http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA.061108.1C_Spurs_Bookbinder.en.3973703.html
Spurs lose top businessman in Bookbinder
Web Posted: 06/11/2008 10:39 AM CDT
Jeff McDonald
San Antonio Express-News
An avid fan of thrill sports, Russ Bookbinder has swam with sharks and jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet.
In many ways, what he did Tuesday was even more frightening.
Bookbinder announced he is leaving his job as executive vice president of business operations with Spurs Sports & Entertainment, after more than 20 years with the club.
“It's something I've been thinking about for a year, a year and a half,” Bookbinder said. “I just never allowed it to come out of my mouth.”
For the past two decades, Bookbinder has been a fixture in the Spurs' front office, a behind-the-scenes force widely credited with dragging the team's game-day and marketing operations to the modern era.
Hired by Red McCombs as an executive vice president in January 1988, he is one of a handful of Spurs employees who can trace the club's path from HemisFair Arena to the AT&T Center.
The Spurs employed no more than 25 people the day Bookbinder arrived. In the time since, the franchise has grown into the sprawling entity known as Spurs Sports & Entertainment.
In his 21st season in San Antonio, Bookbinder, 56, oversaw operations for four professional teams — the Spurs, the WNBA's Silver Stars, the NBA Development League's Austin Toros, and the AHL's Rampage, San Antonio's minor league hockey team.
Bookbinder was a key cog in the franchise's metamorphosis from a small-town basketball club into a four-team, multi-sport monolith. That exponential growth, in part, led to his resignation.
“That's a lot of nights in the arena,” Bookbinder said. “It takes its toll.”
Spurs owner Peter Holt, who purchased controlling stake in the club in 1996, says Bookbinder will be missed.
“When I first joined the Spurs as an owner 12 years ago, I didn't know the difference between a basketball and a tractor,” Holt said. “Russ Bookbinder taught me a lot about the NBA and the business of professional sports.”
When Bookbinder arrived in 1988, the Spurs attracted between four and five thousand fans a night to venerable HemisFair Arena, to cheer the likes of Alvin Robertson and Johnny Dawkins.
“They were the hard-core basketball fans,” Bookbinder recalled. “If we were ever going to grow our business, we had to appeal to a larger market segment. Our goal was to transform what we did into family entertainment.”
What Bookbinder set out to construct was a precursor to today's multi-media game-day experience at the AT&T Center.
Under his direction, the Spurs added music pumping from the loudspeakers, on-court entertainment during timeouts, and crude video on the Arena's state-of-the-art pixilated scoreboard system.
Early in his tenure, Bookbinder also pushed the Spurs into the modern era of community relations, with players making personal appearances and going to charity events.
“He was involved with everything,” said Bob Bass, the Spurs' general manager at the time. “He brought those things in and went full speed ahead with it.”
Bookbinder was also instrumental in bringing the 1996 NBA All-Star Game to San Antonio and has worked with the San Antonio Sports Foundation in its efforts to attract other sporting events to the city.
As a member of the Sports Foundation's Board of Directors, he was among the founders of the Alamo Bowl in 1994.
After more than 20 years at full speed ahead, Bookbinder is ready to take his foot off the gas.
His son and daughter, Josh and Jessy, are grown and out of the house. He plans to spend more time with his wife, Tammy, who is battling multiple sclerosis. A cancer survivor himself, Bookbinder says he plans to use the next few months to take one long, well-deserved breath.
He is in good health and aims to take advantage of it.
“I'm going to take a step back, enjoy the summer and see what happens,” Bookbinder said. “Right now, I've got a nice peace about everything.”
Perhaps, someday later, there will be time for more thrills.
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