Mark Cuban

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Be Illuminati. I've had people over here and they talk
about the Illuminati. Do you believe in it?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
No? Literally, people come on and think it's real. Yeah,
I'm Riches, I'm Jewish. Nobody asked me to join. None
of them secret societies, right, nobody. I'm like, Hello, Can
I at least get an invite to a cocktail party?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
All my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle, paed Price,
one slice got the bron Geis swap all my life.
I've been grinding all my life, all my life, grinding
all my life, sacrifice, Hustle, paed Price, one slice got
the bronic Geist swap all my life. I've been grinding

(00:40):
all my life.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Shah. I am
your host, Shanny Sharp. I'm also the propriud of Club
Shashe the guy that's stopping by for conversation on the
drink today. Is one of America's most famous and successful entrepreneurs.
He created the world's first streaming platform. He's one of
the top ten Wall Street trades of all time. He's
in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest
single e trade transaction, one of the most influential people

(01:08):
in cable and sports industry. Self made multi billionaire, savvy entrepreneur,
Internet pioneer, genius financier, highly respected businessman. A celebrated sports owner.
He helped the Dallas Mavericks win their first NBA title
in twenty eleven. Primetime television star, he was a Shark
on the award winning TV show Shark Tank, as an
executive producer for Academy Award winning movie It's best selling

(01:30):
author aviad philanthropists, humanitarian and mogul.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Here he is ladies and gentlemen, Mark Huban. When you
hear all those.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Things you like, damn, I was like, no more, no, no,
you're just telling me. I'm old.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
That's all you drink? Mark?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, do I drink y'all?

Speaker 4 (01:50):
See?

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay, Well you know, hey, this is my own Kangyak
is called shade by Laportier.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Uh huh.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
You don't men think about.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Kanyac ya a little bit. But I'm a simper right,
I'm not like.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, yeah, ain't expecting you take this into the domemark.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I didn't say I never have. I'm just saying thanks
for having me on, thanks for coming on. Appreciate you
oh so much.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
For being a Sipper.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah shit, a tiny one.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
So let's get ready to it. Your big acquisition this
offseason was Klay Thompson. Obviously you got Luca, we know
what Luke is. You have Kyrie, a guy that can
take make big shots, tremendous handles. How were you able
to convince Clay to come to Dallas when his dad
wanted him to go to LA He grew up as
a Lakers fan, Kobe was his idol.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
How did you convince him join us in Dallas?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean credit goes to Nico and Kyrie and j Kidd, Right,
they know him, They've played with them, they understand him.
And that's literally why we brought Nico Harrison in because
of his relationships with players, and so they went out
and spend time with him, got to know him better.
And really, and I think Clay was ready for a move,
you know all the degreef he got last year, particularly

(02:59):
the way it is, so the timing was right, and
you know, kudos to Kate, to Clay for being willing
to make the move in, kudos to Nico, J Kidd
and Kai for making it happen.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Is it hard to convince players when they've had such
success in one locale and they've been there for the
extended period of time, and that's their identity.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
They're known.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
He's always going to be known as a warrior, no
matter what happens. If they win a title here, he'll
still be known as a warrior. Is it really hard
to convince players to join a new franchise when they've
been associated with one franch afflets?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
All depends if they're the number one guy or number
two guy or number three guy. Okay, right, if you're
number one, like Stef's not going anywhere, right, right, you
could understand, you know, now the Brons moved around just
for different reasons. But the number two guy, if if
it's not going the way you want, then yeah, the
door is open. But it takes somebody who's special, somebody
who's got the confidence in themselves, somebody who's got the ambition,

(03:52):
and somebody who really has got something to prove, right,
and Clay's got a lot to prove, which is great
because those are the kind of guys you want to
the squad, right, because they're going to go they're gonna
work harder than ever to prove people wrong.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
You come off one of your best seasons. Since you
won the NBA title, you get to the NBA Finals.
Luca had an outstanding gear. I think he finished top
three in the MVP. Kyrie was sensational. Why weren't you
guys able to get over that hump against the Boston Celtics.
You lose that series?

