This Startup Wants to Make the NBA Even More Diverse | Inc.com

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For most people, landing Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Airbnb, and Netflix as customers would be good enough. Porter Braswell, who can already count those celebrated companies to his roster, may well say his latest client is his greatest so far: the NBA.

On Thursday, Jopwell, the New York City-based recruitment platform that connects minority job candidates with prominent employers across the country, announced that it has partnered with the National Basketball Association to connect job seekers of color to the league’s offices. Teams including the Golden State Warriors, the Boston Celtics, and the L.A. Clippers have agreed to pay an undisclosed subscription fee for access to the startup’s platform, where they can then tap a minority candidate for, say, a financial analyst or data scientist job.

Techies Are Trying to Turn the NBA Into the World’s Biggest Sports League | WIRED

May 31, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

IN 2014, THE Los Angeles Clippers were just getting used to being a good basketball team. After more than three decades of irrelevance—and only four winning seasons—they’d finally found that magic mix of talent and cohesion and had become a division-winning powerhouse practically overnight. But then they hit another roadblock: TMZ published a recording of the team’s owner, Donald Sterling, making racist comments.

The scandal spread. Rumors began to swirl that the league would force Sterling to sell the team. Basketball in LA has long been associated with celebrity, and the names of A-list prospective buyers flew: Billy Crystal, Oprah Winfrey. Even boxer Floyd Mayweather reportedly expressed interest.

An Insider’s Notes On The Shabby Death Of The Seattle SuperSonics

May 16, 2012January 22, 2015 ~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

I usually arrived at work before most of the staff. On some days, I could wander across the office to get my coffee without seeing anyone. But strangely, that morning, the team’s communications guru, was already there. He pulled me aside. “Be prepared to have a terrible day,” he said. “I can’t tell you any more—you’ll know soon enough. But I’m telling you as a friend, this is going to be a really rough day.”

I went back to my desk trying to decipher what he meant. Soon, my phone rang. On the other end was a member of the operations team: “Jeremy, you need to do something for me. You need to grab the championship trophies. Polish them until they’re spotless and bring them to the Furtado Center [the team’s training facility]. I can’t tell you why, you just need to do it now.”

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