LOS ANGELES – This should indicate how different life is for Gillian Zucker these days.

A couple of weeks ago, as anyone with access to social media should now be aware, Fergie showed up at Staples Center and did a brief performance during a Clippers game, the upshot of which was the now memorable clip of owner Steve Ballmer rocking out – trying to, anyway.

Had Zucker made that arrangement in her previous role, as president of Auto Club Speedway, it would have immediately been excoriated by the Guardians of NASCAR Tradition as another Hollywood encroachment on their sport.

Here, as the Clippers’ president of business operations, it’s just a normal day in the NBA, part of the melding of sport, entertainment and celebrity of which the league has often been in the forefront.

Which suggests that Zucker has found her comfort zone as a sports executive.

She is one of just a handful of women to serve in such a visible role with a franchise in one of North America’s four major team sports (another being the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss), and as such she has already received feedback from other women who see her as a groundbreaker and a role model.

Yet, as much as she misses motorsports — she seemed quite regretful that her current employer has a game the same day as Fontana’s next major race, the Auto Club 400 in March — her strengths as an executive just seem a better fit in the more progressive NBA.

In that particular instance, the mission was accomplished pretty spectacularly.

“It was a lot of fun being able to put together something like that and also be able to have an (attraction) that had an impact that wasn’t just national — it was global,” Zucker said during a conversation at Staples Center last week.

“There were a lot of people working on the strategy behind that from the beginning. When we were looking at that, we were looking at … something that was unexpected, that could take over the conversation from a social spectrum.

“I think it set an expectation now for what this organization is about. When we do things they’re going to be surprising, they’re going to be different and hopefully they’re going to be what that was, taking entertainment to a new level.”

At Fontana, she was responsible for everything involving the track, which meant complaints about parking, ticket prices, and even the condition of the track surface landed on her desk. With the Clippers she can concentrate on the business operation; if anyone has complaints with the facility, she can just refer them to AEG.

That narrower focus provides more opportunities to come up with ideas and implement them, although another difference is that instead of two or three big events a season, now there are 41 plus playoffs.

In motorsports, there’s time to plan and to brainstorm. In the NBA, the next home date always seems to be just around the corner. But, Zucker said, if something isn’t right at an NBA game it can be changed in short order; at the track, the wait is measured in months rather than days.

“It’s really nice to be able to say, ‘Come on back, and let us show you what we can do better,’ ” she said.

This is almost a blank canvas, an opportunity for reinvention – from making the game experience the most technologically advanced in sports, which is Ballmer’s stated goal, all the way down to figuring out how the seats at the top of the arena become the most desirable in the building. Seriously, that’s on her radar.

“There’s a spirit of freshness,” she said. “Everyone feels inspired and excited and really looking for what’s new, what’s next and how do we create something that is beyond what any of us could have imagined.”

That challenge, that opportunity, led Zucker to pursue this job almost from the moment that Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the team from Donald Sterling became official.

“I spent a lot of time talking to people … ‘What do you know about this? Where is it going to lead? Is it going to be posted? Is he going to look for somebody or run (the business side) himself?’” she recalled. “I just put myself in a place to be considered for the job.

“I did get put in the mix and then I continued to push for a meeting. Once we had that meeting, what it boiled down to was that I felt if we had a connection, this would be the right thing.”

They did and it was. Ballmer interviewed a reported 25 to 30 candidates for the position, and kept coming back to Zucker, telling reporters after he hired her: “I’ve had a chance to work with a lot of very energetic, very intense, very bright people in my time at Microsoft and Gillian compares very favorably amongst the most enthusiastic people I’ve ever had a chance to work with.”

Given Ballmer’s own enthusiasm level, that’s high praise. But anyone Zucker came into contact with at Auto Club Speedway would understand perfectly.

Then there is this: Throughout her tenure in Fontana, she made the daily commute from Los Angeles and back.

“Someone asked me about Steve Ballmer, ‘Can he do anything?’”Zucker said with a laugh.

“Well, he created three extra hours in my day.”

Contact the writer: jalexander@pe.com