It’s summer and the National Basketball Association commissioner, David Stern, has started the 2007–08 season with a major victory. Stern has delivered a new eight-year cable television-broadband contract to his owners with Time Warner’s Turner Sports and Disney’s ESPN/ABC networks. The deal includes rights to technologies that have yet to be invented. Once again Stern, as he has throughout the past decade, has demonstrated that he understands better than anyone that network television contracts are just a part of how professional sports leagues sell games.

This was a significant triumph for Stern, particularly after the disappointing press accounts that followed a dramatic decline in TV ratings for this year’s NBA Championship Finals.

Still, Stern is well aware that he’ll need more than one lucrative TV deal to keep his league on good footing. Storm clouds might be on the horizon for the NBA. As reported in this column in May, the owner of the Memphis Grizzlies, Michael Heisley, together with seven fellow owners continue to seek changes in the way the NBA distributes its revenue. The owners are in search of a comprehensive system that would allow small market franchises to be more competitive financially with teams such as the Knicks, Lakers, and Bulls.

Stern also has arena issues to contend with in Seattle, Sacramento, and Orlando. A relocation request by the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics, Clayton Bennett, is a possibility. (Bennett would move his WNBA Seattle Storm franchise as well under the terms of a move.) Developments in New Orleans, where Hornets owner George Shinn is trying to re-establish his franchise should keep Stern equally busy. Two years after Hurricane Katrina, the fate of the Hornets in the Crescent City remains uncertain.

Stern’s goal of establishing some sort of regular NBA presence in Europe by 2010, perhaps creating an NBA Conference on the continent, seems to have fallen by the way side for the time being. Yet the NBA remains ahead of all the established North American sports leagues in terms of globalization, which in the long run may be far more important than how many fans are tuning in to the NBA finals, particularly with technology changing viewing habits.

Stern has not lost faith in the potential for Europe (or China) to become an NBA hub, but European cities have not offered much in the way of public support for funding the kind of state-of-the-art facilities that the league has come to expect. This reluctance has stymied European growth for the NBA. London stands as an exception, becoming a destination for the NBA, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League.

Indeed, the NHL will open its 2007–08 season in London with a pair of games on September 29–30 between the Stanley Cup Champion Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings. Both games are sold out, according to NHL officials. Similarly, the NFL’s Giants will play the Miami Dolphins before a sold out crowd at Wembley Stadium on October 28 in the first NFL game to be played in Europe. Also in October, the NBA will send four teams to Europe, where it will hold training camp and play a handful of exhibition games against European teams. The NBA has not yet scheduled a regular season contest in London, but given the sell-outs engineered by the NHL and NFL, there is reason to believe that a regular season game or two in the British capital is not far off.

“In our case, London, it’s the first and foremost NBA-ready arena,” Stern told The Sun during an interview in May, referring to the O2, which will open next month and was built by the Anschutz Entertainment Group. The founder of the company, Phil Anschutz, is also primary owner of the Los Angeles Kings and a part owner of the Lakers.

“From our perspective…it’s a very large market and we got the 2012 Olympics [in London] which we think is an opportunity to deal with basketball in a positive way,” he added.

Domestic issues are also on Stern’s docket this summer: from revenue sharing to the potential for another devastating storm in New Orleans, where the cashstrapped Hornets are slated to return.

“I get a weekly report [the Hornets] sales are going to wind up being ahead of where they were pre-Katrina, both in sponsorship and ticket sales, so we are looking forward to having a good year,” Stern said.

After fielding several questions, Stern refused to comment on the ongoing situation in Seattle. But it is a state of affairs that could get nasty in a hurry. Bennett has three years left on his contract to play at the city-owned arena, the Sonics owner believes he might be able to get out of his deal after the 2007–08 season if city and Washington state officials fail to build him a new arena.

In Orlando, the drawn-out negotiations between the city and Magic owner Rich DeVos continue. On the table is a proposal to build an arena, convention center, and renovations to the Citrus Bowl. In Milwaukee and Minnesota, ownership groups of both franchises have already begun to express interest in building new arenas within the next decade.

Still, TV ratings and ongoing domestic issues aside, Stern has had a solid season: Global growth continues; TV numbers are down but American business partners and sponsors are satisfied with the NBA product and continue to sign partnership agreements, fans are scooping up high- and low-end seats alike at NBA games, and Portland’s Trail Blazers figure to be revitalized with the addition of Greg Oden.

Interestingly enough, San Antonio owner Peter Holt, whose franchise plays in one of the league’s smallest markets and DeVos did not join his fellow small-market owners in signing a document requesting changes to NBA revenuesharing policy. Holt, of course, has a championship team and controls the revenue streams in his building for not only NBA games, but also minor league hockey and other events.

You see, revenue sharing, not TV, is Stern’s biggest problem this summer.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com