Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson (January 5, 1865 – March 28, 1931), was an American executive in professional baseball who served as the founder and first president of the American League (AL).

Johnson developed the AL—a descendant of the minor league Western League—into a "clean" alternative to the National League, which had become notorious for its rough-and-tumble atmosphere. To encourage a more orderly environment, Johnson strongly supported the new league's umpires, which eventually included Hall of Famer Billy Evans.

With the help of league owners and managers such as Charles Comiskey, Charles Somers and Jimmy McAleer, Johnson lured top talent to the AL, which soon rivaled the more established National League. Johnson dominated the AL until the mid-1920s, when a public dispute with Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis culminated in his forced resignation as league president.

Born in Norwalk, Ohio, Johnson went on to study law at Marietta College, although he did not earn his degree. He subsequently became the sports editor of a newspaper in Cincinnati. During this time, Johnson befriended Charles Comiskey, who was then manager of the Cincinnati Reds. At the urging of Comiskey and Reds owner John T. Brush, Johnson was elected as president of the Western League, a faltering minor league, at a reorganization meeting held in 1893.

Kevin Maurice Johnson (born March 4, 1966) is the current mayor of Sacramento, the capital city of the U.S. state of California. He is Sacramento's first African American mayor. Prior to entering politics, Johnson was a professional basketball player in the NBA, playing point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Phoenix Suns. As a player, he was a three-time NBA All-Star and five-time All-NBA selection who holds many records for the Phoenix Suns franchise. At University of California, Berkeley, Johnson had been a two-time All-Pac-10 Conference player who was also an honorable-mention All-American by the Associated Press sportswriters. Johnson was a 2000 graduate of the Harvard Divinity School Summer Leadership Institute, a program that prepares students for work in faith-based urban economic revitalization. He also has a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley that he completed after his initial retirement from the NBA.

Johnson, the son of Georgia West and Lawrence Johnson, was born March 4, 1966 in Sacramento. After Johnson's father drowned in an accident in the Sacramento River, he was raised by his grandparents, the Peat family. He attended Sacramento High School, where he starred in both baseball and basketball and led the state of California in scoring (32.5 ppg) during his senior year.

Roger Philip Mason, Jr. (born September 10, 1980) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Mason lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, started his primary school career at Grace Episcopal Day School in Silver Spring and Kensington, Maryland, and launched his high school career at Sidwell Friends School where he was named MVP at the school as a freshman. He then transferred to Our Lady of Good Counsel High School for his sophomore, junior, and senior years. Mason led Good Counsel to their best basketball year ever, with 29 wins and a number 19 final ranking on the USA Today Super 25 list. At Good Counsel he scored a total of 1,426 points. He was named 1999 All-Metropolitan first team by The Washington Post, All-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC), and all-county by the Montgomery Journal newspaper. He was also named 1999 Powerade "Mr. Basketball", awarded to the best player in the Washington, D.C. area.

Adam Silver is the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer of the National Basketball Association. He has held this post since July 2006. On 25 February 2012, he was endorsed by David Stern to be the next NBA Commissioner.

According to his NBA 101 information page, Silver has been with the league for over 14 years. He oversees NBA Entertainment - which comprises all the NBA's business units, including television and merchandising - as well as the NBA's international business ventures. The Global Media Properties and Marketing Partnerships division of the league also fall under Silver, as well as advertising sales.

Silver was an executive producer of the IMAX movie "Michael Jordan to the Max," as well as the TNT documentary, Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray? He also worked on the production side of "Like Mike" and "Year of the Yao."

In 2003, Silver was named to TIME Magazine and CNN's list of Global Business Influentials; he has also been named to The Sporting News' "100 Most Powerful People in Sports" on multiple occasions.

Donald T. Sterling is an American real estate mogul, attorney, and the owner of the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling acquired the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million, and as of the 2008 rankings, the team is valued at $297 million by Forbes magazine, ranking them twenty-fifth out of thirty teams.

Donald Tokowitz (legally added Sterling as his last name as an adult) was born in 1933 in Chicago, Illinois, but he and his family moved to the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, when he was two years old. His parents, Susan and Mickey, were Jewish immigrants. He attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, where he was on the school's gymnastics team and served as class president; he graduated in 1952. He next attended California State University, Los Angeles (Class of 1956) and Southwestern University School of Law (Class of 1960) in Los Angeles. Starting in 1961, he began to make his career as a divorce and personal injury attorney, but he made his biggest ventures in real estate, which he began when he purchased a 26-unit apartment building in Beverly Hills.