By Shams Charania, Mike Vorkunov and Tim Cato
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is selling a majority stake in the franchise to Miriam Adelson and her family for an amount in the $3.5 billion range, league sources said. Cuban, however, will remain part of the team and in full control of basketball operations.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced Tuesday in an SEC filing that Adelson sold $2 billion worth of stock in the company to go towards buying a majority stake in a sports franchise, with his own money. This is about 10 percent of his stake.
“We have been advised by the Selling Stockholders that they currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering, together with additional cash on hand, to fund the purchase of a majority interest in a professional sports franchise pursuant to an existing purchase agreement, subject to customary league approvals,” Las Vegas Sands said in the SEC filing.
Adelson is the largest shareholder in Las Vegas Sands Corp., which was previously owned and operated by her late husband, Sheldon Adelson. He is one of the richest men in the world; Forbes named her the 35th richest this year and the fifth richest woman, with an estimated net worth of $32.3 billion. The Las Vegas Sands Corp. had $2.8 billion in revenue in the third quarter of its fiscal year alone. Sheldon Adelson is a casino tycoon who built the Sands Casino in Las Vegas and then several other casino resorts in Singapore and Macao.
He and Miriam Adelson are prominent Republican donors and contributors to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, as well as supporters of Israel and Jewish causes. They donated $180 million to Republican campaigns and political action committees in 2020, according to Forbesand has reportedly given nearly $500 million to Birthright Israel over the past two decades.
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DEEP
Who is Miriam Adelson, the casino billionaire buying the Mavs from Mark Cuban?
Adelson’s expertise in real estate and arena development, as well as launching casino gaming and entertainment in Dallas were attractive factors in Cuban’s sale, league sources said. He told the Dallas Morning News last year that he intended to partner with Las Vegas Sands Corp. to build a casino and resort in Dallas that would also include a Mavericks venue. Texas does not have legal sports betting.
Miriam Adelson will add Mavericks to many diverse investments. The family owns two daily newspapers — Israel Hayom sa Israel and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
No asset will invite as much interest, however, as the Mavericks. Cuban ate it up and helped drive the intrigue of the franchise. He bought the Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million and while he didn’t make his first fortune through the team — he did sell Broadcast.com on Yahoo! in 1999 at the height of the dot com boom — Cuban gained a measure of fame and status as its owner. He was loud and visible in Dallas, often blocking referees from his courtside seat early in his tenure, but the Mavericks made two NBA Finals and made the playoffs in all but five of those seasons. he’s the team.
Cuban will continue to serve as the franchise’s head of basketball operations if the NBA approves the deal — the rare owner who sells his majority stake but remains at the helm. But it could also open him up to new endeavors, too. He then built his public profile over the years, starring as a judge on Shark Tank and building a reputation as a prominent entrepreneur. Cuban has also had several public dalliances with a political career.
For more than two decades, Cuban has been as much the face of the Mavericks as any of the stars who played for the franchise during that time. Loud, opinionated, and often fined by the NBA, Cuban put himself front and center during the nearly 23 years he owned the franchise. He became a staple on the sidelines and a leading voice in the front office. That strategy worked well for the Mavericks; they won an NBA title in 2011 and nearly another in 2006.
NBA reporter Marc Stein was the first to report that the sale was in the process.
Why Cuban made the move
This transaction is interesting and surprising. At a time when the NBA, and every other sports league, is leaning toward sports betting, the Mavericks are being bought by the family of one of the nation’s biggest casino tycoons, Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021. Miriam Adelson and The Miriam The Adelson Trust leads a group that owns 57 percent of Las Vegas Sand Corp., which owns and operates casinos around the world. If approved, Adelson would become the third woman to become the principal owner of an NBA team at this time, joining Jeanie Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers and Gayle Benson of the New Orleans Pelicans. Jody Allen manages the Portland Trail Blazers as chairwoman of the Paul G. Allen Trust.
This is the second basketball team the Adelson family has purchased this year. Matan Adelson, Miriam’s son, bought Hapoel Jerusalem, an Israeli club that also plays in the EuroCup, this summer.
This transaction also ends a seemingly endless climb in valuation for NBA teams. The value of the teams seems to have continued to rise and to the right over the past decade. But after the Hornets were sold for $3 billion earlier this year, and a 25 percent stake in the Bucks went for a $3.5 billion valuation, and Mat Ishbia bought a majority stake in the Suns for $4 billion, the Mavericks are not leading there. number. It’s a little surprising since Dallas-Fort Worth is the fifth largest media market in the country, and Dallas is the ninth largest city by population. Not to mention that the Mavericks have been successful lately and they have one of the biggest stars in the NBA in Luka Doncic.
It’s also a win for Cuban, who continues to run basketball ops despite selling most of his shares. — Mike Vorkunov, national basketball business reporter
Cuban has already ceded some front-office influence to Nico Harrison
Cuban’s identity has been so closely tied to the Mavericks since he bought the team in 2000 that his decision to sell was surprising. But this is why he got something unprecedented: the constant control of basketball operations, which the Cuban has long been known for.
Since Nico Harrison was hired as general manager in 2021, Cuban has been a less influential figure in front-office matters: still actively involved and aware of what’s going on but leaving more of those decisions to Harrison, who brought a tighter structure to the team than in the past under former general manager Donnie Nelson.
We may not know what the unique Cuban arrangement means, on a functional level, until more time has passed. Perhaps there were other factors leading to Cuban’s decision to sell, but there’s no question the Mavericks are headed into an unknown future. — Tim Cato, Mavericks staff writer
Required reading
(Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)