THE MODERATOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Chase Center. Someone called it the eighth wonder of the world. I think that was Peter's line. I'd like to welcome those of you joining us on NBC Sports Bay Area, the flagship station of the Golden State Warriors 95.7 The Game, NBA TV and on the NBA app ahead of the Warriors matchup against the Pistons.
My name is Bonta Hill, host of Warriors Pregame and Postgame Live on NBC Sports Bay Area and host of the Morning Roast on 95.7 The Game from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
In case you're wondering, no, I don't sleep much.
I'd like to introduce our guests joining us on stage this afternoon. Warriors executive chairman and CEO, Joe Lacob; Warriors co-executive chairman Peter Guber; NBA Commissioner Adam Silver; the mayor of this great city of San Francisco, London Breed; Warriors president and chief operating officer, my man Brandon Schneider.
We have some NBA alumni representation in the audience today. Please join me in welcoming Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame member and five-time NBA All-Star, two-time Olympic gold medalist and a member of the original Dream Team, the '92 Barcelona games, my man and cohost of Warriors Pregame and Postgame Live, Chris Mullin.
Also joining us is Marcy Thurmond, wife of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member and seven-time All-Star, Nate Thurmond.
By the way, Nate dropped 16 points and 18 rebounds in the '67 game at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Unfortunately he didn't get MVP because of some guy named Rick Barry. Go figure.
I'd also like to welcome a few notable guests joining us today. We're joined by a number of dignitaries representing the state of California and the Bay Area, including state treasurer if Fiona Ma; state controller, Malia Cohen; and a key partner to the Warriors, mayor of Oakland Sheng Thao.
Please also welcome president and CEO of the Bay Area host committee, Zaileen Janmohamed, and the entire Bay Area host committee board.
I'd also like to recognize San Francisco Travel, including newly appointed president and CEO Scott Beck who has joined us today. Thank you all for joining us to represent the Bay Area.
We are here today to celebrate some great and very exciting NBA news, so to get things started, I'd like to turn it over to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
ADAM SILVER: Thank you, Bonta, and thank you all for being here for this exciting announcement. Without further ado, it's my honor and my pleasure to announce that the 2025 All-Star Game will be held here in San Francisco at the Chase Center.
Let me thank Joe Lacob, Peter Guber for their leadership, their enthusiasm, along with Brandon Schneider in having the All-Star Game here. It's a thrill to be back. I was here for the game when it was last in the Bay Area in 2000.
I want to thank Mayors Breed and Thao. Thank you for their support in coming back to the community. It means so much to us.
I would just say to our fans here in the Bay Area for the All-Star festivities in 2025, this will be the epicenter of basketball around the world. I know our fans from everywhere love coming to this market. They love being part of the excitement here, all of the great things that this market has to offer, and I'd just add that so much innovation around the game has really come from the people who live and work in the Bay Area, so I want to thank you for that, as well.
Bonta, I know we're going to answer any questions, but I'm just thrilled to be here as part of this announcement. Thank you very much.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Adam. Congratulations to Joe Jacob, Peter Guber, and the entire Golden State Warriors organization and the San Francisco Bay Area on this exciting news, All-Star 2025 coming to Chase Center, baby. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaking of which, dunk contest 2000, you think about Vince Carter, but Joe, I'm going to start with you. This is great news, great news for you. It's not the first time the Warriors have hosted the All-Star Game. Obviously '67 in Daly City at the Cow Palace and 2000 at the Oakland Arena when Vince Carter did steal the show. Can you talk a little bit about the history of the All-Star in the Bay Area and how excited you are for this community and this city?
JOE LACOB: Well, you stole all my data. I was going to talk about 1967 and Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond, and 16 and 18, I've got all this memorized and you hit it all already. '67 was a great year. Rick Barry, of course, a great player, and I would like to say Cow Palace was the arena back then. We'd like to think this is a little bit of an upgrade, so hopefully we'll be able to put that on display and exhibit that.
