The NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved a major sale of the Dallas Mavericks from billionaire investor Mark Cuban to billionaire casino magnate Miriam Adelson, giving Adelson and her family the majority stake in the franchise, in a deal estimated at roughly US$3.5 billion.
The NBA approved Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s sale of a majority stake to billionaire Miriam Adelson.
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Key Facts
Adelson, the widow of late Las Vegas Sands CEO and major GOP donor Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, will take a 73% majority stake in the Mavericks in a deal that allows Cuban to maintain a 27% minority stake and continue to serve as the team’s head of basketball operations.
Adelson will own the majority stake alongside her family and the family of Sivan and Patrick Dumont, the president and COO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., according to a statement from the league.
Dumont will also serve as the Mavericks’ governor, with Cuban retaining a role with the team as its alternate governor, according to NBA insider Marc Stein.
Adelson had just last month sold $2 billion in Las Vegas Sands shares in an effort to clear up funding to buy a professional sports team, the Sands announced, though initial reports speculated Adelson’s interest would be in a Las Vegas team, as the city undergoes a professional sports renaissance with the relocation of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders and MLB’s Oakland Raiders from Oakland and the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces from San Antonio.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Cuban’s real time net worth to be roughly $6.2 billion, making the founder of Broadcast.com and low-cost pharmaceutical company Cost Plus Drugs the world’s 455th richest person. Forbes pegs Adelson’s net worth at approximately $32.5 billion, making her the world’s 45th richest person.
What To Watch For
The deal, which is expected to close this week, gives Adelson control of the NBA Western Conference’s fifth place team. The Mavericks, highlighted by guards Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, sit at 18-12 in the Western Conference, 4.5 games behind the first-place Minnesota Timberwolves, as the NBA season nears its half-way mark. The Mavericks missed the playoffs last year and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons. The team has made it to the NBA Finals twice, losing in 2006 and beating the Miami Heat in 2011 for the franchise’s only NBA championship.
Tangent
Cuban also announced last month he plans to leave ABC’s investment game show “Shark Tank” at the end of the series’ ongoing season, wrapping a 10-year stint. During that time, Cuban has invested more than $29 million in at least 85 companies who made business proposals to a cast of so-called sharks. Cuban made the announcement on the “All The Smoke” podcast, admitting he’s slightly down on his investments from the show, though he said the value of many of those investments are doing well, including Dude Wipes and BeatBox Beverages.
This post originally appeared on Forbes.com
