Gary Bettman: Towering Impact

The longest-serving commissioner in sports history, Bettman has spent 30 years atop the NHL
using his many talents and his forceful powers of persuasion to build the league into a modern
business powerhouse

By Bill King 5.15.2023

Gary Bettman strode out the back door of the private air terminal and into a light January rain,
creating a gap between himself and the five others in his traveling party as he hustled up the
stairs and onto the National Hockey League jet.

Bound for Buffalo on one of the couple dozen NHL franchise visits he makes each season,
Bettman removed his coat and settled into the first seat that faced front, tucking away a bag as
staff members chose their spots behind him.

Up well before dawn for a 7 a.m. doctor’s appointment, he’d kept a full schedule of calls and
meetings at the league’s midtown Manhattan offices before leaving for the airport midway
through the afternoon.

The visit to Buffalo coincided with a jersey retirement ceremony. But it was mostly the sort of
check-in that Bettman likes to make annually in as many NHL cities as he can; a chance to offer
an in-person ear to each owner and preach the league’s gospel to area fans, fielding questions
from reporters before the game and appearing between periods during each team’s local
broadcast.

Long known for marathon days and short sleep, Bettman gives no indication of slowing down as
he nears completion of his 30th year as NHL commissioner, the only person to hold that title and
the longest run ever by the commissioner of a major North American sports league.

An inner circle of owners and others close to him agree that he has hit full stride on what likely
will be his final shift, a contract that will carry him through the 2026-27 season, to age 75.

“Everything just moves,” Bettman said as the jet taxied out, describing days, nights and
weekends that often run into each other, even during what may be the most stable span in a
notoriously unstable league. “You don’t stop and do any one thing.”

“You can slow down if you want, by the way,” a voice from behind him said. “He’s trying to kill
us.”

Bettman’s traveling companions chuckled.

“People say, ‘At your age, how are you doing this?’” Bettman said. “I’m driving them all into the
ground as a matter of sport. Because I still have the energy.”
Three decades have left scars. There are bruises from a trio of lockouts, including the only one to
ever cost a league its entire season.

But with that pain came evolution, both on ice and off. Rule changes opened up the game,
bringing higher scoring and more emphasis on skills. An evolving salary cap structure broadened
the field of Stanley Cup contenders. A league that for decades had teams flirting with bankruptcy
has well-funded, stable ownership.

“The game today is a business. The game when he came in was not,” said Boston Bruins owner
Jeremy Jacobs, who chairs the NHL board of governors and is one of only two team owners who
pre-dates Bettman. “That’s the biggest thing I can say for him. We had problems that would have
closed us down. And the game today is very viable and the [franchise] values have gone up
many, many fold. We have a going business today. We did not have one then.”

Indeed, under Bettman, annual revenue has increased twelvefold, from about $500 million to
more than $6 billion.           

“We’re a real league now, with a real business,” said Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis,
who bought the team for $85 million in 1999 and has served on the NHL executive committee
since 2009. “It’s a growing entity with a brand and an identity. And he’s been ubiquitous in all of
that growth. The common thread through all that narrative of growth has been Gary.”

“It’s like night and day from when I came in,” said Toronto Maple Leafs owner Larry
Tanenbaum, who joined the team’s ownership group in 1997 and the NHL’s executive
committee in 2011. “So much has changed. And he’s always sort of ahead of it.”

How Bettman, in his 70s, will differ from Bettman at 40, 50 and 60, and what that will mean as
he navigates the coming years, is something he has contemplated of late.

“For me, this is a very profound question,” Bettman said. “Because other than from a distance, I
didn’t have a great opportunity to watch people get old.”

Bettman’s father died at 40. His mother only made it to 53. His father-in-law lived to 70 and his
mother-in-law to her early 80s, but both were slowed long before that by protracted illnesses.

The closest thing Bettman has to a blueprint of life after 70 comes from friends and mentors,
such as late NBA Commissioner David Stern and late Proskauer sports law practice founder
George Gallantz, who also provided valuable examples in the prior stages of his life.

