For the first time since January of 2000, Mark Cuban on Wednesday night came to American Airlines Center not as majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but as a 27% stakeholder.
He also came with a considerably larger bank account, at least $2 billion higher, after his sale of majority interest of the team to Miriam Adelson and Patrick and Sivan Dumont was approved with a 29-0 vote by the NBA Board of Governors.
Cuban arrived on the American Airlines Center court at 4:36 p.m. to get up some shots before Mavericks and Cavaliers players arrived to warm up. After shooting for about 30 minutes, Cuban answered questions from a small group of reporters, including from The Dallas Morning News. Questions and answers are lightly edited for clarity.
Q: How are you feeling about today’s events?
CUBAN: I feel really good. I think it’s a great partnership. It’s what the team needed on the court and off. You know I’ll still be overseeing the basketball side of it, but having a partner like Patrick, Sivan and Miriam and their ability to build and to redevelop the arena and whatever comes next beyond that, it just puts us in a much better position to compete. That’s all. That’s what it comes down to.
Cuban speaks pic.twitter.com/fFFrUVRjZC
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) December 27, 2023
Q: You don’t feel any different tonight?
CUBAN: My jump shot is still soft. . . Hey, I’m 65 and I’m still out there shooting. That’s all that matters. But nothing else changes.
Q: What exactly is the agreement in terms of basketball operations? Is it in the sale agreement?
CUBAN: No, because you don’t do that in a sale agreement. No, there’s no contractual (agreement). Like when I came in and bought the Mavs, there were no changes in contracts.
Q: So there’s essentially a handshake agreement?
CUBAN: It’s a partnership, right? They’re not basketball people; I’m not a real estate person. That’s why I did it. I could have gotten more money selling it to somebody else. Obviously, I’m really excited about everything, but this was a great partnership. I’ve known these guys for a long time. They’re great at the things I’m not good at.
Q: Why was keeping control of basketball operations important to you?
CUBAN: Because it’s what I love to do. But I’m also a realist, and also I’m self-aware. I know what I’m good at. When I first bought the team, I knew more about the technology and the internet, and all the streaming and everything and everything than anybody else in the NBA. So I had a real advantage there.
Now all of that, 23, 24 years later, that’s not the advantage anymore. Now you see what other teams are doing. You saw what the Wizards just did. The advantage is ‘What can you build and where?’ You need to have somebody that’s really, really, really good at that. And Patrick, and Miriam are the best, literally in the world.
So when you get a world-class partner who can come in and grow your revenue base so you’re not dependent on the things that you weren’t in the past? That’s a huge win. And they’re good people. They’re committed to Dallas. They’re committed to winning. They’ve got great hearts. I’ve known them forever.
Q: Two or three years ago you told me that hopefully you would own the Mavs for another 40 years.
CUBAN: It changed.
Q: What changed?
CUBAN: Media companies are going out of business. Or they’re consolidating. That world is changing. And so what went from an advantage was not so much an advantage anymore. ...
And it was two or three years ago, I started talking about a casino and destination resort. And I knew, and I told you guys then, I wasn’t gonna be the one to build it. It makes sense, if someone’s gonna come in as a partner and invest potentially billions of dollars, they’re gonna want equity.
Mark Cuban often has told me his favorite part about owning the Mavericks is that he can get up shots in @AACenter whenever he wants. Tonight he’s doing so for the last time as majority owner. pic.twitter.com/r6WCMCazMZ
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) December 27, 2023
Q: How does this benefit the basketball product?
CUBAN: It’s another basic revenue that wasn’t there before. I’ve never really focused on that side of things at all. Business side was the business side as long as we were decent. Cynt has done a great job. And I was happy. Losing money was like part of the drill, but it just changed. When your largest revenue source goes away (laughs) and you guys know how the media landscape has changed.
To able to get the best of both worlds with a great partner, it just doesn’t come along all the time. It’s better to be ahead of it than to be behind the curve.
Q: Is it still your belief that the new arena will be built in Dallas?
CUBAN: For sure.
Q: In Dallas city limits?
CUBAN: Dallas proper.
Q: Hiring and firing of coaches and free agents — you always had the final say in that. Will you still have it?
CUBAN: Yeah, unless we want to go hire somebody that costs a couple hundred million dollars a year, yeah.
Q: What happens if in two years the Adelson family doesn’t like the way things are going on the basketball side?