Speaker 2 (04:18):
For one, Celtics are good, right, I mean they didn't
have a lot of weaknesses and so, and in order
to beat them, we had to make a lot of
threes and we just didn't. You know, our three point
shooting wasn't up to par where it was during the
playoffs for the regular season. We couldn't get stops like
we needed to, and we couldn't get the rim to
the rim the way we needed to. When when Jaylen

(04:40):
Brown is blocking shots at the rim and being a
rib protector, you know it's not your day. So you know,
credit to them. But you know, adding Clay, adding Nause,
I mean we got better, right you are.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
This the following the previous off season, you added Kyrie.
You know you trade and make the trade for him,
but you sign him, re signed him in free agency.
How did you know that he and Luca would play
a play so well together because Luca needs the ball.
Kyrie needs the ball to do with he stuff, but
he can play off the ball. How did you know
that they'll work together.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Because they're both basketball savants, but they understand the game,
they know how to play, they know what it takes
to win. They compliment each other in a lot of ways.
You know, Luca's big, strong, not so quick, where Kyrie's
quick handles. I mean they both got handles right out
of the world handles, but just plays the game a
little differently. And when you have a back court that
can compliment each other and both are willing to let

(05:35):
the other guy lead when the time is right, that's
when it's going to work. Like when we first traded
for him, they couldn't figure each other out because they
hadn't had a preseason together. And then you know, last
year it took a little time. I mean we didn't
get it right at the beginning, but by the end
of the year they were playing off each other great
and it was like, because you know, Luca just loves
to start a game by taking over, and then Kai

(05:56):
is fourth quarter, Kai right, and if Kay is rolling,
Luca's like here you go. And if guy's not rolling,
goes give me the ball, it's my turn, right, And
when they got that respect in that relationship, that's when
everything changed.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
But you know, Kyrie had a history of what transpired
him in Cleveland and it was boffed in and it
didn't work out with the nass and the head. So
how do you deal with a player that you know
it might not have worked out over here, It might
not have worked out over there, It might not have
worked out over there, but you know what, I believe
in this player and it's going to work out over here.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
How do you how do you assess that mark?

Speaker 2 (06:27):
You talk to them, and you talk to people around them.
You watch what happens. You know how their actions are.
When you watch Kyrie before he came to the Mavsie,
when you watch Kyrie after the game, you know, you
see you know football, right, these guys will swap jerseys,
slap each other right, and walk out the door and
never talk to each other again. Kyrie is one of
those guys like he's gonna hug you, and yeah, he's
gonna hug you like he's known you for twenty years

(06:49):
and you guys are first cousins, yes, right, And that
says something when guys are getting that close to each other.
And so when you talk to players, they loved them. Yes,
nobody had a bad word to say about Kyrie that
ever stepped on the court. And so to me, that
was all we needed to know. And then from there
all the things you said, Okay, what what wrong in
Bossed and what went wrong in Brooklyn? A lot of

(07:11):
that is maturity, right, but a lot of it was
circumstances too right. How often is COVID going to hit right,
you know and lead to those circumstances. And what we
learned was you just like Kaybee Kai, you know, and
I love talking to the guy, and I say this
all the time, Like, you know, if you go back
to your college days and you're sitting in the dorm
and you're hanging out with friends, there's a couple guys

(07:31):
that just want to get trashed, right, There's a couple
guys that want to get trashed and talk about girls, right,
and then you all talk about sports. Kai is the
dude that's sitting there wanting to talk about world peace? Right,
Why aren't we fixing this? You know? How do we
end hunger? He's just got that, He's got a heart
of gold. He's got a huge heart and he wants
to help people, you know, and even if you look
at his social media, it's about his tribe, right, It's

(07:53):
about the people around him and how we can lift
people up right, his community, and that once we saw that,
I mean to me, it was easy to make that decision.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
When you hear people like man, they're misunderstood. What was
your perception of Kyrie before you actually got around Kyrie
and found out what type of genuine person they.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Honestly, before I did the work, I thought he was
the team killer, Okay, right. I was just like, because
I never talked, there was no point. There was no
reason for me to talk to people about him. Right,
It's just like, hey, if he doesn't want to play
when the mass comes to town, great, Right, things don't
work out on another team, great, But you know, when
the opportunity to trade for him came, it's like, okay,
let's do the work. And you know, Nico did the work.