Then in 2000, of course I went to that one personally as a fan at the time, and that was also a great -- the Vince Carter dunk contest, as you pointed out, was so amazing. So those were two great events. But what I think we're really looking forward to is next year, it's a little over a year away, we have this game here locally, and our own Steph Curry hopefully is in this game. He put 50 on in Cleveland a couple of years ago, 16 threes I think it was. Maybe we can see something even greater than that. He gets to play for the first time hopefully in front of his home fans.
That would be one of my great wishes for it.
But regardless, it's going to be a great event, and a number of great players, and again, the epicenter of basketball will be here at Chase Center in San Francisco in 2025.
THE MODERATOR: Adam, this question is for you. What about the NBA All-Star in 2025 is the most exciting, and what can fans expect?
ADAM SILVER: Boy, you know, we're spending so much time thinking about what I call back to basketball. For example, we shouldn't forget we have an All-Star Game coming up this season. It'll be in Indianapolis, and we're returning to the traditional All-Star format, the East versus West, no trick endings, just straight-up basketball.
I know we're busy already planning for new excitement that will be with Brandon and his staff thinking about what All-Star 2025 will be. People are out there talking about concepts, about a Ryder Cup type format, maybe thinking about U.S. players playing against global players. I just know we're looking at all different approaches to All-Star, and this is a great market to try new things.
When you think of innovation, you think of the Bay Area, you think of San Francisco and the Oakland area. Like stay tuned.
THE MODERATOR: Mayor Breed, you grew up 20 minutes away from here, you're a resident here in San Francisco. As the leader of this great city, what does it mean to you to have NBA All-Star 2025 here at Chase?
LONDON BREED: Well, first of all, let me just say, the Warriors, they are a Bay Area team, and I want to also give a shout-out in addition to the mayor of Oakland but the mayor of San Jose is here, Mayor Mahan, thank you so much for joining us.
But what does it mean? It means a lot of money and a lot of visitors. We anticipate 135,000 people will be coming here to the Bay Area to participate in some capacity over the three-day period, and we anticipate over $350 million poured into our economy in the local businesses, in the job opportunities, and all the other activities surrounding All-Star Weekend, and I for one can't wait because there will be parties, events, activities, fun, and everything else.
In addition to that, we have a WNBA team that will be here in 2025, as well, so all of those things in addition to the over 300 events and activities that will be happening in Chase Center. This is like the icing on the cake.
THE MODERATOR: Mayor Breed, more broadly, what does it mean to the city to have a world-class venue in Chase Center that attracts global events such as All-Star?
LONDON BREED: Well, it means so much, as I said. It's not just about the economy, but it's the excitement. San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and people travel from all over to visit, whether it's tourism or it's conventions and other events, and this particular event, it's long overdue to have it right here in the Bay Area, and San Francisco at Chase Center is the perfect place to do so.
THE MODERATOR: Peter, we just heard from Mayor Breed about what it means to the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area for hosting NBA All-Star. What does it mean to the Warriors organization to bring this exciting event back to the bay after 25 years?
PETER GUBER: Well, you dream about these things when you start a process 14 years ago, way back in Oakland, starting when we just were going to own it and where we're going to go, but we always envisioned building a new venue. We did it, a world-class venue.
Then we always envisioned having a great team. We did it, the Warriors how they are.
We always envisioned having a great fan base that was all of the Bay Area. We did it, and we've been successful together with all of you and the whole community.
But we also promised ourselves we'd bring the All-Star Game back to San Francisco, and we would bring it with style and elan and great grace and have a fantastic experience for our fans, the global fans. This audience for this will be a global audience. They will all be watching it. The reach and touch of the All-Star Game is pervasive in the sports marketplace. We're lucky to have it, and I'm glad we connected these audience with that audience, and I can't wait to see it all happen.
THE MODERATOR: Brandon, as we all know, the San Francisco Bay Area will play host to NBA All-Star in 2025 but also the Super Bowl, the FIFA World Cup in 2026. There's clearly an appetite for global sporting events that come to the Bay Area. Can you elaborate on why?
BRANDON SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it starts because as we all know, the Bay Area is a sports town. This is for the fans. We're so excited for fans in the Bay Area to be able to interact and be part of All-Star in addition from fans obviously coming from all over the world. That's number one.
