A Quote by Gary Bettman

What you want to do, particularly when you're dealing with a professional sports league and franchises and people's passionate commitment to the game and for the team they root for is, it has to be sustainable.
To convert college sports into professional sports would be tantamount to converting it into minor league sports. And we know that in the U.S., minor league sports aren’t very successful either for fan support or for the fan experience.
The NBA is the strongest professional sports league in the world. The league and the game is bigger than any one person, Michael Jordan included, and they always will be. I hope that today players, especially our young players, continue to recognize that simple fact. Nothing is more important than the game itself and the fans who support it.
That's the one regret I have in all the years that I've played professional sports, that I didn't win a championship in the N.F.L. And that's why you play on any level of team sports: you want to win a championship as part of a team.
I think that in all aspects of the game, especially in professional sports but specifically in hockey, we want to grow the game.
You never want to start a season knowing your team doesn't stand a chance to win. The Premier League may be the one example where fans continue to be passionate about their team despite that.
As a fan, you want to be able to go to a football game, you want to feel secure, you want to be able to just watch the game, root for your team, and that's the way it should be.
People don't want to just root for a team anymore. They want to root for something more.
I like working with people who are passionate about what I'm doing. I'm super passionate about music, so I want to make sure my colleagues and people on my team are the same, as well. I'm a very hands-on artist, so I don't give my work to my team.
I really gave up being passionate about politics 10, 15, 20 years ago, because I think finally that there were forces in the country that are larger than politics itself. And so I find it a fascinating game, this wonderful stuff goes on in terms of watching the game. But If you get to down it, look, I`m going to root for someone, I`ll root at a football game, not for politicians.
Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.
We know how important both competitions are, especially the Champions League since it's such a special competition, but we want to win the league too. We take it game by game - concentrate on our league games, win them and then start thinking about the Champions League.
To compare writing an article for 'Sports Illustrated' to doing a piece for 'Real Sports', the article, it was all me. You know, I'm out there by myself with my pad and pencil. 'Real Sports,' I've got a producer, an assistant producer, and cameramen. It's an individual game versus a team game.
I operated a professional football team in L.A. By no means was it the NFL, but I understand what it takes on some level to build and operate a professional sports enterprise in Los Angeles.
In the Spanish league I root for Barcelona and in the Premier League I root for Manchester United.
It's great to learn more about sports I'm probably less familiar with - stock car racing, rodeo, e-sports - and realize that a lot of the people at the center of those sports bring the same level of passion, commitment and disciple that I try to with football. Sports is a way of life for billions of people around the planet.
Anyone who thinks sports are ruled by athletes need only think of American sports' most enduring tradition: Immediately after a championship, as the champagne sprays and the confetti falls, the trophy is passed not to the team captain but most often to the team owner, handed to him by his highest-ranking employee, the league commissioner.
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