In a podcast teaser set ahead of a full Tuesday release in Eastern Time (ET), mark cuban sounded measured but unmistakably uneasy: “I don’t regret selling. I regret who I sold to. ” The words land like a late-night confession—careful, clipped, and heavy with what he chose not to say, beyond admitting “a lot of mistakes in the process. ”
What did Mark Cuban say he regrets—and what did he not?
In the teaser for a new episode of the Intersections podcast, Mark Cuban said he does not regret selling the Dallas Mavericks, but he regrets who he sold to. He added that he made “a lot of mistakes in the process, ” and said he would “leave it at that. ” The statement sharpened an evolving theme in his recent public comments: not the idea of stepping back, but the consequences of how the handoff happened.
The buyer was the family of Miriam Adelson, a doctor and Republican donor. Her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, built casinos in Asia and Las Vegas and served as CEO of Las Vegas Sands. Her son-in-law, Patrick Dumont—recently named the CEO of Sands Inc. —has become the face of Mavericks ownership as the team’s governor.
How did the Mavericks sale happen, and why does process matter?
The Mavericks sale took place in December 2023, with Mark Cuban selling a majority stake directly to the Adelson family. In prior remarks, he had said he wished he had put the team on the open market instead of selling directly. In August 2025, he said he would have put the franchise out to bid, adding that he regretted how he did it, not the decision to sell itself.
The difference between a direct sale and an open-market process is not just financial—though valuation is part of the story. It is also about leverage, optionality, and the texture of control. When an owner picks a buyer rather than inviting competing offers, the choice becomes personal. And when the relationship between the old regime and new decision-makers turns tense, the original selection begins to look less like a business move and more like a defining bet.
That is where mark cuban now stands publicly: acknowledging regret tied to the buyer, without detailing the private missteps he says occurred in the process.
Why is Cuban’s influence expected to change from here?
Mark Cuban still owns 27. 7% of the Mavericks, but his influence is expected to lessen in the coming year. The agreement with the Adelson family allows them to buy another 20% of the franchise from him within four years of the deal. The language of ownership can sound abstract, but in practice it shapes who sets the agenda, who approves strategy, and who becomes the public face when fans are angry or hopeful.
Cuban has described the pressures of the job in deeply personal terms. In a separate podcast interview, he said he sold because of the changing ownership landscape and because he did not want his children involved. He described the emotional commitment of ownership and said he did not want his kids drawn into a world where fan backlash can feel abusive when things go poorly.
He also framed the sale as a response to a changing economic reality in sports ownership—arguing that to sustain growth and compete under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams need other sources of revenue. He said that real estate development and gambling-related opportunities were “not me, ” and suggested the Adelsons were better suited to pursue those avenues.
What role do gambling and development play in the new ownership vision?
Cuban has said he believed the Adelsons could turn the Mavericks into a profit-making machine through development and gambling. But Texas has not legalized casinos or sports gambling, despite aggressive lobbying efforts in the state legislature by the Adelsons. That gap between ambition and legal reality matters. It can shape timelines, investment plans, and even how fans interpret ownership priorities: building a long-term business platform versus focusing narrowly on wins and losses.
Cuban also offered a vivid hypothetical about what a casino development could mean for valuation—an image of a Venetian-type casino in Dallas with an American Airlines Center in the middle of it. The point was not simply grandeur; it was how ownership in modern sports can become intertwined with real estate and regulated industries.
How do politics and partnership coexist in this ownership story?
Miriam Adelson is one of the country’s most influential Republican donors and an influential backer of Israel. In the 2024 election cycle, she donated about $100 million to her Preserve America political action committee to elect Donald Trump. Cuban backed Kamala Harris in that election, but he said that he and Adelson remained “friends and partners, ” adding that politics does not get in the way.
In public, that insistence on compartmentalization tries to keep the Mavericks story inside the boundaries of business and sport. Yet the sale itself placed a high-profile franchise into the orbit of figures who draw attention beyond the court. That kind of visibility can magnify every roster decision and every front-office pivot, whether or not politics is part of the intent.
After a surprising trade decision involving Luka Dončić and the Los Angeles Lakers, Cuban had repeatedly expressed regret about his handling of the sale. The podcast teaser marks the first time he has specifically said he regrets that the Adelsons now control the team—an escalation from process-based remorse to buyer-based remorse.
What happens next for the Mavericks—and for Cuban’s relationship to the team?
The story now has two clocks running. One is contractual: a pathway that could shift more of Cuban’s remaining stake to the Adelson family over the next four years. The other is human: how long a former majority owner can watch decisions unfold while holding minority ownership and living with a choice he has now described as a mistake of buyer, not merely of process.
For now, Cuban’s regret sits in the open—carefully worded, partly withheld, and impossible to separate from the future of the franchise he once led. And back in that podcast moment—recorded before its full Tuesday release in ET—the sentence echoes with the weight of someone who has already moved on, yet cannot quite let go: mark cuban says he doesn’t regret selling, but regrets who he sold to.
Image caption (alt text): mark cuban speaks about regretting who he sold the Mavericks to after the Adelson family took control.
