To enhance your user experience on our website, this site uses cookies.
If you continue to browse, you accept the use of cookies on our site.
See our Privacy Policy
for more information.
Surprising news hit the NBA world on Tuesday when Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced he would sell his majority stake in the team. Cuban sold his stake to Miriam Adelson of the Las Vegas Sands Casino corporation. According to The Athletic, the deal is rumored to be worth 3.5 billion dollars. The deal also came coincidentally after Cuban announced he would step away from his hit show Shark Tank. The news came as a shock to the NBA community. Cuban was arguably the most famous and recognizable owner in the league. However, it’s important to note that once the sale is finalized, Cuban will remain a minority shareholder and will have control over basketball operations. Given Cuban’s long-time involvement with the team and league, it makes sense for him to stay with the team. Let’s analyze the impact of this move.
What Mark Cuban Selling His Stake in the Dallas Mavericks Means
Background
Cuban originally purchased the Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million. Over the past 20 years, Cuban helped transform the Mavericks from a laughing stock to a respected franchise, winning a 2011 title with Dirk Nowitzki in the process. He created incredible memories around franchise stars Nowitzki and later Luka Doncic. The Mavericks are estimated to be the seventh-most valuable franchise, and it’s crystal clear Cuban increased this value. Cuban’s original purchase of $285 million, compared to the sale of $3.5 billion, further proves how he elevated the Mavericks’ value. Cuban netted 3.2 billion in the process.
Additionally, Cuban fundamentally changed what it means to be an owner, increasing public appearances and speaking his mind on any issues around the league, all while building real relationships with his players. For the most part, NBA owners take a back seat. Of course, they all have strong impacts; however, very few are as active and outspoken as Cuban. In the mid-2000s, Cuban’s popularity grew along with the Mavericks’ success. He established himself as a prominent figure in the NBA and an influential owner. Ultimately, he helped pave the way for outspoken player-first owners such as Steve Ballmer and Mat Ishbia. Going forward, involved owners like Cuban will likely be the trend.
Mark Cuban Explains Why Success Isn’t About How Much Money You HaveWhen Mark Cuban launched his first tech startup, he couldn't have known he'd end up a billionaire today.
He was confident, though, that his sales pitch for the company — a software startup called MicroSolutions — would work.
In a recent post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Cuban shared a 544-word excerpt of proposal he sent in 1989 to a law firm he hoped to land as a client, Dallas-based Jenkens & Gilchrist.
In the proposal, Cuban wrote that his tool would be a great resource for attorneys looking to streamline their workflow — by having information "immediately published electronically to the organization," as opposed to using notebooks.
"Imagine being able to print or view a columnar report showing strategies by trial, with the opposing firm, judge and results!" he wrote. "The opportunities for a competitive advantage are limitless, as are the ability to demonstrate to current and prospective clients the power of the qualitative tools available."
The pitch worked, he added.
"And yes, we closed the deal. Basically, it was our version of Slack long before Slack," Cuban wrote in a follow-up post. "My big pitch back then was, 'Post once, published everywhere.'"
The proposal relied on Cuban's No. 1 key for making a sale, which he learned at age 12 while selling garbage bags door-to-door: "You're not trying to convince people. You're trying to help them," as Cuban told GQ last month.
"It's all about putting myself in your shoes," he added. "It's, 'I really think that this can be a better solution for you. And if I find you a better solution, will you do business with me?
If Cuban could go back in time and tell his younger self one thing, it'd be to keep honing his sales skills, he noted in a TikTok video posted last year.
"Once you learn how to sell, you can always start a business [because] you're an entrepreneur at heart," said Cuban.
A year after sending his pitch to the law firm, Cuban sold MicroSolutions to now-defunct internet services company CompuServe for $6 million. He ultimately became a billionaire after his next startup, internet streaming service Broadcast.com, sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999.
In a recent podcast episode of The Path with Ryan Roslansky, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban explained that he doesn’t necessarily define success by a person’s wealth, and he shared some of the basic tenets everyone needs to have to be successful
During the wide-ranging discussion, Cuban offered up plenty of insights on how to measure and achieve success.
What’s Success About?
According to Cuban, success isn’t necessarily about how much money you have.
“Success is just setting a goal and being able to wake up every morning feeling really good about what you’ve accomplished,” Cuban said. “If you can wake up every morning smiling and excited about the day, you’re a success.”
Related video: Shark Tank's Mark Cuban Answers Business Questions From Twitter (Dailymotion)
Cuban grew up in Pittsburgh in a working-class family where he accepted from an early age that if you wanted to buy something, you had to earn it. So, he would find ways to earn his money by trying different side hustles. The original side hustle was selling baseball cards until the business ventures became more elaborate as a college student. Cuban reflected on how these ventures taught him a lot in hindsight because he was learning how to sell.
Unlike many entrepreneurs, Cuban is a proponent of attending college. He believes that it’s the ideal opportunity to learn how to learn and be responsible for yourself for the first time in your life. Since he didn’t have much financial support from his family, he had to get creative with his side hustles to pay for college. He gave disco lessons for $25/hour to teach girls how to line dance, got into party promotions, and then opened up a bar on campus
When Roslansky asked Cuban for the best piece of career advice, the ‘Shark Tank’ star laid out three basic tenets that all employees or entrepreneurs need to have.
