{"id":1763,"date":"2023-07-31T15:09:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T19:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/?post_type=inductees&p=1763"},"modified":"2024-01-10T16:45:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T21:45:16","slug":"val-ackerman","status":"publish","type":"inductees","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/inductees\/val-ackerman\/","title":{"rendered":"Val Ackerman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTry to leave this world a little better than you found it.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a sentiment that rings more like advice given to you by your grandfather when you\u2019re too immature to appreciate it, but spend enough time on this planet, and it becomes apparent that it might just be the best mantra to live by.<\/p>\n

Few people in the history of sports business and media have built a more successful and impactful career on making the sports world better than she experienced it than Val Ackerman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Founding president of the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA). President of USA Basketball. An executive behind the iconic \u201cDream Team.\u201d Commissioner of the Big East Conference. Val Ackerman\u2019s life has taken her across the executive offices of her beloved game of basketball and forever reshaped the world of sports \u2014 for athletes, for fans, for television, for women, for all of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cVal has helped shape men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball at every level of the game,\u201d says NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. \u201cHer steady leadership combined with her unflappable persistence has elevated so many aspects of the sports media and has left a profound impact on the coverage and scope of the sports industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born and raised in New Jersey, Ackerman was a multi-sport athlete in high school and went on to be a four-year starter and three-time captain for the University of Virginia Women\u2019s Basketball Team. In the immediate afterglow of Title IX, she was one of the school\u2019s first female scholarship athletes. When she graduated, there wasn\u2019t much available to her in the way of a professional basketball career in the U.S., so she played overseas in France for a year before returning stateside to pursue her law degree at UCLA.<\/p>\n

After a short stint at a law firm, Ackerman knew her athletic world and her academic career were meant to unite. She was hired as a staff attorney at the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1988.<\/p>\n

She credits the early growth in her career to working with an impressive set of mentors, including current NHL commissioner and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Gary Bettman (who first hired Ackerman), former NBA deputy commissioner and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Russ Granik, and, of course, iconic former NBA commissioner and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer David Stern.<\/p>\n

In 1990, Ackerman became special assistant to the commissioner, working directly with Stern. \u201cThat gave me proximity to the life of a commissioner, what crossed David\u2019s desk, all the things he had to manage,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

Her tenacious work ethic and intelligence had her moving up quickly through the ranks at the NBA. Her career took its first unique turn in 1989, when the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) voted to allow professional players to participate in the Olympic Games. The U.S. was reeling from a devastating loss to the USSR in 1988, and work on assembling the iconic \u201cDream Team\u201d had begun. Ackerman was one of the NBA\u2019s original appointees to the USA Basketball Board of Directors in 1989 and served as an organizational liaison with USA Basketball during the early years of NBA participation in national-team competitions, including the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and the 1994 World Championships.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Val Ackerman was the first president of the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) when the league launched in 1997. She oversaw operations for its first eight seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Success on the international stage spread to the women\u2019s game as Ackerman played an integral role in the success of the U.S. women\u2019s national program, which has won gold medals at each of the last seven Olympics, dating the 1996 Atlanta Games.<\/p>\n

Growth of the USA women\u2019s basketball program and mainstream success on the Olympic stage laid the groundwork for what is perhaps Ackerman\u2019s greatest career accomplishment: spearheading the launch and serving as the first president of a new women\u2019s professional basketball league, the WNBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we \u2018decided\u2019 \u00a0that we would start the WNBA \u2014 and I put the word in quotes because I think Val made it clear that we didn\u2019t have a choice \u2014 she was the natural person to lead it, which she did for many years,\u201d said late former NBA commissioner David Stern in 2013 upon Ackerman\u2019s appointment as Big East commissioner. \u201cNot only lead it but launch it and lead it. The fact that the league exists is a result of Val\u2019s efforts and drive behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ackerman guided the league through its formation and to its widely successful\u00a0 debut in 1997, heading day-to-day operations for its first eight seasons. She says she\u2019ll never forget sitting courtside at the New York Liberty\u2019s first home game at Madison Square Garden and watching Stern sit speechless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was exhausting. It was exhilarating,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThose of us who worked on it \u2014 and there were many of us at the league office \u2014 felt like it was a cause, not just any old project. It felt like a cause because it was about bringing women more deeply into the game of basketball. It was very exciting, especially in the early years, because our fan support was so strong and there was so much buzz around the league. To be part of that launch was a once-in-a-professional-lifetime experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the WNBA is enjoying unprecedented success. The 2023 season television-viewership numbers were the highest they have been in more than two decades, and the league continues to grow in star power and in the number of franchises popping up across the country. It\u2019s growth that the league\u2019s first boss looks back proudly on.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Val Ackerman (left) with the No. 1 pick in the first WNBA Draft in 1997, Tina Thompson of the Houston Comets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very glad to see it,\u201d Ackerman says. \u201cWe all believed so deeply in this idea. It seems like it has taken a while for the world to catch up on the vision, but better late than never would be my answer to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think,\u201d she continues, \u201cwe thought it would be a marathon and not a sprint to establish the league. We thought it might take a generation for the young girls of that time to become the adult consumers of the future, who would buy the tickets and watch on television and support the league in important ways commercially, which is critical for any league. You need that commercial support; you\u2019ve got to generate revenue. That\u2019s happening now: the players are selling themselves, the rivalries are developing, we\u2019re seeing bona fide stars. There are some tried-and-true ways to build a sports league, and it seems like those are kicking in now in a serious way for the WNBA, and that\u2019s great news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says current WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, \u201cVal\u2019s efforts were vital in not only establishing the WNBA but also providing opportunities for women athletes to compete at the professional level in the U.S., setting the stage for the exponential growth the game enjoys today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ackerman\u2019s professional-basketball career is of a caliber most can only dream. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame in 2021, the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. Thanks to her accomplishments, future female basketball players will have opportunities that weren\u2019t afforded to her when she was young. Although that fact is not lost on her, she says that she never let that make any of her executive feats bittersweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never let that get to me,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I played basketball in college, we had very little. I mean, I was playing in the early years of Title IX, and things were not equitable. We saw the men\u2019s team getting this amenity and that amenity, and we were at the ground floor. Now that\u2019s very different. Yeah, at times, I guess there are some pangs that, wow, that would\u2019ve been fun or that would\u2019ve been nice to have. But that sentiment is generally overwhelmed by the sense of satisfaction that I was part of the foundation. It is better now than it was when I started.\u201d<\/p>\n

