Mike Marshall, the Mavs’ former vice president of content, exclusively spoke about his experiences with team ownership on the podcast The Dumb Zone.
DALLAS — A former Dallas Mavericks employee is speaking out about the internal culture of the franchise since the team was purchased by the Adelson family — kicking up yet more dust on social media among frustrated Mavs fans.
Mike Marshall, who worked as the team’s former vice president of content, sat down for just under an hour this past Friday with The Dumb Zone, a podcast hosted by former radio hosts of 1310AM/96.7FM The Ticket. Over the course of their discussion, the hosts and Marshall they talked about the public relations firestorm the Mavericks organization faced after the Luka Doncic trade, among other claims about the Mavs’ new leadership regime.
Specifically, Marshall was asked about the differences between when Mark Cuban owned a majority of the team compared to the climate of the franchise under the ownership of the Adelsons, and the governorship of Patrick Dumont.
Former Mavs VP of Content: ‘Nobody got playoff bonuses’
Most notably, Marshall pointed out a difference in pay structures under the Adelson family.
“The only thing that raised kind of a red flag in the first six months or so was nobody got playoff bonuses,” Marshall said of the team’s 2024 playoff run. “We went to the NBA Finals, and we did not get playoff bonuses. Ninety-nine times out of 100, when an NBA team has gone to the playoffs or Finals, they have gotten playoff bonuses, I’d say. We worked for two and a half extra months. It was addressed as if it was going to happen. It was stated that it was going to happen, and then it didn’t get ultimately approved.”
Marshall said it was his belief that the lack of bonuses came from the Adelsons not understanding that the team would “lose tens of millions of dollars” on team broadcasts that year after the team left its agreement with Bally Sports Southwest to air its games locally. (Full disclosure: The Mavericks’ current, multi-year broadcast deal sees the majority of the team’s games being broadcast locally on WFAA’s sister station KFAA, with a number of games also being simulcast on WFAA’s main channel each year as well.)
“[They had] zero idea what they bought in terms of financials, books, future three-to-five-year plan, how this works, how this functions,” Marshall said of the team’s current ownership. “Broadcast — I bring that up because the broadcast part links directly to that bonus situation. They bought the team and did not realize there was going to be this gap year before Amazon jumps in where we’re actually going to lose money on broadcast no matter what. They got in and they had big plans early on, and they wanted to do this and that, and they realized… someone tapped on the door and said, ‘Um, did you know we were going to lose tens of millions of dollars on broadcast, just because Bally is sinking and we aren’t on Amazon yet?’ And they did not know that, and everything changed from then. They had no appetite for a loss.”
Marshall illustrated the stark contrast of the new and old ownership regimes in how they handled their money. Marshall said former owner Mark Cuban was “very generous with his money” in his tenure as owner.
And it should be noted that Mavs employees did earn surprise bonuses from Cuban later in in 2024 when the former majority owner gave team employees bonuses totaling $35 million following league approval of the team sale.
Still, Marshall said the lack of playoff bonuses was only one of the aspects that “poisoned the atmosphere” of the organization.
The Luka trade fallout: ‘Made us a target to be dunked on constantly for the next two, three months’
Perhaps not surprising, Marshall said the real turning point in terms of ownership came in the immediate aftermath of the Doncic trade, of which fans immediately voiced their disapproval.
Marshall said the Doncic trade on its own was not the reason he decided to leave the organization following the completion of the 2024-2025 regular season. But he did say that the owners’ reaction to the firestorm and how they handled it “does shine light on everything that is wrong with whatever is going on in your organization.” He added that “some things got worse” from there, and that decisions were made that directly affected him that he did not have say in.
As VP of content, Marshall said he was tasked by leadership with “fixing” the PR nightmare that came along with the blockbuster Doncic trade. Marshall also expressed frustration that the work he’d done for seven years of “helping build” Doncic’s legacy was essentially thrown out the window with the transaction.
“I helped make him as popular as he was,” Marshall said. “That was my job — protect him and make him a global star. And you just traded it. You just threw it all away.”
In trading Doncic, the front office “pissed off every single person that in my heart of hearts, I’m working for,” Marshall said, describing how his department was forced to directly deal with fan frustration on social media.
“Furthermore, it made us a target to be dunked on constantly for the next two, three months,” Marshall said. “There are some unspoken agreements you make with your employer, and one of them is you’re not going to use me as a human shield and completely tarnish my career’s work to that point — and that broke that. That completely broke that. That was my feeling at the time.”
Ultimately, Marshall said a lack of professional sports experience among higher-ups in the organization is what led to his disappointment in, and ultimate departure from, the Mavericks.
“There are six people on the basketball side that have VP and up [level] positions,” Marshall said. “Four of the six had not worked for a professional sports team prior to [last] season.”
How fans are reacting to the interview
Social media reactions to Marshall’s interview have shown a fanbase that remains sour over the Doncic deal — still unwilling to forgive over their favorite player’s departure, and more than willing to pile on criticisms of the Adelson family’s tenure atop the organization.
Mavs fan replies to The Dumb Zone’s initial X post about the interview on Saturday range from bemoaning Cuban for his role in the ownership transition to questioning how the Adelsons’ casino interests jive with their basketball efforts.
Other prominent Mavs fan accounts on X also criticized Mavs ownership while honing in on the lack of playoff bonuses.
Even some self-proclaimed former fans used the interview as a confirmation of the merit of their stance that they still haven’t forgiven the organization for shipping Doncic to Los Angeles.
Could more come to light following this interview? Possibly — and maybe even more from Marshall himself. As he noted in the interview, he has a new post-Mavs gig: He now works at D Magazine.