Bob Briner, 63, Innovator in Tennis and Television

By FRANK LITSKY

The New York Times

June 20, 1999

Bob Briner, a pioneer professional tennis administrator and later a television sports executive, died Friday night in his home in Greenville, Ill. He was 63.

He learned last September that he had abdominal cancer, his company, ProServ, said.

Mr. Briner was a key figure in bringing television and sponsor dollars to tennis. The sport's open era, in which players could compete for prize money, began in 1968. Prize money for the first professional tour totaled $400,000. Now, first-place money in a Grand Slam tournament exceeds that.

From 1968 to 1971, Mr. Briner was an executive of the new World Championship Tennis. With Jack Kramer and Donald Dell, he founded the Association of Tennis Professionals, and as its executive director from 1975 to 1979 he supervised the Grand Prix tournament tour and helped bring together the warring governing bodies of men's tennis. In 1979, he left the ATP and, with Dell, a lawyer and former Davis Cup captain, founded ProServ Television. In 1986, he and Arthur Ashe won Emmys for the program, ''A Hard Road to Glory.''

In 1976, Mr. Briner became the first Western sports executive to enter China after the Cultural Revolution and introduced National Basketball Association games to television there. He developed major tennis tournaments in Israel, Iran, Cuba, South Africa and the Soviet Union.

Robert Albert Briner Jr. stood 6 feet 4 inches and weighed more than 300 pounds. He was born Aug. 28, 1935, in Dallas. In 1956, he earned a degree in business and English from Greenville College. He worked as a high school football and cross-country coach in Kansas, a college sports administrator in Ohio and Michigan, a promotions executive for the Miami Dolphins football team and a general manager of the Dallas Chaparrals basketball team, which became the San Antonio Spurs.

In 1957, he married Marty Jacobs of Oil City, Pa. He is survived by his wife; a son, Rob of Evans, Colo.; two daughters, Lynn Briner of Dallas and Lee Ganton of Spring Arbor, Mich., and three grandsons.

In 1996, he retired as ProServ president. Before and since, he spoke in churches and on college campuses and wrote seven books, focusing on Christianity.

In his book and the accompanying discussion guide, Bob Briner issues a clear call for Christians to reclaim culture by joining it rather than running from or boycotting it.