(08:32):
Jay Kid knew him, Nico knew him for years and
it was like, okay, let me talk to folks, and
everybody loved him. And so then you looked at the
organizations he was at and you know.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
That didn't help the situation.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, right, And so I mean I knew all these owners, right,
and I knew the circumstances, and so you know, it
wasn't a hard decision.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
What when you sit down and talk to Kay and
you mentioned it earlier, like you look at the social
media feed and he's talking about things that normal guys,
he is a probably not talking about. But when he
got dropped by some of these major sponsors, what did
you what did you share with it?

Speaker 2 (09:09):
I was like, can I help? And obviously you know
when it comes to shoes, which is big money off court,
we got Nico Harrison right there, right, and so Nico
gave him a lot of guidance and support. He had
talked to him and worked with him at Nike. So
Nico was great. And you know I talked to Kai
about business and he was just like Mark, I just
want to be myself, lead the way I want to

(09:30):
lead and be creative. And he found a great deal, right,
and he's been making it work. If you notice the
deals he signed since he came to us. There's no problems, right,
There's no issues because we just let Kai be Kai.
And when you do that, good things happened, right.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Now, Is it true that when Giannis was a free agent,
you did you want to silence try and because I'm
reading this like you passed on Yanis.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Okay, two different things, right, So when Giannis was getting
drafted right, right, that's when you passed. That's when we passed,
right because we had Dirk and this is like twenty twelve,
I think it was in twenty thirteen, and we would
just won the championship two years ago, and so some
of our people wanted to go for Gianni's I wanted
to trade down and we ended up getting Shane Lark
and not because so much of Shane who could play,

(10:16):
but we needed that cap room to go out and
try to sign somebody to propel Dirk. We wanted to
go for the gold againet another one, right, We wanted
to get another one, so you know, but it's just
the way it worked out. And had we gotten honest,
we never gotten Luca.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
Wow. Yeah, So how do you make how do you
how do you do that mark?

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Because you're like, Okay, there's this guy here and we
have a superstar already on the team and we're trying
to maximize because he's not going to play another ten years, right,
so we want to maximize this. So how do you
really determine because you look at Young's like, damn if
we don't have you, Luke.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
But remember remember so Yann's coming out, there were like
I vividly remember there were two VHS tapes of him
playing in the Greek League. That was Oh, they had
to show me, you know, you know, like the old
school tapes if you went into yards sale, right and
you find these days, you know when it's got lines
and everything and it looks like somebody, you know, someone's
mom shot it. That's what it was, right, And look

(11:13):
he got drafted at thirteen I think or something like that,
and so you know it wasn't like every other team
knew about it either. But you know, you have to
respect Dirk. You have to respect what he's done for us.
And I already know, like Dirk, if we had just,
you know, instead of going for it in free agency,
if we had just said, Okay, this rookie's going to
be great, it would be like what a shit show.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
With all love?

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Right, because Dirk's all love. But you know, so you know,
just out of respect to Dirk, it was my it
was my final decision and we went for it and
we didn't get the free agents we wanted, but that
was the plan.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Does the Buk have the buck always stop on Mark
Cuban's day?

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, it's got to right. It was my team, you know,
it was my responsibility, my final decisions, for better or worse.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Because I heard Jerry say, Jerry says, no one can
run the Cowboys better than I can of the GM.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
Is that how you feel?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
You know, there's probably a lot of people who could
run it better, and obviously someone's going to get the
chance now. But Jerry, you know, Jerry and I had
and the difference is between us is Jerry saw the
whole thing as a business, right, right, And when he
talks about running this thing as a business and as
a football team, he's right, right. And they've gone twelve

(12:27):
and five like three straight years, right, So it's not
like they suck, right, And you know how hard it
is to get over the Hume, absolutely right. It takes
some luck. And you know you're playing against Mahomes, who's
like the Michael Jordan in some respects of quarterbacks, you know,
and then it was Brady before him, right, And so
I'm not disagreeing with Jerry. I just think you got
to get more credit to Luck because Luck has more

