NBA Commissioner David Stern has announced that Tim Chen, CEO of Microsoft Greater China, will assume duties as the first CEO of NBA China.
NBA China has been created to be the epicenter of the NBA’s businesses in mainland China, Hong kong, Macao, and Taiwan. The NBA desperately wants to embed itself into markets outside of the United States…especially in China and Chen will be tasked with leading the charge.
The Houston Rocket’s signing of 7′ 6″ Center Yao Ming followed by the recent signing of 7′ power forward Yi Jianlian by the Milwaukee Bucks has created a trendous interest in the NBA among Chinese sports fans. And Stern and crew want to turn that interest into dollars.
In a statement, HeidiUeberroth, NBA President of Global Marketing Partnerships and International Business Operations said ”After an extensive search that produced many qualified candidates, Tim Chen was the clear choice based on his tremendous experience and accomplishments. Tim will assume leadership of a very talented team of NBA employees based in China including Mark Fisher, who will be promoted to Senior Vice President.”
In a press release David Stern stated “Tim Chen is a proven business leader who has guided the dramatic growth of two Fortune 100 businesses in China.”
Yesterday the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a half-percentage point. This was the first rate cut in the past four years. Toll Brothers CEO Robert Toll said the rate cut may signal that the economy is worse than previously thought and likely doesn’t indicate the U.S. housing market has hit bottom.
“I would have done a quarter instead of a half because it signals we’re in deep doodoo,” said Toll, speaking at the Credit Suisse Homebuilder Conference. He went on to say that the current housing market downturn is worse than the ones we saw between 1980 and 1982 and between 1987 and 1991.
Toll Brothers is the nation’s leading builder of new luxury homes, new home construction, golf communities, retirement communities, resort homes and other high end real estate development. Read.
About a month ago we reported that Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak was dating Comedian Kathy Griffin. At the time the couple seemed to be playing cat and mouse. But apparently the games are over.
Woz and Griffin attended the Emmy’s together where Griffin won a creative arts Emmy.
Her acceptance speech was edited when the event was shown Saturday on the E! channel. The AP reports that some of her language had to be bleeped.
In her speech, Griffin said ” A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.”
She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, “This award is my god now!”
Her remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a “vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech.”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc., the social-networking company, announced that the company is launching a $10 million fund to give grants to individuals and startups building applications on its platform.
Zuckerberg made the announcement at the TechCrunch 40 technology conference in San Francisco. He said grants of $25,000 to $250,000 will be give to people making “innovative and disruptive” Web-based services that interact with Facebook. Read.
Video games have taken over the lives of both children and adults alike. However, many of the games have become so violent, that some parents refuse to let their kids play them. Many of today’s games feature blood, guts, war and drive-by shootings…and have many parents afraid of what those types of games might turn their children into.
Do these games pose a greater threat to creating a person who is more likely to go on and live a violent “video-game” lifestyle than say violent TV shows?
Recently at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention, EA’s CEO John Riccitiello bumped heads with ITV’s chairman Michael Grade over video-game violence.
Grade accused video-games of existing in a “moral vacuum”. Riccitiello vehemently defended the video games industry, saying the violence portrayed in games is no worse than in popular TV shows.
Riccitiello compared violent footage from hit shows 24 and CSI, films including Kill Bill and 300 and Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto video game. Read.
Cisco CEO John Chambers predicts that the IT industry will experience a new-found age of productivity that will create growth similar to that experienced during the original Internet revolution in the mid 90s…you know, the growth that created thousands of Internet millionaires virtually overnight.
In his keynote address to VMworld in San Francisco, Chambers said the “second phase” of Internet productivity will be driven by virtualization, convergence and online collaboration.
“There is a fundamental shift in the industry and it’s occurring much faster than any market transition I have seen so far,” Chambers said. Read.
