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Are the Dallas Mavericks narrowing down potential sites for a new basketball-specific arena? Sort of, but Mavericks CEO Rick Welts stressed to The Dallas Morning News that a decision is far from imminent. Late Monday, Bloomberg TV, citing its interview with Welts earlier in the day, reported that the Mavericks are looking at two unspecified sites for the arena and entertainment complex. Both sites, Welts said, are within Dallas city limits. But when reached by The News, Welts said his comments to Bloomberg should not be construed to mean that potential arena sites have been narrowed to two. “What I said was we have been presented several sites by the city and we are doing a deeper dive on two of them currently to see how viable they are,” he said. “Neither may work and we may refocus on others.”
Welts has told The News that the Mavericks are looking for a site that consists of 30-to-50 acres. Although the Mavericks say they intend to fulfill their American Airlines Center lease, which expires in the summer of 2031, Welts has set a goal of selecting a new arena site by late 2025 or early 2026. Earlier this year, real estate experts who spoke with The News offered several potential locations, including near the Dallas convention center project; the former Valley View Center site; and the current Dallas County jail.
The Dallas Mavericks hired Ethan Casson in a new role as president Tuesday, giving CEO Rick Welts someone to handle daily operations on the business side while he focuses on the franchise's plans for a new arena. Casson was most recently CEO of the Minnesota Timberwolves along with the WNBA's Lynx and the G-League's Iowa Wolves. He served in that role for nine years. The addition of Casson comes seven months after Welts came out of retirement to replace Cynt Marshall, who was hired by then-owner Mark Cuban in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal in the business office of the Mavericks.
“I don’t think there’s ever been quite a reversal of fortune in our league,” Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Welts, who has been part of the NBA for 47 years, told the Future of Everything in-person and live-stream audience. “You know, a lot of fans who maybe had decided not to renew their tickets called back and kind of apologized to their ticket person – what they had said to them when we made that trade and asked if perhaps those seats might be available again. It’s just been incredible at every level of our business.”
In a matter of a week, the Mavericks saw their public perception zoom up to full-scale optimism, which was a huge leap from where they were, which was somewhere south of subarctic relations with their fans. The change has been easy to spot, especially for those who work in the organization. CEO Rick Welts has seen the difference just walking around the office, through the ticket-selling department and even while out in public. “Our lives today have no resemblance to the way our lives were before last week,” Welts said, referring to the NBA draft lottery in which the Mavericks got lucky and received the No. 1 pick, who will be Duke sensation Cooper Flagg. “It’s really quite extraordinary. Just walking around town. Getting high-fives from the doormen at my apartment building when they were looking away when I’d walk by before.”
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Sure enough, the memory of Luka Doncic fades a bit given the new order of things. “Season ticket holders who may not have come back to us in the initial renewal (process) now all of the sudden are like: maybe I want to be in American Airlines Center next year as well,” Welts said. “The excitement around this for our fans is just unbelievable. I can’t imagine a more dramatic change in fortune than what we’ve experienced.”
So while the prevailing wisdom might be that it’s better to be lucky than good, it doesn’t really matter how the Mavericks got to this point. They’re here. And they are ready to capitalize on their good fortune. “To look forward to, who knows, maybe the next 10 years of success for the Mavericks, it’s an unbelievably lucky thing, but I think we were due,” Welts said. “Sometimes when you have a 1.8 percent chance of something good happening to you, it happens.”
Rick Welts: I'm willing to bet you're talking to the only person who was in the room 40 years ago today. I was in charge of the draft lottery when I was at the NBA. So I've been doing conspiracy theory stories for the last 40 years. I'm happy that I was sitting down here and nowhere else.
Rick Welts: 'The fun starts now. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot of fun around the Mavericks for the past three months'
You know what you're going to take. It's easy now, right? Rick Welts: Well, the fun starts now. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot of fun around the Mavericks for the past three months. So I think for everybody in the organization—from Patrick Damont to Nico Harrison to Coach Kidd to all of our staff—this has been a lot to carry. And to have this happen, it's unbelievable.
Ben Golliver: Mavericks CEO Rick Welts from draft lottery: "I'm the only person who was in this room and the room 40 years ago. I was in charge of the NBA draft lottery 40 years ago when Patrick Ewing won. I've been doing conspiracy theory stories ever since. This is very surreal, personally."
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To Harrison’s left was Rick Welts. The CEO seemed loose. He’d spent decades in NBA front offices, which has provided decades of lessons in how to say the right things. So he did his best to say them. Welts discussed his optimism for the future. He mentioned that, while it might not look like it, Patrick Dumont played basketball as a child. (Because his boyhood love for a sport qualifies him to own and steward an NBA franchise?) Welts claimed that about 75 to 80 percent of Mavs season ticket holders have already renewed for next season. He outlined broad concepts for a new arena, which the team intends to have ready after its lease with the AAC expires in 2031. The team is looking to secure 30 to 50 acres of land within the Dallas city limits to build on. He made no mention of the former Texas Stadium site that it already owns in Irving.
Mavs were projected to lose more than $100 million before Luka Doncic trade
Welts knew he was stepping into a financial challenge in Dallas. The Mavericks had just spent at least $8 million to create Mavs TV while forgoing what would have $45 million in regional TV revenue. That $53 million loss was a big reason the Mavericks were projected to lose more than $100 million this season – and that was before the Doncic trade.
“I can tell you today that between 75% and 80% of our season-ticket members have already renewed their tickets for next season,” Welts said. “That doesn’t mean there’s a segment of our fan base that doesn’t feel alienated right now. I think that we hear them. And it’s on us to win back that trust, and I’m very confident that’s exactly what we’re going to do by the way we conduct ourselves on and off the court every day going forward.”
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