About 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. 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 since the start of the 2021–22 season. 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 United States' Sun Belt at the expense of the more traditional markets in Canada and the Northern United States. Bettman has also been a central figure in 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. On December 12, 1992, Bettman was elected as the first commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL). Bettman quickly accomplished one of his stated goals, signing a five-year, $155 million deal with the Fox Broadcasting Company to broadcast NHL games nationally in the U.S. beginning in the 1994–95 season. By the end of the deal in 2004, the owners were claiming that player salaries had grown far faster than revenues, and that the league as a whole lost over US$300 million in 2002–03.
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