“You try to be a sponge,” Bettman said. “You see how to conduct yourself. You try to observe
and absorb. You see how they do things, but you ultimately have to do what makes you
comfortable. In this job, especially, you gotta be comfortable in your own skin. And that means
doing what you think is right for the right reasons. Not everybody is going to like what you say
and do. But you’ve got to be able to live with that.
“You are never as good as people say you are. And you’re never as bad. So you think about
what’s important to you and what your values are and then you live your life consistently —
even when people are coming at you from all sides.”

Bettman sat in his office at a small New Jersey law firm at the end of another dreary work week
as 1981 trudged toward its end, staring through the window at the December gloom, when a call
came that lifted his spirits.

A year earlier, he had made a career choice he would almost instantly regret, leaving a plum first
job as an associate at the prestigious firm then known as Proskauer Rose Goetz and Mendelsohn
to join an upstart firm.

The role that attracted him was less enthralling than he had envisioned. His new office was in
New Jersey, a 50-mile commute each way from his home in Connecticut. His mother was in
rapid decline from brain cancer. He’d spent the last six months in misery, sticking it out at the
firm only out of fear that leaving so soon might make it difficult to land another job.

But on this Friday, around 4 p.m., something finally went Bettman’s way.

George Gallantz, head of litigation at Proskauer and a mentor during Bettman’s three years at the
firm, had learned that David Stern, another former Proskauer lawyer, was being promoted from
general counsel of the NBA to deputy commissioner, with Russ Granik elevated to Stern’s old
role. They were looking for a young lawyer of Bettman’s age and experience to backfill Granik.

Gallantz wanted to know if he was interested.

Bettman recalls pulling the receiver from his ear to stare at it, unable to believe what he was
hearing. Somehow, he maintained his composure.

“I don’t know,” Bettman deadpanned. “I might be.”

Gallantz said he’d relay the message, and that Bettman should expect a call from Stern on
Monday. Of course, Stern wouldn’t wait. He phoned Bettman at home the next morning. They
spoke for more than two hours. Near the end, Stern made his pitch.

“C’mon, come here,” he said. “You’ll do it for a couple of years, you’ll learn a lot and we’ll have
a good time.”

A good time sounded terrific.

The next week, Bettman interviewed with Granik. Then, he spent about 90 minutes listening to
stories from the NBA’s larger-than-life commissioner, Larry O’Brien, at that time best known
for managing John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and occupying the office that was the
target of the infamous Watergate break-in.

The next day, Bettman enthusiastically accepted the job as the NBA’s assistant general counsel.
“It was just unbelievable,” Bettman said. “It’s like my life turned around in a second … It’s the
serendipity of life.”

Born in Queens, his parents divorced when he was 4. His father, Howard, remained in his life,
but he was raised by his mother, Joy.

Bettman was 13 when his father died of leukemia, a year after his mother had remarried. By the
time the family moved to Dix Hills, on Long Island, the summer before his junior year of high
school, he had a baby brother, Jeffrey Pollack, who also would grow up to build a successful
career in sports that included being the president of the XFL.

Bettman knew he wanted to be a lawyer when he chose Cornell. He didn’t know that he would
meet his eventual wife, Shelli. They married in 1975, after his first year of law school at NYU. 

He joined Proskauer in the litigation department, which was headed by Gallantz, who later
reconnected him with Stern — “serendipity,” Bettman likes to say.

Two years after Bettman arrived in 1982, Stern ascended to commissioner, promoting Granik to
deputy and Bettman to general counsel. Bettman was 32, often decades younger than his
counterparts from the teams, who typically were senior partners at local law firms.

It was every bit the thrill ride that Stern promised. This was the NBA of Magic and Bird, but the
business was only beginning to catch up to its ascending stars. The league, which now employs
about 1,100 people, had a staff of 25.

As assistant general counsel, and then general counsel, Bettman was exposed to all aspects of an
enterprise that was re-making itself. The NBA became the first league to introduce a salary cap
in 1984 and added the first draft lottery a year after that. It was expanding its reach overseas and
developing its own entertainment division.

“It had to be the most difficult job in sports, being David Stern’s lawyer,” said Rick Welts, the
former president of the Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors, who cut his teeth at the league
office during Bettman’s time there. “Because David Stern firmly believed he was the world’s
best lawyer. So you had to try to measure up to what David Stern thought it was to be a great
lawyer. I can’t imagine a job harder than that.”

As the business grew, Bettman took on vast swaths of responsibility. He added licensing,
international and the burgeoning TV production unit to his purview. He was involved in
expansions into Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota and Orlando. He led TV negotiations, including a
watershed deal that moved the league from CBS to NBC starting in 1990-91.

“Once David decided ‘Let’s do this,’ it kind of fell in Gary’s lap,” Welts said. “He was the one
who got every difficult assignment, one after another. He did the heavy lifting, solved the tough
problems and dealt with the tough litigations. And he kept the ship not only moving in the right
direction, but accelerating. I’m not sure the league would have turned out the same way had he
not been there, just because his tenacity and work ethic were second to none.”
Though the original salary cap structure was far along when Bettman arrived, he came to
understand its ins and outs intimately. As general counsel, he often was the one to determine
whether a team was within its rules when it signed a player or made a trade, serving as a cap cop
of sorts.

When eventual MLB Commissioner Bud Selig visited the NBA’s offices to learn more about the
cap’s inner workings, he spent two hours with Bettman. When Cowboys owner Jerry Jones came
calling on behalf of the NFL, he, too, met with Bettman.

“The part that made that time so exciting: We were doing stuff that hadn’t ever been done
before,” Bettman said. “Whether it was the first drug agreement. Whether it was collective
bargaining with the first salary cap. Whether it was the licensing and sponsorship and tentpole
events that we were developing. This was all new stuff. It was an experience where if you stayed
focused and concentrated on the things that had to be done, you could have an opportunity to do
almost anything.”

Bettman could not have known how ideally his time at the NBA would set him up for the life-
changing opportunity that was about to come his way.

“The experience watching David as commissioner, as close as you can be, gave me 12 years of
basic on-the job training,” Bettman said. 

■■■■

Bettman’s name was one of about 60 on a list a search firm developed when the NHL went
looking for a new leader in the summer of 1992. Unhappy with a hastily struck labor deal made
to salvage the Stanley Cup playoffs after the players went on strike for 10 days in April, the
owners had fired Gil Stein, the league president responsible for it. His replacement would get the
title of commissioner, putting it in step with its U.S. counterparts.

Bettman was the last of five finalists to interview with a search committee of five: Los Angeles
Kings owner Bruce McNall, Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider, Detroit Red Wings owner
Mike Ilitch, Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington and Montreal Canadiens President
Ronald Corey.

Heading into the meeting held shortly before Thanksgiving, he was the clear favorite of McNall,
who initially had a pipe dream of attracting Stern but happily pivoted to Bettman on Stern’s
recommendation. But some of the others needed convincing.

Bettman met their questions like the skillfully prepared litigator he had trained to be, zeroing in
on three distinct advantages that the NBA held over their league. He started with their CBA,
which lacked the salary cap he’d presided over and knew intimately. He pointed to their
broadcast contracts, which paled in comparison to the NBA’s economically and, more
importantly, lacked its breadth of distribution. He pointed to the dearth of promotion of the
NHL’s stars.
“He knows more about our business than we do,” Ilitch blurted out as Bettman dissected the
NHL’s shortcomings.

Bettman has long been described as obsessed with preparation. But he insists this wasn’t an
example of him cramming into the wee hours readying for what would be the job interview of
his life.

“I knew what we were doing,” Bettman said, “and it was obvious what they weren’t doing.”

Less than an hour after the interview, Bettman got a call from the executive recruiter.

“Congratulations, that was some performance,” he said. “They’d like you to be commissioner.”

The league offered him three-year deal at a healthy salary.

“That’s great,” Bettman said. “But three years doesn’t do it for me.”

Bettman knew the massive undertaking that awaited him. He wasn’t certain he could maintain
the support of ownership through the end. Still only 40, he didn’t want to risk being on the street
looking for his next role so soon. He was rejecting the offer unless they came up on the years.

Five minutes later the phone rang again. He had his five-year deal.

When Bettman told Stern he’d been offered the job, along with the title and requisite powers of
commissioner, Stern reminded him that he was welcome to remain at his side at the NBA
“forever,” but acknowledged the rare opportunity. He suggested that if he did take the job, he ask
for two months to tie up loose ends at the NBA.

That was best for the NBA, but Stern also suggested that it was best for Bettman, giving him
time to assess the challenges ahead and craft a plan without the pressures that would come once
he was in office. Bettman agreed to start work, officially, on Feb. 1.

On Dec. 11, 1992, owners formalized Bettman’s hire as commissioner with a vote at a quarterly
meeting at the Breakers in Palm Beach, commemorating it with a photo of Bettman in a black
NHL All-Star jersey, with “Commissioner” above the No. 1 on the back.

Soon after, he was in Vermont with his family for the holiday break. When he wasn’t on the ski
slopes with his kids, he dove into about a dozen briefing books that he’d asked new employees to
prepare, outlining their roles and their business units.

The NHL that Bettman inherited had about 40 employees spread across offices in Toronto,
Montreal and New York, with less than 15 in Manhattan. The office of his predecessor, John
Ziegler, had no overhead lighting — just lamps. Many workers arrived at 10 and left by 4,
Bettman said.

“Nothing like what I came from,” Bettman said. “But I knew exactly what I was getting into.” 
Bettman went to work adding and subtracting. When a department head came to a meeting with
a budget that showed a decline at a time that the segment was tracking up, Bettman knew
immediately that he’d have to find a new department head.

“Sometimes,” Bettman said, “it’s easier to start on a clean slate.”

There was infrastructure to build and a culture to change, but more importantly there were
connections to build, starting with his new bosses.

“It’s about people getting to know you and trusting you and gaining confidence in you so that
they will trust your judgement,” Bettman said. “So I went about building relationships with the
owners.

“I was learning who would be candid with me and who would sugarcoat it. That also became
part of why I would try to get to every club at least once in the course of the season. Yeah, the
game presentation and atmosphere is different everywhere and I get to see it. But it also gives me
quality time with an owner in addition to what we do on the phone. We just talk and get to know
each other better.”

■■■■

When the call came in urging the driver of the black SUV ferrying Bettman from the airport to
Buffalo’s KeyBank Center to speed up because he’d fallen far behind his police escort, Bettman
leaned forward to interrupt.

“Are they worried that I have to be there at 5:20?” Bettman asked.

“They’re trying to get us there on time, sir,” the off-duty police officer said.

“If we get killed we won’t be there on time,” Bettman replied. “Take your time. OK? Don’t
listen to them. Life’s too short to make life too short.”

When his car arrived near an arena loading dock, Sabres owner Terry Pegula was waiting. They
ducked off to the side to speak one-on-one briefly, then headed in. After stops at a pregame party
for Ryan Miller, the former Sabres goaltender whose number was being retired, Bettman moved
to a hallway near the home locker room for a scrum with local media. Then he headed up to the
suite level, to a box adjacent to Pegula’s.

For much of the game, they sat side by side, conversing occasionally, but with eyes glued to the
ice. Bettman left during each intermission for mostly jovial interviews on the Sabres and
Islanders TV broadcasts. When regulation ended in a tie, Bettman moved back to the adjacent
suite occupied by his travel party.

As if on cue, the 3-on-3 overtime period — a controversial innovation that Bettman championed
in 2015-16 — ended after only 12 seconds with a breakaway goal by Dylan Cozens that turned
KeyBank Center upside down.
In many ways, Buffalo is the ideal perch from which to reflect on the NHL’s accomplishments
and evolution under Bettman’s watch. The smallest of any stateside NHL market, Buffalo often
has punched above its weight class in many metrics, thanks to a high concentration of avid fans.

It was the site of the NHL’s first Winter Classic in 2008, when viewers bouncing between New
Year’s Day bowl games stumbled upon a hockey game that looked to have broken out inside a
snow globe, and found themselves glued to NBC. That game created not only a signature holiday
franchise, but also a series of outdoor games that has taken the league to five NFL stadiums,
three ballparks and four college campuses, including the Naval and Air Force academies.

