Cuban has sold the Mavs to Adelson-Dumont Family

[F Gump]

Wonder how Cuban was able to finagle ongoing control of basketball ops? Looks like a pretty good deal for the buyer given some recent sales The Athletic reported.

How he did it, that's a good question. That's rare. Usually someone willing to pony up and buy more than half wants the control that comes with being the majority owner. Someone buying a majority of the shares, but receiving no control (aka being a Limited Partner), their share in many ways is way lesser value.

As for whether a portion of the team was sold at a discount, I doubt it. They paid more than $2B and got more than half. From the numbers being strewn, it could be a reasonable guess that maybe they bought 2/3 of the shares for $2.4B, to match the supposed valuation of $3.6B being reported. 

I see 3 ways that the $3.6B reported Total Valuation might be misreported.

1 In some circumstances, all shares are not alike, and it appears that's happened here. The 1/3 of the shares that has control in some ways is worth MORE, because CONTROL is worth a big percentage all by itself, so the total valuation is actually going to be higher than is being reported (assuming the reported Total Valuation was derived by simply extrapolating what 100% would cost at that same rate). Control (or lack of same) is actually an IRS point in determining valuation of a shares in an entity.

2 There's one other explanation, which is that the Mavs may have had massive debt attached, which could skew the numbers and the Total Valuation.

3 This may be a 2-part transaction, as happens sometimes, where eventually Ms Adelson will own the whole thing. The terms of the later transaction, currently out of public view, perhaps set to occur when X or Y takes place later, could change the total math tremendously. Whereas for now, all that is known is $X for ___%.

In a more general analysis... I don't think it's helpful for the Mavs to be Cuban's plaything on an ongoing basis, and now with even more insulation from consequences. He hasn't been that good at it in the past, and I would hope there are benchmarks he has to meet to keep his job. If not, this could be awful.