The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in the world. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada. It is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by the International Basketball Federation as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the 4 major North American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world's best paid sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.

The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The league adopted the name National Basketball Association in 1949 after merging with the rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey.

David Joel Stern (born September 22, 1942) is the commissioner of the National Basketball Association. He started with the Association in 1966 as an outside counsel, joined the NBA in 1978 as General Counsel, and became the league's Executive Vice President in 1980. He became Commissioner in 1984 succeeding Larry O'Brien. He is credited with increasing the popularity of the NBA in the 1990s and 2000s.

Stern has served on the Rutgers University Board of Overseers and is a Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

David Stern was born on September 22, 1942 in New York City, New York. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey in a Jewish family, and is a graduate of Teaneck High School. Stern attended Rutgers University, where in 1960 he pledged to the Sigma Delta Chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity. He graduated as B- dean's-list history student in 1963 and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1966, and was admitted to the bar in New York later that year after passing the state's bar examination.

David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States of America.

Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was Everybody Loves Raymond, currently in syndication.

In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973), was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (née Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.

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.

James Phillip Rome (born on October 14, 1964), known as Jim Rome, is an American sports radio talk show host syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications.

Broadcasting from a studio near Los Angeles, California, Rome hosts The Jim Rome Show on radio. For a number of years Rome hosted a television show Jim Rome Is Burning (formerly Rome Is Burning), which aired on ESPN in the United States and TSN2 in Canada. In 2011, Rome ended his relationship with ESPN to join the CBS network where it is reported he will host his own show, as well as an interview-format show on the Showtime channel. His past hosting jobs included sports discussion television shows Talk2 (ESPN2), The FX Sports Show (FX), and The Last Word (Fox Sports Net). The Jim Rome Show is tied for the #21 most listened to talk radio show in the United States and Rome is the #29 most influential talk radio personality according to Talkers Magazine.

Born in Tarzana, California, Rome graduated from Calabasas High School in 1982 and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) with a degree in Communications in 1987. He lives in Irvine, California with his wife Janet and their two children.