CUBAN: It’s like anything, they’d have final say, for sure. He’s the governor. ... I’m sure we would work it out.
Q: Decisions in terms of luxury tax and basketball?
CUBAN: They’ve basically just said ‘Do what you’ve got to do. I want a new arena.’ Financially, we’re in a far better position as of this afternoon than we were yesterday afternoon, to be able to compete like that. What did someone say about being a middle-class billionaire? Those are facts in this day and age. It really matters. Having the partnership and having eventually new and deeper revenue sources allows us to be better.
Q: Has the money actually hit your bank account?
CUBAN: (Smiles wide)
Q: Are you still a middle-class billionaire?
CUBAN: Relatively speaking, yeah. But I still own 27% [of the Mavericks]. And those of you who watch Shark Tank on Friday nights on ABC know that I say all the time that, for this particular case, 27% of a watermelon is a whole lot better than 27% of a grape. And so I think the value of the asset went up significantly.
Again, from the fan side, it’s a huge plus. They’re committed to the city. ... It’s not like, ‘OK, we’ll see what happens.’ I came in [in 2000], I wanted to be a basketball person. That’s not them.
I wanted to be the tech guy and I raised hell, technology, changing, all that. That’s not them. Their version of impact is going to be creating that destination that hopefully changes tourism in Dallas and Texas forever. I mean, that’s a huge impact. Being part of an organization like that gives you a foundation financially.
If you look at the teams that spend the most money right now, it’s not because of their media deals. It’s because of their real estate empires that they’ve built. ... And I have no knowledge in that at all. It’s been hard enough learning the pharmacy and basketball business, let alone trying to learn real estate as well.
Q: How active will you be in helping gambling become legal in Texas?
CUBAN: Because I think it’s the right thing for the state of Texas. You know, honestly, I don’t care so much about sports betting. That really doesn’t interest me.
I don’t want to speak for Miriam and Patrick. I’ll let them speak for themselves. But if you look at destination-resort-casinos, the casino part of it is tiny relative to the whole destination aspect. Can you imagine building The Venetian [Resort] in Dallas, Texas? That would be insane.
I think that type of impact is equivalent of what we tried to do with technology back in 2000, about 24 years ago.
Q: This is happening at the same time roughly that you’re stepping away from Shark Tank. You’re not growing weary of the spotlight?
CUBAN: Yeah, that’s me. I’m shy. No, I’ve got another year on Shark Tank and those reruns will run for the next 757.
Q: Emotions?
CUBAN: Not really. My kids were like, ‘Will we still have the same tickets?’ Yeah. ‘Same seats.’ Yeah. Adam [Silver] was like, ‘You know I can still fine you for screaming at the refs.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ The only thing that changes, really, is I don’t get to go to the Board of Governors meeting except when the alternate governors go, and I’m fine with that, trust me, because I wasn’t going through a lot of them as it was.
Q: What can you tell us about the new majority owners?
CUBAN: Miriam probably won’t be here as much, but Patrick and Sivan are just really good people with good hearts. They’ve got young kids that love basketball, so you’ll see their kids running around just like you saw my kids running around when they came to games. Good family. Good people. I’m excited for the partnership.
Q: Covering the Cowboys, it’s hard to imagine them not being part of the Jones family. Did you ever have that vision?
Cuban: It’s different, right? If you look at the age of my kids — 14, 17 and 20 — and I’m 65. I know I look 25 and act 15, but I’m 65. Just do the math. If it takes 20 years for one of them to really learn or any of them know if they really want to do it. And then if they decide they don’t want to do it and all of a sudden I’m 85 years old? And my kids decide they want to do better things, then what?
So I wanted to get ahead of it. If I would have had kids 20 years earlier, like Jerry did, then it might have been different. But the math is math.
And so like I said, I’m self aware, and I don’t want to be in a position where I look back, ‘Woulda, coulda, shoulda. But now it’s just like, if you get to pick the partnership that you needed and wanted?
Q: Are you proud of what you’ve done in nearly 25 years?
CUBAN: (turning emotional) I don’t know if proud is the right word, but I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s not so much that it’s changing. It’s just that it’s been 23 years. That’s the insane part. Just like, ‘Wow.’ Time flies.
Q: How were you notified that the sale was approved?
CUBAN: I looked at my bank statement.
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