Mike Berry ’89 is at the top of his game. The sports marketer is president of Austin’s new National Basketball Developmental League as well as COO of Southwest Basketball LLC, where he works with the presidents of the company’s three other new NBA minor league teams in Fort Worth, Albuquerque and Tulsa. All four teams hit the NBDL courts this fall.

But Berry is no rookie to the game. The TCU finance major got hooked on sports marketing while working on his MBA at the University of Oregon. He worked with NBA teams in Indiana, Portland and San Antonio before joining ranks with the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club in 2001. Last fall, his former boss — former Indiana Pacers GM David Kahn — began recruiting Berry to the NBA’s developmental league. “I just became more intrigued by it and it sounded like a great opportunity,” Berry said. “I had never been a part of a startup, building something from the ground up.”

It’s a three-point swish for Berry: He gets to help build a program, Southwest’s four vibrant downtown markets are ripe with opportunity, and the move brought the Berrys back to family and old friends in Texas.

Launching new teams in four markets simultaneously is “pretty rare in this day and age of ownership,” and breaking into the hotly contested entertainment market is no easy feat, but the Southwest team is enjoying the challenge. “Through our new franchises, I think we can deliver a first-class basketball and entertainment product in a fun, affordable and intimate viewing atmosphere unlike other sports venues in our markets,” Berry said.

Long term, he hopes individual franchises will become farm teams for specific NBA teams, enabling fans to follow players’ careers as they advance to the next level.