(12:49):
impact than probably anything I could do or anything Jerry
can do. OK.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
So, have you had conversations with Jerry about with Jerry?
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Maybe you let you know, let such and such, maybe
it's a different eye.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
No. I've had conversations with him in the past, but
not about players, right, because I don't know shit about
football players. I mean, I got my own fantasy football stuff.
My son Jake is just all about fantasy football, right.
But yeah, you've got to you've got to live it
to make those kind of decisions. But I've talked to
him in the past about coaching decisions and stuff. But
that was probably ten years ago.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Okay, this is Michael Finley, Grant William, They tell the story.
But I want to get to Luca. I believe if
Luca were to like train in the off season, get
himself in tip top shape. I don't think Luca realized
he's great. I'm talking about he he's transcending, he's historically great.
But I don't think Luca realized how great he can be.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, we all mature as we
get older, right, and this going into a sixth year,
he learned, he learned what it takes to get to
the finals for the first time, and that tells you
a lot. It's like with Dirk when we lost in
two thousand and six in the finals to Miami. Dirk's
had a to change completely. Yeah, Derk just became a

(14:03):
different human in terms of preparation. I mean literally, like
no alcohol during the season, which wasn't how we used
to be. Trust, no sweets, no fried food during the season,
just complete about face on how he approached his profession.
And Luca's smart like that too. Now you know, I

(14:24):
haven't talked to him this offseason about all that kind
of stuff. What's that?

Speaker 4 (14:28):
What about the hookah?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Hey, let me just tell you this. I know one
guy who's about seven foot and it is a Hall
of famer who introduced me to hookah. Right the one
time I've tried it, and he ain't slowing down and
he's like thirty seven, So I'm not going to judge there. Okay,
what do you think about hookah?

Speaker 4 (14:47):
I have never tried it?

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yo, you never have I don't know what twice twice?

Speaker 4 (14:51):
You like it?

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Nah, no, if I've only done it twice, I tell
you where you go?

Speaker 1 (14:54):
So tell us the story about Grant Williams. You sign
him in free agent from the Celtics, and I guess
he's Michael Fanny tells the story that he's trash talking
Luca in practice.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Were you there that day?

Speaker 2 (15:06):
I wasn't there that day, but I heard all the
stories obviously, So.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
What so what happened to the best? What were you?
What was relayed to you?

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Oh? You know, Grant, Grant was trying to define himself.
Grant's a great guy, right, I still keep in touch
with him. I like him a lot. And he was
trying to define his role with the Mavericks. You know,
he wasn't going to be the best player, but he
was going to be a role player that that had
to fit in May threes. But he was kind of
like the enforcer, and he also wanted to be kind

(15:33):
of the adult on the court, you know. And and
with Luca it just did go over well at all.
When you start trash talking Luca, that's never going to
end well. Like if I've trash talked him like fun,
he gives me the stink eye. You know, you are
not doing that to Luca, and Grant found out the
hard way.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
How did Dirt when you said, because like you said,
he's going, Luca's going into his sixth season, Dirt played
twenty season with you, the only franchise that he's ever
played with. You said, yeah, right now, lucas the best player.
You really believe that right now, that he's a better
player than Dirk's ever.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean Dirk, Remember the league has changed, right,
you know, and Dirk the skills he brought, and even
more than his skills, the mindset. Dirk is mentally tougher
than any human I've ever met in my life. You know,
whether it's dealing with pain, because you know better than anybody, right,
it's what you do off the court, correct off what

(16:33):
you do off the field, that's more. That defines what
you do if you don't do it off you know, mentally, physically, intellectually, right,
learning all the things you need to do your football
iqu or basketball ceue. It doesn't matter how talented you are, right,
We've seen boasting talented guys just right through a flame
out in a minute. And so you know, Dirk had
that mindset that was stronger than maybe anybody other than

(16:55):
Michael Jordan, and that's you know, Luca. On the other hand,
in terms of actual skill and killer instinct, Luca can
handle the ball. Dirk needed somebody to get him the ball.
That's the only reason, right. If Dirk was Dirk came
out now right, and he'd have the skills and the

