives you the bridge to fill that gap.”

 

A lawyer from Chicago with experience in litigation and contracts signed up for the weeklong classes because she wants to get a crack at working on labor deals and salary cap issues. She noted her law firm doesn’t know she’s pursuing a career with an NBA team so she declined to give her name.

 

“It’s about the connections,” she told LVSportsBiz.com before the Sports Business Classroom’s opening remarks by Coon, LeGarie and Hall. She noted she’s ideal to handle collective bargaining agreement issues because she’s used to negotiating business contracts.

 

“I can read them,” she said. “I have read documents like that.”

 

The students will hear a lot about social branding, broadcasting, video, and scouting in addition to the high-profile salary cap and analytics topics.

 

But one thing the sports business program won’t promise is a job with an NBA team. Its website lists the following disclaimer: “Please note that admission to the Sports Business Classroom Business of Basketball program in no way guarantees a job with the NBA.”

 

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