Mark Cuban says he broke his No. 1 negotiating rule to buy the Dallas Mavericks: 'I was just like, yes'
On television, Mark Cuban is a savvy and patient negotiator.
But when the entrepreneur was a newly minted billionaire with cash to spend, he used a different tactic to buy the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.
"It was all about fun," Cuban, 65, told NBA player Draymond Green's podcast, "The Draymond Green Show," on Monday. "That was like a dream ... I didn't even negotiate, I was just like, 'Yes, whatever.'"
In 1999, Cuban's audio streaming platform Broadcast.com sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion, making him a billionaire. The following year, Cuban — a self-proclaimed basketball junkie — acquired a majority stake in the Mavericks for $285 million, from real estate developer Ross Perot Jr.
The moment the deal was signed, Cuban hit the ground running, he told Green: "It was done. I walked in, changed some things up and it was a ride."
Cuban's go-to negotiation strategy
On ABC's "Shark Tank," Cuban is known for one particular negotiation strategy: letting everyone else in the room do the talking, while he sits and waits in silence. Once the show's other investors have asked their questions and given their opinions, he'll often jump at — or turn down — an opportunity.
″[Silence] gives you a chance to learn. There will be times when someone walks in on 'Shark Tank' and I'm thinking to myself: 'There's no way I'm interested. Or, if I am, I don't have quite all the data that I need to make a decision,'" he said in a Fireside interview with author Chris Voss last year. "When I listen to the other Sharks, they're going to tell me if I have any competition financially to do a deal. They're going to teach me things, potentially, about that industry ... about the person."
The tactic is "money in the bank," because it makes you more likely to get what you want, Cuban added.
Cuban finally negotiated a valuation for his basketball franchise last year — selling a majority of the team to the Adelson and Dumont families, who run Las Vegas Sands Corporation, for $3.5 billion. He retained a 27% minority stake, and reportedly paid team employees a total of $35 million in bonuses following the transaction.
Around that same time, Cuban announced his 2025 departure from "Shark Tank," saying he'd keep running his pharmacy company Cost Plus Drugs while dedicating more time to his family.
"I just want to have a couple summers with my teens before they go off on their own," he told the Hollywood Reporter last year. "Nothing to do with the show. I love it. I love being on it."
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."
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