Tenet #1: Accept that you’re getting paid to learn
Wherever you’re working, it’s essential to remember that you’re getting paid to learn. Cuban encourages you to be infinitely curious and to always keep on learning. He believes that if you remain curious, you’ll keep moving up.
Tenet #2: Reduce the stress of people around you
You have to find ways to reduce the stress of those around you by being a problem solver because everyone wants someone around them who can eliminate stress instead of adding chaos. How you do this depends on the type of work you get into, but the goal is to always reduce stress instead of making things worse.
Tenet #3: Learn how to sell
Cuban encourages everyone to learn how to sell because he believes that it’s important to be able to do so if you want to make money for yourself or the company that you work for. Throughout the episode, Cuban shared various instances where he had to sell products or services as an entrepreneur.
Cuban quit his job at a bank after nine months because they didn’t appreciate his initiative. He headed down to Dallas, where his entrepreneurial journey took off. He started selling software independently until he found a client who needed new accounting software. He sold his first company for $2 million. After thinking he would retire, he ended up betting big on Broadcast.com in the mid-90s. That business was eventually sold to Yahoo in 1999. Since then, Cuban has gotten into several notable ventures, from purchasing the Dallas Mavericks to his role on the popular program ‘Shark Tank’.
Mark Cuban may be a maverick, in both the small and the capital "m" sense given his ownership of the Dallas basketball team, but he has never been shy about sharing how others can follow in his footsteps. Whether he's sitting in his "Shark Tank" chair or posting to social media, the billionaire openly talks about the hard work it took to get where he is.
That's not him being boastful — which is something he doesn't shy away from being — instead, it's a cautionary tale for people seduced by the upsides of being an entrepreneur. Cuban wants people to follow in his footsteps, but he also wants them to go into the entrepreneur lifestyle with their eyes wide open.
The NBA owner, Shark, and billionaire who's trying to lower drug prices for everyone with his Cost Plus Drug Company, recently sat down with Wired.com for a free-for-all interview. In the 15-minute YouTube video called "Mogul Support," he did not sugarcoat the process while offering candid advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps.
@YoungEntrup_hub opened the questioning by asking Cuban what his best advice was for anyone thinking of leaving their full-time job to become an entrepreneur.
"Save your money first," Cuban responded quickly and emphatically. "Don't just leave unless you know what the hell you're doing."
Related video: Shark Tank's Mark Cuban Answers Business Questions From Twitter (Dailymotion)
Cuban made it clear that while the stories of people who walk away from their jobs and get rich are romanticized, the failures aren't.
"What you don't hear are the stories of people who quit their jobs, started a company, and failed miserably and are now working at a job they hate," he said.
Cuban also suggested that it was a good idea to have at least six months of living expenses saved before you walk away from your job.
Mark Cuban on starting over
The billionaire made it clear that every billionaire who says they could start from nothing and do it again is lying. He noted that luck plays a huge role in reaching the level of wealth he has managed to amass.
Cuban, however, does know what he would do if he somehow found himself back at the beginning.
@JCBAYC asked Cuban what he would do if he had six months, a phone, and only $500 to make as much money as he could.
"I am really, really, really good at sales. I'm going to find a sales job because I already know that if I'm on my last $500 and all I have is a phone, that I'm going to get that job and learn more about that industry than anybody on the planet," he said.
Cuban belioeves it would take him three months to prove to his boss that he's the best salesman at the company and be able to leverage threatening to become competition into a large raise.
Mark Cuban shares some great under-the-radar businesses
Ed Jameis asked Cuban to share some great busineses that people don't know about.
"I'm going to tell you a couple of easy ones off the top," Cuban answered. "If I was going to start a company I would seriously look at this."
The technology entrpreneur believes that Amazon's (AMZN) - Get Free Report Alexa offers some huge opportunities because the devices are in so many homes.
"You could go and start a business where you could go to your neighbors, to car dealers, to businesses and show them for 50 bucks an hour or more how to use their Alexa in their homes to save energy. to save time in their business," he explained.
Cuban believes there are similar business opportunities around artificial intelligence (AI) products like ChatGPT.
Mark Cuban on why most businesses fail
Cuban was also asked why most businesses fail and he produced a white board to show off the four reasons at heart of all failures.
Sales
Preparation
Effort
Brains
"Number one sales. No business has ever succeeded without sales. Number two, preparation. When you go to start a business have you done all the homework to know about your industry, your competition, your products, the profitability, your customer base," he shared.
Cuban also made it clear that you can't succeed without hard work.
"It's not easy starting and running a business. It's hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it," he added.
The first three, however, won't be enough, he shared, if you're not smart enough to pull everything together.
"You go to be smart. You got to learn this stuff," he said. "You have got to be curious to succeed at business."
To enhance your user experience on our website, this site uses cookies.
If you continue to browse, you accept the use of cookies on our site.
See our Privacy Policy
for more information.
