Still more than two weeks after the announcement that owner Mark Cuban would sell a majority stake of the Mavericks to Miriam Adelson, the “basic question surrounding the sale" of why Cuban made the deal "remains mostly unanswered,” according to Kevin Draper of the N.Y. TIMES. What “is clear” is that the sale “represents a window into the rapidly changing nature of the business of sports.” Cuban bought the Mavericks in 2000 when professional sports teams were still “mainly just teams,” but now they are “anchors for larger business enterprises.” Draper wrote Cuban is “many things” but what he is not is a “real estate mogul” which could be a possible motivation for the sale. Currently, Cuban owns “about three-quarters” of the Mavericks, with the rest held by a handful of minority owners. But sources said that after the sale, Cuban will “own about a quarter, and the Adelson and Dumont families nearly three-quarters, with the rest spread among some minority owners.” Draper noted Adelson’s son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, will be the Mavericks governor and vote on leaguewide matters, but Cuban “will run its basketball operations.” Draper wrote the “bet,” then, seems to be that Cuban “will earn billions from a team he paid $285 million for two decades ago; he will continue to participate in the part of team ownership he likes the most; and if the Adelsons and Las Vegas Sands can muscle through a new arena and casino complex, one day his quarter of the team might be worth as much as the three-quarters he used to own” (N.Y. TIMES, 12/10).
ALREADY MAKING MOVES: In Dallas, Brown & Shaikh reported a business entity connected to Las Vegas Sands Corp. “bought 108 acres across from the former Texas Stadium site in Irving months before” the gambling empire’s matriarch, Adelson, made a deal to acquire a controlling stake in the Mavericks. It “isn’t immediately known” what the Sands entity “intends to do with the property, but the city of Irving has long sought a marquee project for the site.” Texas Stadium, the former home of the Cowboys, was demolished in 2010 and the site has since been used as a highway construction staging area (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 12/8).