The selfless drive to make the sport she loved a better place for today\u2019s athletes has, perhaps, been the key ingredient in a revered career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest victories in sports are not measured by strength alone,\u201d notes Carol Stiff, former ESPN executive and Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Famer. \u201cThey are achieved by those who broke down barriers, paved new paths, and empowered those around them to pursue excellence. Val continues to be just that: a pioneer, a champion in sports, especially women\u2019s sports. She has inspired us all to push beyond the limits and rewrite history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Ackerman, \u201cIt\u2019s not that it didn\u2019t happen for me. It\u2019s that it\u00a0did\u00a0<\/em>happen after all for others and that I was able to be a part of making that opportunity available for women\u2019s basketball players and being a part of what that has meant for women\u2019s sports at large.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Val Ackerman has been commissioner of the Big East Conference for 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And then there\u2019s her current job as commissioner of the Big East Conference. A league that, at the time of her arrival a decade ago, seemed destined to be the first sacrifice at the altar of conference realignment. Today, the league is again prospering as one of the premier conferences in collegiate athletics; still headlined by her great love: basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the right opportunity for me at the right time,\u201d says Ackerman. \u201cIn many ways, it\u2019s full circle because of my experience as an athlete in college. I\u2019m proud to be here given my basketball roots. Most of all, I\u2019m just proud to be in a league that has such incredible basketball history, that cares so deeply about the game, where every single school is 100% committed to being relevant and competitive in the sport. I really have felt at home here.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her time at the helm, she has ushered in a partnership with the league\u2019s primary media-rights partner, Fox Sports; brokered a deal to keep the men\u2019s basketball championship at Madison Square Garden; moved the conference\u2019s offices to New York City; and even oversaw negotiations to bring back one of the conference\u2019s charter members, the University of Connecticut, in 2020. The league also launched BIG EAST Digital Network, which carries hundreds of live sports broadcasts each year, granting access to more sports to fans all around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do enjoy the fact that it\u2019s 22 sports, 12 of them women\u2019s sports,\u201d adds Ackerman. \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot here. It has been kind of a professional-development opportunity for me because the space is very different. It has been a great ride, and three national championships in the last seven years certainly has been icing on the cake for us. There\u2019s nothing quite like winning a national championship in basketball, and we\u2019ve had the privilege of being in the front row when that has happened. It has been very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although it may be a bit of an oversimplification to celebrate Ackerman\u2019s many career accomplishments through the singular lens of sports broadcasting, there\u2019s little doubt that her ambition and vision were a perfect fit for an exploding live-sports-television ecosystem. She built properties that hadn\u2019t existed before (particularly for her as a young woman), and television delivered those properties into the homes of young fans across the country and to young women, who now have a professional path to follow.<\/p>\n

Granting opportunities. Changing lives. Not just women\u2019s sports but all of sport is better for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelevision has touched every part of my professional career,\u201d notes Ackerman. \u201cI\u2019ve had a front-row seat to see the power of television as it relates to the sports business. I have met, over the years, many impressive executives who work at the networks, all of whom have been terrific partners. To receive an honor from colleagues in the TV business is quite humbling. TV has made so much of my journey possible. It\u2019s a real honor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1764,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[61],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/1763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}