We're also really fortunate to have government and business leaders that understand the importance and the impact of hosting events like All-Star, so the partnership with a whole host of people, many of who are in the room today, we wouldn't be here without the leadership and the support from the city of San Francisco, Mayor Breed, the city of Oakland, Mayor Thao, and your teams. Thank you very much for that.
And of course the Bay Area host committee has been with us every step of the way and will be a big part of bringing these events to life over the next couple of years.
There's a few other partners I wanted to acknowledge. SF Travel was a huge part of the bid process. Your team puts us through the ringer, Adam. Thank you to SF Travel for your role through that, and obviously we'll be great partners over the next couple years as we lead up to 2025.
Also wanted to say thanks to the hotel council, Bay Area council that will be a huge part of bringing these events to life as we showcase the Bay Area to fans from all over the world.
THE MODERATOR: Brandon, we've heard a lot about how incredible the venue this place is, Chase Center, and we know how incredible it is. It's hosted many concerts, comedy acts, the NBA Finals. What can we expect for All-Star Weekend, what type of events? I know that's just the beginning, but can you share with us a bit about the various venues the Warriors are working with across the Bay Area to bring NBA All-Star 2025 to life?
BRANDON SCHNEIDER: Well, we feel very fortunate to be the bay's team. So Dub Nation gives us incredible support, Dub Nation worldwide but specifically here in the Bay Area. When we started talking about hosting NBA All-Star, it was important to us that we had events on both sides of the bay.
I'm happy to be able to announce today that we're hosting a bunch of big events at Oakland arena. So it starts Friday night with the NBA celebrity game, continues Saturday night NBA HBCU game followed by the G-League Next Up game, to a lot of games going on in Oakland. Then go to our Oakland practice facility. The mayor mentioned this. Starting in 2025 that will be the headquarters for our WNBA team.
Over All-Star weekend it will be the NBA global camp going on all weekend, which is elite players from all over the world.
Now come back over to San Francisco, Moscone Center will host NBA crossover all weekend long, a chance for fans in the Bay Area but all over the world to be a part of All-Star Weekend, and then of course here at Chase Center, we've got the NBA Rising Stars Friday night, NBA Saturday night. We'll see who the dunk -- maybe we'll get Steph to do the three-point contest. We're looking forward to that. Then the whole weekend culminates Sunday night with the 74th NBA All-Star Game here at Chase Center.
We cannot wait to work with the NBA, obviously Adam, Kelly Flatow, Joey Graziano, Kenzi Inman, your team, to bring this to life and really showcase all parts of the Bay Area to NBA fans from around the world.
THE MODERATOR: Brandon, Mayor Breed, Adam, Peter, Joe, thank you so much for joining us today. I'd like to open it up to members of the media for additional questions at this point.
Q. I'd love to hear more about why it was important to integrate the entire Bay Area in the process of bringing those events all over the bay.
BRANDON SCHNEIDER: So I said a little bit of it. For us, we're the bay's team. For a long time, you had two baseball teams, two football teams, and one basketball team. So we have fans from all over.
You see it just with the mayors that are here today, right? This is a unique sports market where we've got fans all over. So it was important to us.
We say we're the bay's team, but we like to show it. So to be able to say, okay, we're going to obviously host events here at Chase Center, but there's great venues in Oakland and other parts of the Bay Area. So to be able to integrate that and have that be part of the special weekend was really important to us and to our fans, quite frankly.
Q. Joe, you mentioned Steph potentially having a chance to play All-Star Game in front of his home fans for the first time. How significant is that to you that this game is coming here next year and not five, seven, ten years from now when it might not be possible?
JOE LACOB: Wait, Steph is not going to be playing in five or seven years? Shoot, we had all our plans.
No, I think it obviously is very important. He's still playing at a very, very high level even though he's 35, which historically might be considered a little older for NBA players, but with LeBron and people like that playing the way they are today, who knows.
