Update: 4:46 p.m.
The Bucks shared this statement below.
Commissioner Emeritus David Stern was hugely instrumental in the NBA becoming the tremendously popular global league and successful business it is today. During his 30 years as Commissioner, he was an extraordinary innovator while demonstrating powerful leadership and remarkable vision that transformed the sport of basketball. The Milwaukee Bucks are grateful for Commissioner Emeritus Stern’s fierce dedication to the league and passion for his love of the game. We offer our deepest condolences to his wife, Dianne, sons Andrew and Eric, and the entire Stern family.
Milwaukee Bucks
Original story from the Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) – David Stern, who spent 30 years as the NBA’s longest-serving commissioner and oversaw its growth into a global power, has died on New Year’s Day. He was 77.
The league says Stern died Wednesday with his family by his side. He suffered a brain hemorrhage Dec. 12 and underwent emergency surgery.
Stern had been involved with the NBA for nearly two decades before he became its fourth commissioner on Feb. 1, 1984. By the time he left his position in 2014, a league that had struggled for a foothold had grown into a more than $5 billion a year industry and made NBA basketball perhaps the world’s most popular sport after soccer.
Stern had a hand in nearly every initiative to do that, including drug testing, the salary cap and implementation of a dress code.
The trained lawyer helped the league become televised in more than 200 countries and territories, and in more than 40 languages.