For almost 25 years, Mark Cuban has been a familiar face at the Dallas Mavericks games. He bought the team in 2000 when they had young, talented players Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavericks eventually lost Nash, but Nowitzki became a legend in Dallas sports.
The Mavericks reached the NBA Finals in 2006 and won a championship in 2011. After some lean years, they are hoping to rebuild around Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic.
They are going to be doing it under another owner, nonetheless. As NBA insider Shams Charania reported, Cuban is selling most of his stake in the Mavericks to Miriam Adelson, a physician and casino heiress of Las Vegas Sands. The valuation of the sale is worth around $3.5 billion.
Here is where the deal takes an interesting turn: Cuban will retain total control of basketball operations for the Mavericks. He will also keep an undisclosed amount of the shares in the team. Normally, when an owner sells their stake, they are removed from most, if not all, team activities. However, Cuban has always prided himself on doing things slightly differently.
It is a wild financial gain for Cuban, who bought the Mavericks in January 2000 for $285 million. In April of the previous year, he sold the firm he founded, Broadcast.net (formerly AudioNet), to Yahoo for an impressive $5.7 billion.
Mark famously hedged his share of the $5.7 billion through options, locking in $1.4 billion in proceeds. Had he not done that, his Yahoo shares would have lost 90% of their value within a few months. With today’s sale and his other portfolio of assets, Mark Cuban’s net worth is $6.5 billion.
Mark Cuban also recently announced that he plans to leave Shark Tank, the hit show that features entrepreneurs pitching their products to wealthy investors. Up to now, Cuban has invested nearly $20 million in 85 deals across 111 episodes.
Cuban’s plan is to film season 16, then call it quits. That will put him at a dozen seasons for his Shark Tank career. While there is speculation that the combination of leaving Shark Tank and the Maverick is putting Cuban for something big, he is offering a different explanation.
“I have three kids, 14, 17, and 20. They are getting close to that age when they will be on their own. I want to try to have my summers to spend family time with them before they want to talk to me even less than they do today.”
For that reason, he is out.