(17:15):
handles right because you know, like kids today, they watch
on Instagram, they watch on TikTok all the drills and
all the handles, and they see Steph and they see
Luca and Kyrie and so they all am.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
Dirk would have been out with all those handles and
unfair a whole difference. So basically, he'd been Kevin Durant
before Kevin Durant. Kevin dur Red got handled to get
shooting the ball. The seven foot dog gets shooting the
ball like Dirk. So basically, exactly, you've been KD before KD.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
He would have been right and and then some. And
that's no disrespect to KD who was that first person
to get me that Hookah.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
When Luca's contracts up, he's going to have the biggest contract.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
In NBA here, Sure do you believe we're going to get.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
To a point in time, I don't know how soon,
probably because of the way it's going that we're going
to see an NBA player with a billion dollar contract.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, a billion mark. Yeah, but I
mean that presumes that TV keeps on going up the
way it is. But you're gonna see hundred million dollars
a year here shortly, wow, because if the TV contract
has ten percent increases in the cap the way the
CBA works, right, And you saw Steph you know, had
sixty two million for one year.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I mean when Luca and Tatum and all these guys,
man daem.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Young got what Tatum just got what like four hundred something,
So Luca's about to get.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
A lot, a lot, and it's gonna go crazier. Like
this year, this coming year is still old CBA, old
TV money. Right. Once that new TV money get kicks in,
Like do we make more money a year than I will?
These guys are gonna be making like I don't care
how many billions you have, Like I don't have a
real job, right, you know, and so I'm not making

(18:57):
a million, one hundred million dollars every year, right, right,
You're gonna have You're gonna have players making more than
the owners. Wow, And that's okay, right, There is no
league without them, right, that's what makes basketball the NBA
different than every other sport. Right. You know, you couldn't
recognize fifty to fifty three guys on an NFL roster

(19:17):
if they walked in the door, right, NBA. Right, particularly
if you play two K you knew all fifteen guys
and the two way guys too. Yes, right, And that's unique.
You don't have that in baseball. You don't have that
in soccer or the NHL. That's unique. They are the
league and they earn every penny of it.

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Speaker 4 (21:02):
Well, obviously they've.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Been a lot of fus because the streaming is really
taking this thing over.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I mean, you have Amazon, remember when you said, you know,
started the first streaming platform. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Let's go back to that. I read a quote probably
about I was probably twenty two to twenty three. They
say it's a genius seeing things that no one else
sees and hits the bulls eye the streaming platform. Mark,
How could you have foreshadow this is where it's heading.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, it was easy, actually, I mean it made perfect
sense to me. I'd been in the technology business for
a long time, right, and my buddy Todd and actually
start the building. We started and was next door there,
two doors down, and we're like, look this internet stuff.
There's going to be multimedia at some point, right, let's
start with audio and eventually it'll get to video. And
we're like, okay, is anybody else doing this? No, okay,

(21:50):
let me buy a computer. I bought another computer, put
in the second bedroom in my house, and I was like,
let's just grind it out. And we started going to
every radio station, every sports lind like we just got
all the rights and locked them up. We were YouTube
before YouTube, and and really it was hard to do.
But in hindsight I was shocked no one else had

(22:11):
done it before.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Wow. And you look back at it, So when you
sold that first company, you's like, did you like, damn
that was?

Speaker 4 (22:20):
That was? That was easy? Do you do you start
a company with the hopes of selling it?

Speaker 2 (22:25):
No? Never. I always started company with the hopes of
fucking things up right and trying to disrupt things, you know.
So like I remember when we started it was audio
and that before was broadcast dot com, and people were like, well,
what's the mission on you know, what's your personal goal?
And I'm like, I want to be the next Ted
Turner because Ted Turner had TVs right, started CNN right,

(22:46):
and then he was you know, doing the racing, the
yacht racing or whatever the world. Yeah, well no, America's
America's cut, right or something like that. But in that event,
and he has champagne everywhere, he has hot girls everywhere, right,
and he's like managing the braves when he wanted to.
I'm like, come on, that's what I want to be, right,

(23:08):
I want to have fun. And so the goal though
was to see if we can turn this thing and
actually at some point in time replaced television and it
happens slower than we expected, but it's happening now. And
that was the vision is well.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Because it seems like people just like go linear for
live sporting events. Is like everything else is kind of
like the Netflix, the Amazon and the two b's all
that other stuff is on like streaming platforms. Is that
where we're So in the next five to ten years,
mark where are we going to be?

Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's where we're going to be, right, because linear television
is struggling, you know, you know, you know, you know,
ESPN used to have one ten hundred and twenty one
hundred ten million subscribers. Now they're down in the seventies
or something like that. And that's changed, right, you know
this industry well, right, and it's harder even for Fox
Sports than those guys, and so money's just not gonna

(24:01):
be there. It used to be like there was there
was a time where it was like, okay, what's on
what are the new shows on ABC, CBS and NBC? Right,
And you were said.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
To be must watch watch TV.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
You set your clock like, man, I'm gonna watch friends,
I'm gonna watch everybody Loves Raymond or all the whatever
in Shark in Shark Tank, yes, did you know that
was gonna be No?

Speaker 2 (24:22):
I thought it was gonna suck. But we'll get there
to say, right, okay, So but those shows, like are
scripted shows, they're not going to linear television anymore. They're
going to streaming, right, Netflix and Peacock and Max and
those guys, and so you know, now the linear stations
are trying to do all sports, you know, and that's
their angle. And on Shark Tank. Literally, when I got

(24:44):
asked to be a guest Shark and they're like, we'll
give you three episodes, I'm like, cool, I'll come on.
This show's not gonna last. I'm just gonna go on
there literally O TV for three shows. Right, that's exactly right.
I'll be on you know, I'll be on network television
on ABC for three shows. I'll raise some hell show people.
I know what I'm talking about with business, and we'll
see what comes next, right, and the next thing, you know, bam.

(25:06):
Of course I take all the credit.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
This media rights deal. Obviously tn T is, it has
been at it. It's an institution, right, Chuck Kenny Charles
and excuse me, Kenny Ernie Ernie, Yeah, and shot and shot.
So obviously they're an institution, and after this year, they're

(25:29):
not going to be there unless NBC or ESPN or
one of these Amazon somebody picks them up. How difficult
is that because they say, well, we're gonna sue because
we had writer first refusal, whatever the case may be.
And you don't have to get into too deep into it, Mark,
But so what's going on with that? Did you know
that the media rights deal was going to be basically
like three x four x.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Ten x, Yeah, because we were the last big media
deal available. So think about what we just said, right,
how do you keep lining your TV a lot?

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Right, you need sports and the NFL's already locked up,
so who's next? And so if you're going to stay alive,
you needed us. And then when streaming wanted some of
it to be able to carve out just some like
Amazon carves out on Peacock carves out some, it's like,
why would we not take that money? Yeah, you know,
and I mean fifty one percent goes to the players,
So they were happy about it too.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I think the thing is is that these platforms, the
streaming platform, the next lift to YouTube. They want to
be channels, they want to be taken serious, and you
cannot do it with our sports.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
No, because that's what's kept them alive. Right, the NFL,
to a lesser extent, the NBA in Major League Baseball.
You know, the other sports are helping, but they're living
on the NFL, yes, right, And the NFL is just
more and more and more and more. But at some
point there'll be a tipping point, right, because it costs
more to get a linear television network than it does

(26:52):
just to streaming. Right, because the cable network, the satellite network,
they're having to pay all this money and they're having
to charge consumers all that money that's not going to
stay or stick around forever. And they're all, yeah, it's
not sustainable the way it is today, and all those
platforms are trying to figure out the right way to
do it.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
If Mark Cuban was an NBA player today, how would
he spend his money?

Speaker 4 (27:18):
How would he invest his money?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
How would you how what type of business if you're
an NBA player, so coming in and so you don't
have the businessman that you have, right right, right.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Right, right, So if I'm just a two way player. Right,
If I'm a two way player, I'm living like a
student because you don't know how long.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
It's going to last, right, Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And one of the hard things is, you know, like
I never I didn't grow up with money. I didn't
have shit, And so it's hard when you first get
money to understand what it is, right, how how much
do you have and what can you actually do? Because
you hear all these stories and you think and you
know how that goes, right.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
But you don't think it's going to happen to you right.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Right, And you hear about the stories about people losing
it all. So I tell guys all all the time,
save your money. You know, one broken ankle and it's over.
It's over. And if I'm somebody making forty fifty sixty million,
then I'm hiring somebody that knows what they're doing. But
it ain't gonna be one of my friends, okay, Right.
It can't not be your friend, because your friend wants

