Gary Bettman

Gary Bruce Bettman (born June 2, 1952) is an American sports executive who serves as the commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL), a post he has held since February 1, 1993.

Previously, Bettman was a senior vice president and general counsel to the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Bettman is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law.

He studied industrial and labor relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he was a brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and graduated in 1974.

After receiving a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law in 1977, Bettman joined the New York City law firm of Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn.

Bettman lives with his wife, Shelli, and their three children Lauren, Jordan, and Brittany.

He is a resident of Saddle River, New Jersey.

Bettman joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1981, serving mainly in the marketing and legal departments.

Bettman rose to third in command of the NBA, spending many years as the league's general counsel and senior vice president.

Bettman played a key role in the development of the soft salary cap system implemented and agreed by the NBA in 1983, a system it continues to use today.

Led by Bettman, the league focused expansion and relocation efforts during the rest of the 1990s on the American South, working to expand the league's footprint across the country.

In addition, four franchises relocated during the 1990s under Bettman: The Minnesota North Stars to Dallas (1993), the Quebec Nordiques to Denver (1995), the original Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix (1996), and the Hartford Whalers to North Carolina (1997).

This move towards southern markets was heavily criticized as well, however, with fans in Canada and the Northern United States lamenting the move away from "traditional hockey markets".

However, Bettman also championed the Canadian assistance plan, a revenue sharing agreement that saw American teams give money to help support the four small-market Canadian teams—Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver—throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The results of expanding to southern markets has been mixed.

There has been significant growth in the sport of hockey at the grassroots level with children in the U.S. South playing the game in increasing numbers.

However, some of these southern teams have not been financially successful.

When Bettman started as commissioner, the league had already expanded by three teams to 24 starting with the 1991–92 season, and two more were set to be announced by the expansion committee: the Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, who would begin play in 1993–94.

On December 12, 1992, Bettman was elected as the first commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL).

He took office on February 1, 1993; until July 1 he served alongside Gil Stein, who served as the NHL's final president.

The owners hired Bettman with the mandate of selling the game in the U.S. market, ending labor unrest, completing expansion plans, and modernizing the views of the "old guard" within the ownership ranks.

The Nashville Predators (1998), Atlanta Thrashers (1999), Minnesota Wild (2000), and Columbus Blue Jackets (2000) completed this expansion period, bringing the NHL to 30 teams.

After joining the league in 1999, the Atlanta Thrashers suffered financial losses and ownership struggles, while appearing in the playoffs only one time.

Bettman has also been a central figure of three labor stoppages, including the 2004–05 NHL lockout that saw the entire season canceled.

These controversies have made him unpopular with many fans around the league.

Bettman was born to a Jewish family in Queens, New York.

Bettman was satirized in this vein as the character "Harry Buttman" in the 2006 Canadian movie Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

Critics have also accused Bettman of having an "anti-Canadian" agenda, citing the relocation of the franchises in Quebec City and Winnipeg and his apparent refusal to help stop it, along with the aborted sale of the Nashville Predators in 2007 to interests that would have moved the team to Hamilton, Ontario.

Jim Balsillie accused Bettman of forcing the Predators to end negotiations with him to purchase the team.

The Phoenix Coyotes eventually filed for bankruptcy in May 2009, after incurring several hundred million dollars of losses since their 1996 move from Winnipeg.

Under Bettman, the league then took control over the team later that year in order to stabilize the club's operations and then resell it to a new owner who would be committed to stay in the Phoenix market.

It took several years for the League to find a viable ownership group.

In 2011 they were sold to True North Sports and Entertainment, who then relocated the team to Winnipeg, a stark reversal of the league's attempts to expand into the southern markets.

In May 2014, Bettman was named "sports executive of the year" by the SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.

In 2016, Bettman was inducted as a member of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Bettman's tenure in the NHL has been controversial.

He has often been criticized for attempting to give the game a mass appeal, and for expanding the league into non-traditional hockey markets such as the Sun Belt at the expense of the more traditional markets in Canada and the Northern United States.

Bettman was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018.

He oversaw the expansion of the NHL's footprint across the United States, with eight new teams added during his tenure, bringing the NHL to 32 teams as of the start of the 2021–22 season.

His half-brother Jeffrey Pollack is also a sports executive and served as President of the XFL from 2018-2021.