Mark Cuban Addresses Rumors About Presidential Run After Mavericks Sale

Mark Cuban is selling a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, according to multiple reports that surfaced on Tuesday.

Cuban is selling to Miriam Adelson, owner of luxury resort company Las Vegas Sands who was married to billionaire Sheldon Adelson from 1991 until his death in 2021. The Mavericks were valued at $3.5 billion in the sale, and Cuban will retain a strong stake in the Mavs with final say in basketball operations.

Cuban also told the All The Smoke podcast that his 16th season with hit TV show Shark Tank next year will be his last.

In the wake of the news, multiple media outlets and numerous high-profile social-media users suggested that Cuban is divesting himself in preparation for a presidential run.

“(Sincerely) He’s running,” Jason Concepcion wrote on X, formerly Twitter, referencing a popular internet meme.

“Leaving Shark Tank. Selling Mavs. Readying for run at U.S. Presidency?” Darren Rovell wondered.

But Cuban told NBC News on Wednesday that he has “no plans to run” after telling the network in July that his family would “disown” him if he ran as a third-party candidate.

Newsweek reached out to Cuban by email requesting comment on the sale and any future political ambitions. The Mavericks deferred comment to the Adelson family.

Cuban, 65, has consistently squashed speculation about a presidential run. He previously told CNBC that they hadn’t heard much about it for a reason, and he wanted to “keep it that way.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Cuban said when pressed. “Look, I’ve said it many times, it would take the perfect storm for me to do it. The definition of bad parenting is running for president when you have three young kids, 9, 12 and 15. So there’s some things that could open the door, but I’m not projecting or predicting it right now.”

Cuban told The Hollywood Reporter that his kids (now 13, 16 and 20) are the reason he is leaving Shark Tank, as well.

“I just want to have a couple summers with my teens before they go off on their own,” he said. “Nothing to do with the show. I love it. I love being on it. I love what [it] represents and how it motivates entrepreneurs around the world.”

Per longtime Mavericks reporter Mike Fisher, the move offers plenty of benefits aside from any political calculus. Cuban bought the Mavericks for $285 million in 2000, and Adelson recently sold $2 billion in company stock to buy a sports team (reducing her share in Las Vegas Sands by 4 percent). If her stake cost $2 billion, Cuban made roughly $1.7 billion on the Mavericks while still maintaining his ability to call the shots on the basketball side.

By partnering with Adelson, Cuban also gets a boost toward his vision of building a billion-dollar sports complex in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. Adelson is one of the wealthiest women in the world at $32.8 billion, more than five times Cuban’s net worth, and as owner of Las Vegas Sands, has extensive connections to the gambling industry that could be useful to Cuban and the Mavs. According to Fisher, Cuban has big plans to bring gambling to Texas.

“Cuban’s vision is that a Las Vegas-style entertainment destination in Dallas would be an economic bonanza,” Fisher wrote. “…The Mavs are just one big cog in the wheel here.”

If Cuban did have political ambitions, he and Adelson probably wouldn’t see eye-to-eye on everything: She was one of President Donald Trump’s top donors, while Cuban supported Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden during their respective runs in 2016 and 2020. Still, Cuban’s website CostPlusDrugs was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential companies in 2023 for taking on prescription drug prices, which is a popular issue among voters, and he certainly has enough money to launch a campaign.

But Cuban’s sale of the Mavericks appears to have plenty of reasonable explanations aside from any potential political ambitions. Whether the “perfect storm” is coming for Cuban to run in the future remains to be seen, but it seems 2024 can be ruled out.