Mark Cuban says owning the Mavericks went from being about basketball to ‘about valuations’ and created ‘more stress’—it still made him $4.3 billion

“It went from being about basketball to being about valuations,” Cuban said in an interview on The Diary of a CEO on Monday. He added that the shift “just created more stress.”

But the valuations worked out for him. Cuban bought the team for about $285 million in 2000 and sold his stake in the team for $3.5 billion in 2024, according to ESPN senior NBA insider Shams Charania. But Cuban says it’s a bit more than that.

“$4.3 [billion],” he said regarding what he made from the Mavericks deal. “Yeah.”

And he hasn’t left the business. In July he joined Harbinger Sports Partners, a $750 million private equity fund that took a minority stake in MLB’s Las Vegas Athletics and uses predictive analytics to size up a team’s ticket prices, sponsorships and local demand: the “Sports 2.0” playbook he ran in Dallas, now sold to investors.

Cuban’s Mavs come up

When Mark Cuban initially bought the Dallas Mavericks at the turn of the century in January 2000, the franchise had little to show for its first two decades in the NBA. The team had endured years of losing, struggled to attract fans and had been named the “worst professional sports franchise.” But what Cuban saw that others didn’t, was an opportunity to turn his passion for basketball into an experiment in teambuilding, technology and customer experience.

“I did it not because it was a business,” Cuban said. “I thought this could just be really fun—and what could be better than going and shooting baskets with Dirk Nowitzki or Steve Nash or Michael Finley?”

“I looked at it more as an intellectual endeavor, right? An intellectual challenge,” he continued. “Can I take a team that was awful and got voted the worst professional sports franchise of the previous decade and turn it into a winning team? And that was my goal.”

More than two decades later, the Mavericks had won an NBA championship, became one of the league’s most valuable franchises and established a reputation for using technology and analytics to improve performance.

Cuban, who made his fortune selling the internet radio company Broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999 for approximately $5.7 billion in stock, purchased the Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. amidst a struggling decade of basketball.

He said his initial objective was straightforward—build a team that could win. But Cuban’s approach to the franchise was one that differed from that of owners who oftentimes treated sports teams as passive investments: Cuban was a highly visible presence at games, engaged directly with fans and players and pushed for changes in his organization.

The culmination came in June 2011, when the Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat to win their first NBA championship in franchise history.

“If you win a championship, the whole city’s on fire,” he said. Cuban described taking the championship trophy to schools, bars, restaurants and his children’s events—solidifying his presence as an owner deeply ingrained in the team culture.

The title also validated the commercial model he built. The Mavs became a successful team, and with that, a stronger entertainment brand and a valuable asset. The franchise went from the eighth lowest valued team in 2000 to the seventh most valuable team in 2023 before Cuban sold it, according to Forbes.

Back in the valuation business

Cuban joined Harbinger Sports Partners as the fund bought into the Athletics, amidst the team’s relocation from Sacramento. The investment gives Cuban an entry into baseball after years of pursuing opportunities in MLB. The sports franchise that kicked off the “moneyball” analytics phenomenon now welcomed Cuban as an investor.

Rashaun Williams—Harbinger’s founder, chief investment officer and Cuban’s business partner—previously told Fortune in July that the fund evaluates ownership, management and the market where the team operates. He explained that the group’s investment approach uses predictive analytics to assess local demand and a franchise’s ability to command ticket prices, sponsorship revenue and other sales. That emphasis on analytics and commercial opportunity echoes Cuban’s “sports 2.0” approach he heralded with the Mavericks.

Williams said that professional sports have entered what the firm—including Cuban—calls “Sports 2.0,” an era where teams increasingly resemble media and entertainment companies rather than organizations dependent solely on local fan attendance.

That echoes Cuban’s MO with the Mavericks. The team viewed monetized fans as a primary goal—which has now reverberated through the sports economy with streaming, digital media, partnerships, concerts, stadium events and year-round experiences.

“The new model of baseball—or basketball, football—is teams becoming media companies and transcending a local marketplace,” Williams said. “They’re finding ways to diversify their revenue and monetize that fan base 365 days a year.”