Next year he's at the height of his powers. Hopefully he -- however the process determines who gets in that game, I guess it's votes and players and fans and so on, but hopefully he's there.
I think it would be spectacular, obviously, if he could play in front of his hometown fans. I think it would mean a lot to him, but I think it would mean a lot to our fans, as well, to see something like that.
I just think it would be an incredible event, and I personally would be thrilled with that.
Q. Commissioner, I believe I understand you changed the format back for the All-Star Game to East versus West. Is that a better way to kind of globally grow the game instead of turning it into a popularity contest, which it seems to have developed into the last few years?
ADAM SILVER: Yeah, I'm looking at Mike Dunleavy right now and just -- and Chris, and talking about the game, and to be honest, I think as much as we love the entertainment side of this that we've heard loud and clearly from the fans. Brandon talked about that. They want to see a basketball game.
So while there will be all of these parties and celebrations, I think it ultimately is important that we turn this back into more of a traditional game.
I think it's a little bit almost symbolic to return to East versus West. I think it made sense. Again, we're going to be in Indiana this season for our All-Star Game, also a fantastic basketball market.
I think to return to that traditional All-Star Game and frankly change some of our approach to the game itself, so it feels for the players more like a typical game, we recognize that nobody wants to get hurt out there. It's not necessarily a playoff game, but the fans expect something more than they've seen maybe in the past couple years.
I think will it be a continuation here? Maybe we'll think of some other fun things to do around the game. But at its heart, at its core, this is about the sport of basketball, and we know our fans want to see real basketball played, even in an All-Star Game.
Q. Adam, every time we get ready to go to the All-Star Game there's always a series of protocols you go through to try and bid for the game. I'm curious if you're at liberty to tell us just what were the deciding factors that led you guys to put the game here as opposed to maybe some other franchises that also bid proposals?
ADAM SILVER: Well, I think so much of it has been touched on, but I think as Peter noted from the beginning of this process, of building this new arena, there was always an expectation that once we got this world-class facility done that an All-Star Game would follow.
There was some issues around the pandemic. Things didn't exactly happen on the timing that we had hoped. But to me there was never a doubt we were going to be here for a game.
But even beyond that, this beautiful facility they've built here, as I said earlier, there's a great tradition of basketball, not just professional basketball but basketball at all levels played here in the Bay Area, a number of great players that have come from this market, I think very knowledgeable fans out here, and on top of that, as Brandon pointed out, this has increasingly become an epicenter for all sports. You've got a Super Bowl coming, you've got a World Cup of football, soccer coming.
I think all those things frankly made it a pretty easy decision to come here. As I said, we're just thrilled.
Q. Commissioner Silver, what else can you do to make the game more competitive, and also, I think one of the cool things of the changes you guys didn't make, and I don't know if it goes away, is that whoever won the quarter -- like you had two competing charities that it went to, does that stay or does that go away with the changes, as well?
ADAM SILVER: There will be special opportunities for local charities. I know it's important to Mayor Breed, Mayor Thao to do those things, as well.
But again, I think what we can do is do a better job honestly communicating directly with our players and teams about the importance for our fans of putting on a real basketball game, and I think that I'll take responsibility for that, that I think there was so much focus on all the entertainment aspects, as there should be. This is about the celebration of basketball when we come to a market for All-Star.
But I think at the end of the day, it's about the game of basketball, and I think you can see all the wonderful things that we do around the game, the day of service, our technology summit, great other opportunities that Mark, you've been part of in the past that sometimes you could see how the basketball game itself since it comes at the very end of multiple days of activities, it became a bit of an afterthought.
I think the most important thing we can do is communicate directly with our players, the All-Star coaches, our teams, just to reinforce how important it is because fans love this game. At root, they want to see a basketball game. I think it's not more complicated than that.
THE MODERATOR: All right, that's it. Thank you all for joining us today. Again, thank you, Joe, Peter, Adam, Mayor Breed, and of course Brandon Schneider. Thank you for spending a day with us, and for all of you watching us on NBC Sports Bay Area, listening to us on 95.7 The Game and watching us on NBA TV and on the NBA app, thank you for joining.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports