Exclusive: Adam Silver on winning the Edison Achievement Award: ‘Sports remind us that some of the most important forms of innovation are human’

If you look at Adam Silver’s background, you wouldn’t think he’d eventually come to lead the NBA, nor bring it to be the massive marketing and media powerhouse it is today.

The son of a labor lawyer, he grew up in Rye, New York, editing at his high school newspaper and running cross country. He studied political science at Duke University, clerked for a federal judge, and then made partner at a major New York law firm. None of that would have screamed sports mogul.

But in 1992, when he joined the NBA as a junior staffer under then-Commissioner David Stern, Silver quickly rose over a three-decade-plus career from special assistant to chief of staff, to president of NBA Entertainment and finally, deputy commissioner. It wasn’t until February 2014 that he was elected to be the league’s fifth commissioner.

Over the course of his 12-year tenure in the position, Silver brought the league back from what many fans initially saw as a fledging sport struggling to keep up with the growing viewership of the NFL and MLB. The hey-day of the entertainment era: (Dr. Jerry Buss screaming “Showtime!” after giving Paula Abdul her big start probably emphasizes this most prominently) from growing cross-country feuds to the sport taking on a global stage during the 1992 Olympics was largely seen as the height of the sport. Silver, learning from Stern who brought the league from a league where fans would tape delay the finals to a $5 billion-a-year global industry, took that leadership to another level.

And on Thursday night, we was awarded for that leadership: Silver became the first sports executive in the award’s 35-year history to receive the Edison Achievement Award. The honor, often called the “Oscars of Innovation,” places Silver alongside past recipients including Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang.

The Edison Achievement Award is presented annually to leaders who have made significant and lasting contributions to innovation and human-centered design. Silver received the award at a ceremony in Fort Myers, Fla. Rihanna was also honored this year.

“My role is to serve as a steward of the NBA–preserving the 80-year history and legacy of our league while helping to chart its future,” Silver told Fortune in an exclusive interview following his receiving of the award. “That requires constant collaboration and communication with all of our stakeholders.”

Since taking the helm as commissioner, Silver has overseen an era of aggressive expansion and reinvention. He presides over five professional leagues: the NBA, WNBA, NBA G League, NBA 2K League, and the Basketball Africa League. Last year, he secured landmark 11-year media rights deals with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon worth a combined $76 billion.

“Basketball is truly a global sport and that’s been a major catalyst for the NBA and its continued growth and influence over the years,” Silver said.

Edison Awards CEO Frank Bonafilia called Silver a transformative figure.

“Adam Silver has not only upheld the NBA’s legacy as a premier global sports league but has boldly reinvented it for the 21st century,” Bonafilia said.

Reimagining the regular season

Among Silver’s most visible innovations are structural changes to the NBA calendar designed to raise the stakes of regular-season play. The NBA Cup, an in-season tournament now in its third year, and the Play-In Tournament, introduced during the 2020-21 season, were both launched under his watch.

“Competitions like the NBA Cup and the Play-In Tournament were designed to add more games of consequence and excitement during the regular season,” Silver said. “As a result, we’ve seen record fan interest—whether you look at viewership, attendance, or social media engagement.”

Silver has also pushed the NBA’s footprint into new markets, none more notable than Africa, where the Basketball Africa League launched in 2019 as a partnership between NBA Africa and the International Basketball Federation. The league now features 12 teams from across the continent.

“The NBA and the game of basketball have deep roots in Africa, which laid the groundwork for the creation of the Basketball Africa League,” Silver said. “Our focus is less about exporting the NBA product as it exists in North America and more about building a locally relevant league that is authentic to Africa.”

Silver’s vision extends to how fans consume the game. With the NBA’s new media partners, he’s betting on streaming technology and artificial intelligence to overhaul the broadcast experience.

“Working with our media partners, we’re focused on developing hyper-personalized and hyper-localized broadcasts that reimagine the live viewing experience for our fans,” Silver said. “Through streaming technology and artificial intelligence, we want to give fans the ability to experience the game exactly the way they want.”

Lessons from the Bubble and sports management

The Edison Award also nods to Silver’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the NBA became the first major U.S. sports league to suspend its season in March 2020, and then pioneered the “NBA Bubble” at Walt Disney World to complete play. The Bubble has been seen as a case study of crisis management. Instead of cancelling the season or scrambling for alternatives way of playing the high-contact sport, Silver brainstormed the Bubble and it has largely been seen as a success, even when other leagues failed to replicate it.

“The experience of operating through a pandemic was a reminder that there will always be things outside of your control, no matter how prepared you are,” Silver said. “We tried to maintain a fact-based mindset, even as information around Covid was changing by the day. Through collaboration, communication, and compromise, the NBA community came together to create the ‘NBA Bubble’ and successfully complete our season.”

For Silver, the Edison honor carries a broader message about what innovation means in sports.

“A lot of what we consider innovation is about efficiency, convenience, and speed. Those things matter a lot,” Silver said. “But sports remind us that some of the most important forms of innovation are human— things like building trust, creating identity, and fostering belonging.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com