Working for Mark Cuban seems like a good bet.
The billionaire and now-former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks announced to his team’s employees that he would be dishing out $35 million in bonuses, according to multiple reports.
Cuban sold his majority stake in the NBA franchise to the families that run the Las Vegas Sands casino company for $3.5 billion this past December. The deal gives the “Shark Tank” mogul a minority ownership stake in the team and will allow him to continue running basketball operations.
“As a thank you for all your hard work making the Mavs an amazing organization, each of you will be receiving a bonus from myself, and the Adelson and Dumont families,” Cuban’s message to employees read, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “In total, we will be paying out approximately $35 plus Million Dollars in bonuses to you all.”
The message goes on to say that the amount of pay will be calculated with a “framework that took into consideration how long you have worked for the Mavs.”
Cuban’s sale of the Mavs came as a shock to the NBA world, given that he is known as a basketball junkie. He is routinely seen courtside for Mavs games.
Part of Cuban’s reasoning for selling the team was to facilitate a partner to help get a new arena and casino in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with an aim toward downtown Dallas.
Although gambling remains illegal in Texas, it has been a pursuit of the Las Vegas Sands and Resort company to get a casino in the Lone Star State for some time.
“It’s a partnership. They’re not basketball people, I’m not real estate people. That’s why I did it,” Cuban told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth after the sale was approved.
The sale was also announced shortly after Cuban said he would be leaving “Shark Tank” after season 16, citing the time taping takes from his family as his reason.
“I feel like in doing ‘Shark Tank’ all these years,” Cuban told the hosts of Showtime’s “All the Smoke” podcast at the time, “we’ve trained multiple generations of entrepreneurs that, if somebody can come from Iowa or Sacramento or wherever, and show up on ‘Shark Tank’ and show their business and get a deal, it’s going to inspire generations of kids.”