(28:17):
to be your friend. My money guy needs to make
me money, right, And it can't be a friend of
a friend of a friend. It's got to be somebody
who's done it for big time people and knows their shit, right,
because that's that's the other place guys get tied up. Well,
that's my guy. He's been with me forever. I want
to take care of him. He wants to get into finance.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
Oh no, no, no, no, he can steal be with me.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
You can be your friend, right, I'll take you to dinner,
I'll you know, I'll buy you. I'll pay you some
money to take care of things. Right, But you can't,
you know, don't invest in the restaurant, don't invest in
the clothing label. Don't invest in the liquor company. Sorry,
but you know our music, right, that is the death right.
So it's not so much now, right, But in the

(29:00):
early two thousand's, early twenty ten's, everybody wanted a music label, right.
Everybody was either going to be a rapper or they
were going to, you know, have a label and sign
rappers because that's what you know, what was going on.
And you know, one athlete's label that's done any good? Nah,
I don't, don't you know? Clothing companies, No, it's hard,

(29:24):
it is, right. Those business hard because there's no barriers
to entry. You want to start a clothing It's funny
because I get people talk to me all the time.
So I've got this brand name, right, let's get busy
LGB and you think you're start a clothing line based
off of LGB, right, or you know, I've got this
one song that I'm gonna do, right and listen to this?

(29:46):
Isn't this the best song you It's not that easy.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
As the Dallas Mavericks owner, obviously your signature player before Luca,
and you've had some great players at the Mavericks, but
it's been dirt.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah. Of course, what is.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
Dirk meant to you? And this organization?

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Everything? He is the organization. He's the definition of the
Dallas Mavericks. And again not just what he did for
us on the court, but who he is off the court.
Dirk's that guy that's going to the hospitals without being asked. That's,
you know, taking time with kids, visiting them. You know
when he has a special event and he's had many,
he's making sure kids are coming and he's just got

(30:25):
you know, he's got that heart. People know he loves
Dallas and as a result, Dallas loves him.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
And that's what I'm That's the interesting thing Mark because
a lot of these international players like when they're done.
They go back to their respected countries. Dirk has remained.
He's German, but he.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
He goes back and forth, he goes, he does. Yeah,
but you're right, he's Dallas, right, but he stays here.
He lives here. Just build a house here, you know,
does charity continuously? You know you can take you can't
take the Dallas out of Dirk.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Now is it true that he brought his meals on
the road in luminum ball?

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Some? Not all right? Some? Yeah, no, I do remember that, right.
He'd get it because he wanted healthier stuff, right right,
So yeah, I forgot all about that. So yeah, so
he would get things specially made for him because he
wasn't gonna eat anything because you know what it's like
on a team plane, there's fried chicken everywhere, you know whatever.
The players just love to eat, right, And he was like, no,
I'm no more fried food.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Why have European players really if you look at what
the last six.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
MVPs, it's been European players.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
You got Yoki with three, you got Giannis with two,
you got Joel and b with one. Why have they start?
Why have we seen the shift to where European players
are starting to dominate.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, I mean just in the draft and two reasons. One,
the rest of the world is bigger than us, right,
so we've got thirty three hundred thirty million. Yeah, there's
eight billion people in the world, right, so yeah, so
there's more options available, right, particularly now with Africa and India.
And you know, I love whenever I think India. Now,
I like that song tan To's in.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
But anyways, I digress it. But so there's just more people.
And then the training methods are different. There's no equivalent
of AAU and you know, kids here like my son
or whoever, they're playing game after game after game, but
hardy practice wow, you know. And over there there's two
practices a day and you might play one, two, three,

(32:31):
maybe three times a week, and so the focus is
on developing skills and no matter you know, here, even
still we kind of pigeonhole people into certain positions. You're big, right,
you get down on the block, the.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
Biggest guy you played the four to five.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right, right, and so, and that's changing some, but they
don't really work on all the skills or even more importantly,
the basketball IQ you know, And I take that back
a little bit because kids now are far more skilled
at the high school level with the junior high level.
You see the handles, right, like, my son's got handles,
like he's got my athleticism unfortunately for him. But my

