You saw him in the clip.

Real N B A.

Commissioner Adam Silver.

Adam.

Thank you, everyone at the MBA.

Thank you, everyone at NBA Entertainment, the players union for the incredible support we've had over these past five years.

Thank you, Rachel.

I remember it was your vision toe.

Have this show.

I remember you coming to me and your bosses of ESPN and saying this is something missing in the n b A landscape.

We need a daily show.

There's so much going on and and just looking back on that highlight reel, so many happy moments, some really sad moments as well.

But, you know, thank you and your group, your producers for the intensity of the coverage you provide.

It's fantastic.

As you said, it's for the fans at the end of the day.

So everyone appreciates it.

Yeah, well, it's a huge, huge group effort here, and especially our jumped family out there participate and are a big part of it.

I do want to get your thoughts, Adam, on a couple things.

Since you're here, you guys officially announced the All Star Game today.

We've heard players voiced concerns over the past couple weeks.

So what made you guys decide to still go ahead with the game?

We decided to go forward with it because, well, let me begin it.

There's a there's a health crisis in this country.

There's an economic crisis, and we made a decision beginning last summer that we were gonna take the pandemic on and in a full throated way, and we were gonna attempt to conduct our business to extent.

It was safe and healthy for our players and our staff to the full extent we could.

All Star has been a tradition in this league.

Now, going back 70 years way only missed one year over those 70 years and and for us, it's It's our number one fan engagement event of the year.

Of course, we don't have a neutral site championship.

It's a It's an opportunity for the entire NBA community converge around one event.

Now I recognize, of course, we're not gonna have a fan this year.

But as I've said before, 99% plus of our fans never attended MBA game.

It's a global sport based on historic ratings, roughly 130 million people globally will tune in for this All Star Game.

You know, based on past numbers, something like 100 million people will vote for.

The All Stars were already up 10% this year and last year, coming out of our All Star events, we had over a billion social media moments.

So it zig global event.

Plus, uh, we're making our best effort to embrace all aspects of our league to the extent we can through this pandemic.

And this is just one more opportunity, and I'll add, Of course, I'm listening to those who don't think it's a good idea.

And I think that's been the case in terms of essentially everything we've done since we shut down, you know, a little less than a year ago because of the pandemic.

You know, there were obviously those who thought we shouldn't play without fans.

Those who shouldn't thought we shouldn't play in a bubble.

Those who thought we shouldn't restart.

How do those who quote we shouldn't be playing in a very serious way because of the social justice issues running this country, you know?

And so So I certainly hear the other side of this issue here, and I'll just lastly say it seems like no decisions during this pandemic come without uncertainty and come without risk, and this is yet another one of them.

But it's it's my job to balance all those interests.

And ultimately, it feels like the right thing to do to go forward.

Well, you mentioned the fans.

We saw NFL fans pour into Tampa for the Super Bowl.

I know that Atlanta Mayor Kesha Lance Bottoms has told fans not to travel for All Star weekend.

But how difficulty do you expect it to be for fans to comply?

I don't think it will be that difficult, because and it's amazing what the NFL pulled off finishing their season and, of course, um, grounding a champion and in Tampa with Super Bowl.

But they had fans, Um, we are not.

Our event will not be open to the public, will have a small number of fans representing HBC use, which is was part of our announcement.

Historically, black colleges and universities was actually Chris Paul's idea to sort of center on those schools and focus attention and resource on that school, plus UM, co vid equity issues in the country, but so they'll be, you know, roughly 1000 people representing those institutions.

But there will not be tickets open to the public.

And I actually agree with the mayor of Atlanta.

We don't want people to gather for events around this All Star.

There will be absolutely no social functions in Atlanta.

Um, no ticketed events, no parties.

It is a made for television event at this point, and it's largely in Atlanta because that's where Turner Sports is located, who host this event.

And, of course, we have the Hawks in a state of the art arena in State Farm.

But that's why we're there.

And so we agree with the mayor.