Buffalo also is home to a Sabres franchise that endured five ownership changes in 14 years,
including one necessitated when owner John Rigas was jailed for fraud, leaving the team in the
hands of the league.

Bettman found local ownership to serve as custodians for six years until he corralled Pegula, a
billionaire who once held Sabres season tickets and could now afford the $189 million sale price
of the team.

The Sabres were one of six NHL franchises to seek bankruptcy protection between 1995 and
2009.

The growth of the league during Bettman’s 30-year arch has not come without considerable
angst.

“For a long time … we were dealing with a number of ownership issues, whether it be owners
who needed to get out, owners who were losing money, ownership changes,” said Bill Daly, the
deputy commissioner who joined the league as senior vice president of legal affairs in Bettman’s
fourth year. “So we spent a lot of time putting fires out, quite frankly.”

 “Sometimes,” Bettman said, “it was like whack-a-mole.”

Bettman’s first exposure to the twisting winds of commissionership came two years into his
tenure, when he embarked upon the mandate the owners gave him when he was hired: Bring cost
certainty and on-ice parity to a league in which an increasing number of teams faced financial
calamity.

With the 1994-95 season approaching and no CBA in place, Bettman advised owners that they
should lock the players out rather than running the risk of another strike, but he did so with a
caveat. They should only do so if they were prepared to cancel a large swath of the season.

The vote to postpone the start of the season was unanimous.

Within days, Bettman was getting calls from panicked clubs. They said they had voted with him
to show their support, but that they’d be bankrupt if they stuck with him through January.
Eleven days into the new year and 103 days into the lockout, the parties announced a new CBA
— with neither the salary cap nor luxury tax that the league sought.

It was a lesson Bettman would remember when the league next crossed swords with the union a
decade later.

Unable to get a cap or luxury tax, owners agreed to extend the CBA without either in 1998. By
2002, the economics had deteriorated to the point that Bettman and others at the league believed
the structure was untenable.

The NHL began to make that case publicly in 2003, sending Daly on a road tour to outline its
position with media outlets in NHL cities. At the same time, it convened regularly scheduled
planning meetings, preparing for the lengthy shutdown that seemed likely.

By the time Bettman approached owners for a lockout vote, the league could argue that it had
laid the groundwork to survive a shutdown.

It held 85% of the proceeds from the most recent round of expansion as a “rainy day” fund that
imperiled teams could draw upon. It advised clubs on finances, making sure that they made
preemptive calls to creditors in cases in which covenants might be breached. It made plans to lay
off 85% of league staff.

In the strongest terms, Bettman reminded owners that if they intended to lock out, they must be
prepared to do what no major U.S.-based pro league had done before.

“He said, ‘Are you prepared to lose the season?’” the Bruins’ Jacobs recalled. “Because if you’re
not, we shouldn’t go forward with it.”

As they had in ’94, the owners voted unanimously to lock out. But this time, they did so with a
plan to sustain their position.

“Afterwards, were there people that were second guessing themselves? Absolutely,” said Jacobs,
whose team was one of a handful that were profitable at the time. “Was it something that he had
to keep together? Sure. But he has a personality that is very forceful. He may have had to cajole
some people from point to point, but he kept that group together and that group was committed
to him.

“That’s the important part. They were committed to him. Not just the project. To him. And that’s
because he was competent and confident as well. He knew where he was going. He had an
objective and a direction. A lot of people were scrambled, and none of them saw it as clearly as
he did.”

There was a point at which, with financial pressures mounting, Bettman worried that he might be
reliving the last, ill-fated lockout. At a board meeting, one owner suggested that they abandon
their plans unless a deadline was set for a settlement. Before Bettman could respond, a brigade of
owners shot the idea down.
“He had to be in constant communication with the owners, because we knew we were not going
to play a season,” Daly said. “We were shutting down the business for a year. So you’ve got to
do a lot of hand-holding in that situation, particularly with some of our clubs — in retrospect
only a handful — who were making money in the business.

