DALLAS — Mark Cuban said he looked at buying an NFL team and talked with people about the Buffalo Bills when the franchise was for sale, but decided the emotional toll of ownership ruled it out, and that the same reasoning is why he never pursued a WNBA team.
Cuban made the comments as a guest on the Season 2 premiere of Free Range with Von Miller, the podcast Von Miller hosts with Audacy and posts to his YouTube channel. TJ Banks co-hosts the show.
Cuban bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. in January 2000 for $285 million. He had sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion nine months earlier. He owned the franchise for 23 seasons, and the Mavericks reached the NBA Finals twice in that span, losing to Miami in 2006 and beating Miami for the title in 2011.
He sold a 69% controlling stake to the Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont families in December 2023 at a valuation of roughly $3.8 billion. Cuban retained 27% and holds the title of alternate governor. Patrick Dumont is the governor.
The Bills went up for sale after founder Ralph Wilson died in March 2014. Terry and Kim Pegula, who also own the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, bought the franchise that September for $1.4 billion, then an NFL record. Only three formal bids were submitted. A Toronto group fronted by Jon Bon Jovi bid $1.05 billion, and Donald Trump bid under $900 million. Cuban was not among the reported bidders.
Mark Cuban On Looking At The Buffalo Bills
Cuban said the Cowboys are king in Dallas and the Mavericks are catching up.
“I did. I think when Buffalo was for sale, I talked about it with some folks,” Cuban said. “It’s hard emotionally, right? I looked at baseball, looked at football a little bit, and even hockey for a little bit. But once I got rolling with the Mavs, it was hard emotionally. 82 games of just your heart on your sleeve, getting into it.”
Cuban has since taken minority positions in other franchises. He is president of Harbinger Sports Group, which bought a minority stake in the Athletics, and he holds a stake in FC Dallas.
Mark Cuban On The Worst Part Of Owning A Team
Cuban said he wants to dominate whatever industry he enters.
“And the worst part about being an owner is, like, you did all the things you thought you could do to put together a team,” Cuban explained. “But once that ball goes up or that ball is kicked off, there ain’t nothing you can do, right? It’s completely out of your hands.”
“And it was so intense. Like, when I first bought the team, if we lost the game, there’s 82 games plus playoffs, so if we lost the game I would drive around for hours,” Cuban continued. “I would be mad until the next game and until we won a game.”
Mark Cuban On Passing On A WNBA Team
The Dallas Wings arrived in the market in 2016, when the Tulsa Shock relocated to Arlington and began play at College Park Center. The franchise moved to Dallas Memorial Auditorium at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center for the 2026 season under a 15-year agreement worth $19 million in incentives.
“So I thought about it, I looked at it, but just emotionally I couldn’t do it,” Cuban said. “It’s like not having a WNBA team. People are like, why didn’t you get a WNBA team? I wanted to be able to put the same emotion and effort into it. And if I didn’t have it in me, it wouldn’t have been fair to the people who were playing.”
Cuban said in April on the Intersections podcast that he does not regret selling the Mavericks but regrets who he sold to, and that he made mistakes in the process. He declined to elaborate further at the time.
Cuban founded the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company in 2022. He left ABC’s Shark Tank after the show’s 16th season.
