To comprehend the financial mega-muscle coming to Dallas in 2024, a little simple math:
According to Forbes, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ net worth is $14.5 billion. The Dallas Mavericks’ Mark Cuban is worth $6.2 billion, Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi $3.7 billion and the Texas Rangers’ recently christened championship boss Ray Davis $2.9 billion. Add it all up, and it’s a robust $27.3 billion, or …
Less — by $6 billion, mind you — than the unfathomably deep pockets of Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson. With son-in-law Patrick Dumont, Adelson heads the group that built The Venetian and The Palazzo on the Vegas strip. This week, the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved her acquisition of the Mavericks for $3.5 billion.
Adelson has the power to prompt Cuban to sell his beloved Mavs, but is her $33 billion empire and considerable influence with Republican lawmakers in Texas enough to bring legalized gambling to the Lone Star State? If so, are the Mavs long for Dallas?
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Tom Landry and Don Carter are rolling over in their graves. But, by embracing the burgeoning, inevitable industries of gambling and sports betting in Texas, Cuban and Jones are about to be rolling in even more money.
Landry (the iconic original coach of the Cowboys) and Carter (founding father of the Mavericks) were principled men with beliefs in the Christian faith. Landry spent much of his offseason volunteering for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Carter went to church twice on Sunday and always removed his trademark Stetson indoors “because Momma raised me right.”
Doubt if they ever made even a friendly wager in their lives.
These days the custodians of the Mavs and Cowboys are Cuban and Jones, characters who know their way around a good party, wheeler-dealers who are adept at profiting from businesses that Landry and Carter wouldn’t have touched.