“Communication is absolutely a critical element of his leadership.”

When the lockout ended on July 13, 2005, the NHL had its salary cap and a package of new fan-
friendly rules designed to open up play and improve player safety.

Nearly two decades later, with the league enjoying a 10-year run of labor peace and an
unprecedented level of franchise stability, Jacobs said he still hears from Bettman two to three
times a week.

“He’s as close to me as anyone outside my own organization,” Jacobs said. “On things that he
seeks an opinion on, he really listens. He’s always trying to make things better and so he wants
to take your pulse on what you see.”

■■■■

Brendan Shanahan was early into his employment as a vice president in the NHL’s New York
office, still navigating the transition from 21 seasons as a player, when Bettman surprised him by
asking his opinion on a prickly issue.

Standing at the back of Bettman’s office, he saw the commissioner look through about a dozen
other staff members to lock eyes with him.

“Brendan, you don’t look happy,” Bettman said. “You don’t agree. Tell me why.”

“I must have been wearing a bit of a face of consternation or something,” said Shanahan, who
spent most of his 4½ years at the league as head of player safety before joining the Toronto
Maple Leafs as team president. “But I was not there long enough that I’d be willing to speak up
unsolicited.

“You had a whole lot of people going in a certain direction, but he wanted to hear opposing
thoughts. And that’s not the only time that happened. He appreciated having people around him
that were willing to disagree with him.”

It’s a point that Daly frequently raises with those who join the league in senior management or
are likely to interact with Bettman directly on matters.

“Because of his high intellect, he’ll have an opinion virtually immediately on every subject,”
Daly said. “It takes some people time to kind of have the nerve to disagree with him. But if you
disagree with him and you back it up and you’re right, he 100% of the time will change his view
to yours. You just have to have the ability to have that interaction with him. And you’d better be
prepared.”

Before Shanahan took a job at the league, he checked into what it was like to work for Bettman,
asking not only those he knew at the NHL, but also others who had departed the league office.
Their responses were strikingly similar.

“There’s three things they’d say,” Shanahan said. “Smartest person in every room he walks into.
Best boss that they ever had. And best person that they ever worked for, as a human. So I said,
‘I’ll go learn from that person. I‘ll work for that guy.’ And it was a good decision. No regrets.

“It’s not just how he treated me. I’m an ex-player. A lot of people treat ex-players well. It was
how he treated everyone in the organization that needed his time or his help.”

The NHL was only a year removed from losing a season to a lockout when Bettman recruited
former NFL executive and Cleveland Browns CEO John Collins to lead the league’s business
and media units.

Collins wasn’t sure, but Bettman sold him on the idea that with the labor dispute behind it, the
rules changes in place and young stars such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin about to
emerge, the league was ready to focus on building the “grand stage” that it desperately needed.

Collins took the job on the spot.

“He encourages and supports his people to be bold and innovative with their thinking,” said
Collins, who spent nine years at the league, with seven as COO. “Now, it better be buttoned up,
because he’ll see right through it. But he’ll support them. Once he agrees with the plan and has a
chance to contemplate it, he’s ready to go.

“He can be really hands on. But he should be, right? He’s the commissioner. His name is on the
puck.”

The owners who have been around him longest say he is as engaged and accessible now as he
was when they met him.

An Internet trailblazer who gave many of his employees and players their first laptops and email
addresses when he bought the Washington Capitals in 1999, Ted Leonsis remembers being
floored by how quickly Bettman responded the first couple of times he emailed the NHL
commissioner.

“I think at the time he had a BlackBerry,” Leonsis said. “I would send him an email and he
would return it in 15 or 30 seconds. So we used to have this little joke about how fast he would
return it. He took that as a point of pride.

“To this day, he is always online and he responds instantly.”

When Shanahan texts Bettman, his old boss often instantly texts back “Pick up the phone!”
Welts, who hasn’t worked with Bettman in three decades but maintains a friendship with him,
said “if I texted him right now, he’d return the text within five or 10 minutes.”

