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Sporting News, The, Dec 20, 1999 by Michael Knisley

Stern locks up the runner-up spot with a cost-effective and fan-friendly resolution of the NBA lockout

FAN'S MOST POWERFUL PERSON Who ranks as this year's most powerful person in sports? Users of sportingnews.com and yahoo.com got a chance to vote for their candidates. The list of the top five, with 2,461 voters responding: 1. Tiger Woods, 744; 2. Mark McGwire, 429; 3. Rupert Murdoch, 322; 4. George Steinbrenner, 316; 5. Paul Tagliabue, 172.

2 DAVID STERN Tide: Commissioner, National Basketball Association. The collective bargaining agreement that Stem forged out of last year's NBA lockout is the labor deal dancing like visions of sugar plums in every other league commissioner's head. It puts a real ceiling on salaries and includes incentives for players to re-sign with their current teams, giving fans the continuity missing elsewhere in sports. Stem, who brought the NBA out of the lockout with minimal damage to attendance and ratings, is focusing now on globalization and technology.

3 CHARLES DOLAN, JAMES DOLAN AND LAWRENCE DOLAN Tides: Charles: Chairman, Cablevision; James: CEO, Cablevision; Lawrence: Owner, Cleveland Indians. Cablevision has its hands in almost everything that is New York sports, and it spent the past 12 months flirting with purchases of properties the company doesn't already own. The Dolans have talked to Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday about buying the Mets, and Charles is in the bidding for the Jets. Either would be a nice addition to a galaxy of assets that includes Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and the Rangers, as well as a 50 percent stake in Fox Sports. Cablevision already has the cable TV rights to seven New York-area teams (Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, Mets, Nets, Islanders and Devils). James is Charles' son, but the family reach doesn't end there. Two of Cablevision's senior vice presidents also are Charles' sons. And six weeks ago, Lawrence, Charles' brother, bought the Indians for $320 million.

4 PAUL TAGLIABUE Tide: Commissioner, National Football League. Tagliabue pulled off one of the year's niftiest power plays when he stonewalled a Los Angeles expansion bid with a threat to give the new team to Houston if L.A. didn't toe his line. Then he extracted a tidy $700 million expansion fee from the new Houston owner, Robert McNair. No other organization's franchises come close to the value of NFL teams as Tagliabue keeps his league riding a wave of popularity that is setting attendance records and driving up ratings across all its television partners.

5 PHIL GUARASCIO Tide: Vice president, advertising and corporate marketing, General Motors Corp. It's easier to identify the sports that aren't touched by GM's sponsorship and advertising money than it is to list the ones dipping into Guarascio's $1.3 billion budget. Let's see ... GM isn't into lawnmower races or Frisbee golf. As far as we know. Everything else seems to bear Guarascio's touch. That includes the Olympic movement's recovery from a scandal-plagued year, as Guarascio works behind the scenes to protect GM's $1 billion, 10-year investment.

6 DICK EBERSOL Tide: Chairman, NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. Lots can happen by 2005, when the next NFL broadcast contracts get negotiated. But Ebersol changed the dynamic dramatically when he signed NBC to a recent deal to televise NASCAR through 2006. That effectively keeps the Peacock out of the NFL picture, which reduces the league's leverage with the other networks. Ebersol also wrested the rights to horse racing's Triple Crown from ABC/ESPN. In 2000, we'll see his imprint all over the Sydney Olympics, the first Games in NBC's long-term contract with the IOC.

7 BUD SELIG Title: Commissioner, Major League Baseball. If there are signs of life for the sport formerly known as America's pastime, Selig gets much of the credit. He is behind a long-overdue restructuring of baseball's central office that brings the two leagues into tighter harmony, and he's close to getting the umpires under some semblance of control. Late in the summer, Selig showed considerable spine by standing firm against ESPN's move of its Sunday night baseball broadcasts to ESPN2, a dispute he parlayed into an $800 million contract extension.

8 BILL FRANCE JR. AND BRIAN FRANCE Tides: Bill: President and CEO, NASCAR; Brian: Senior vice president, NASCAR. This father-and-son team has morphed stock-car racing into one of the nation's elite sports with its $2.4 billion broadcast deals with Fox, FSN, NBC and TBS last month. As a result of those contracts, NASCAR will bring in more money per year from its television partners than Major League Baseball and the NHL do from theirs. This ain't Junior Johnson runnin' through the woods of "Caroline" anymore. NASCAR now is the darling of corporate sponsors.

9 GEORGE STEINBRENNER Title: Principal owner, New York Yankees. Back-to-back World Series crowns (and three titles in four years) make Steinbrenner the most successful franchise owner in pro sports. But his not-yet-final merger with the New Jersey Nets will give him clout far beyond that of mortal mogul. Now that YankeeNets can provide year-round (or close to it) programming, Steinbrenner can get into regional sports television himself or leverage broadcast contracts for the Yankees and Nets against Cablevision's New York stranglehold.