Tanenbaum can only recall one time in his 27 years of NHL ownership that Bettman didn’t
respond to one of his texts within a few hours. It was so odd that he phoned Bettman the next day
to follow up, worried that he might be ill. When Bettman asked when he’d sent it, he checked his
phone — only to find it sitting there, unsent.

“That’s the only way that’s going to happen,” Tanenbaum said, chuckling. 

Like all owners, Tanenbaum has come to expect a call of consolation from Bettman when his
season ends, whether that be the day after the regular season closes or the morning after
elimination from the playoffs.

“No matter how far you go, you feel miserable that next morning,” Tanenbaum said. “Gary
understands that. So he calls.

“The humanity and the empathy are things you may not see unless you really know him or work
with him. But it’s such a key part of him — that value system and character.”

“I was afraid of Gary when I first came into the league,” Leonsis said. “Whenever Gary or David
Stern would call, it was like you were going to the principal’s office. Now we talk all the time.”

There may be business dropped in, but the conversations often go back to grandchildren —
Bettman has seven, including five who are age 8 or younger — or holiday plans.

“That softer, people side — I don’t think people see that enough,” Leonsis said. “After you get to
know him, you find him to be a really gentle, fun, family guy with a wry sense of humor.”

Those closest to him all mention his devotion to family. His two daughters, his son and his seven
grandchildren all live within 30 minutes of their parents in New Jersey. Bettman has allowed his
oldest grandson to tag along at league events. When he announced the league’s plans to return
from the COVID shutdown during a video conference with media members, his then 3-year-old
grandson could be heard banging pots and laughing in the background.

“His two most important objectives in life are his family and his stewardship of the sport,”
Collins said. “As I was trying to figure out how to manage my work life and family life, I really
did try to be a student of how Gary and Shelli had done it. Because he was all in. He is incredibly
dedicated to that. He’s not distracted by other things. He golfs. And Shelli is a great golfer. But
Gary could care less about golf unless he’s golfing with his wife and family. He has blended it
all to support those two pillars in his life.”

■■■■
Heading to the airport after the Sabres’ overtime win, Bettman made the phone call that typically
is his last of the night, a check-in with Senior Vice President Colin Campbell, the league’s head
of hockey operations.

Bettman has learned over the years that if there is to be an early morning phone call from an
aggrieved owner, it’s likely to stem from a decision within hockey operations’ purview: a
penalty called or ignored; a goal allowed or disallowed; or anything decided through a video
review.

After casually querying Campbell about the review of the Sabres’ game-ending goal, Bettman
quickly changed the subject, careful not to sound like he was second-guessing. Satisfied that
there were no embers left burning to threaten his Saturday morning, he bid Campbell goodnight.

From Buffalo, Bettman was bound for a weekend in Boca Raton, where he purchased a home
two years ago.

Bettman has traveled this way throughout his tenure, heading to the airport immediately
following games, then flying through the night to sleep in his own bed, if only for a few hours.
He eschews hotels, considering the ride to and from them and the hours spent sleeping there
wastes of time.

Sometimes, Bettman works on the flight home. He may read or watch a movie. If he’s in the air
long enough, he may sleep.

“There’s an ongoing flow, a dynamic aspect to what all of us do,” Bettman said, explaining the
addictive nature of the career path that chose him 42 years ago, when his law firm mentor told
him about a job opening at the NBA. “Every day is new. Every day is a challenge. Every phone
call. Every email. It’s about the most intellectually stimulating thing you can do. It’s fun. It’s
exciting. It’s hard work and there’s responsibility. But to be able to have that every day — and
not just the days, but the nights.”

His voice trailed off as he thought back to the night before, when he was driving home from an
Islanders game at UBS Arena. He was stuck in traffic when his phone rang at 10:47. Bettman
dutifully took the call from an owner on the West Coast.

“There’s no on and off switch,” Bettman said. “My wife coined it well. She said this isn’t a job.
It’s a lifestyle. So it may be tough to give up the lifestyle. Because it’s a great lifestyle. It’s not
that it’s fun all the time or that it’s not exhausting or even disappointing on occasion.

“That’s what makes it great.”