(33:06):
son's got handles like yeah, you know, I mean I
used to be able to dunk, but still he still
got my athleticism. And so but his handles are off
the charts, right, and it's no big deal. All the
guys on his team can handle and they get that
from social media, but they don't get the same basketball IQ, right,
they don't. So that's what I try to work on

(33:28):
with him. Right, head up, what's gonna happen next? Right,
anticipate where things are going, and you don't see that
a lot with AAU. And then parents get into it too.
It's like get my guy some minutes, right, or my
girls some minutes, And that makes some more difference.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's not like that in the European parents aren't aren't
hummingbird the helicopter and they're not hovering old.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Not like here, not like here, because I mean there's
a lot of pressure on kids too. Right, they're in
the meal ticket and that's tough. That is really tough.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Dennis Shruder casts some flat he said.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
They asked Dennis Shrewder, he says, because you're paying basketball
is straight basketball IQ, no entertainment, straight coaching, really really
high IQ. Guys who know how to play the game.
Of course, the US is the best league in the world,
but Europeans they're coming for sure.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Katie didn't take kindly to that.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
He's like cause he took a picture of that when
they won the gold medal, you know, best IQ and entertainment.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
What was Dennis shrew to try to say? And do
you understand what he was saying?

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, of course I understand. Right. So once you get
past the top thirty players, right, IQ matters, right, because
you've got to be able to play with Luca, You've
got to be able to play with Kyrie because they
have like high IQs and everything else to go with it. Right,
But the guys who are you know, fifth, sixth, seventh
and lower on the roster, you got to have a

(34:49):
high basketball IQ to know where you're fit and know
where your role is. And if all you ever learned
was you know, dribble, if you don't have an IQ, right,
it's going to be harder to fit in the NBA, right,
And so they're both you know, Katie, give them a shit,
was right because we have the best players. It's not
even closed right right at the but still out of

(35:10):
those top twenty players in the you know, there's a
reason why those guys have been MVP. And so if
you have the level of skill that you need and
you have that basketball IQ and it's developed, and if
you flip it around, if we did the same development
here for kids and you combine the athleticism and the
skill with the basketball IQ, there might be half the

(35:34):
number of European players or foreign players in the NBA.
We just don't give them that basketball IQ support.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Are we are American players? Are we too reliant on athleticism?

Speaker 2 (35:45):
I think it depends to a certain extent. Yes, there
are some players that, like the Kd's of the world,
like Lebron's of the world, that are American, have basketball
ques off the charts. You know, they're just insane, you know,
every element of the game. But kids see that and

(36:06):
they try to replicate you know what Anthony Edwards does right?
You know don't and said right, and you know Duncan
dem X and all that stuff, right, And I don't
see that from European kids coming in. And I think
that's the difference. If you applied the same training techniques
and combine that with the athleticism that we have in
this country, well yeah, it'd be a whole different league.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
I've never seen him play in person, but you've had
a front world seat to see this guy over the
last decade, and that's Nicola jokicch Yeah. When you look
at a guy and you, I mean just look at
him from television, You're like, Okay, he doesn't have the
cap shoulders like Jannis, he's not freight trained like Lebron,
he doesn't have the he can't jump out the gym
like a young shock.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
But bro, he just light people up.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
What is it about him, Mark that makes him so great,
so unique that he's able to dominate when he doesn't
have anything about him that's physically dominanting.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
You what I mean if you just saw him in
a plick cup, like, you would be like, you know,
who's the chibb chubby dude? Right? Oh my god? He
could play it right, But it's skill skill In basketball IQ,
you combine being six to eleven, six ten to eleven
with basketball IQ skill. He can shoot, he can dribble,
he can pass, he sees things three steps ahead. You know,
him and Luca are like, you know, twins in a

(37:23):
lot of respects. And when you have all those elements
to your game, like, there's always a place for a shooter, right, Yes,
always a place for shooter in the NBA. There's always
a place for somebody who can rebound. Now, if you
can rebound and shoot, okay, you're gonna be good. If
you can rebound shoot handle, you're gonna be really really good.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
If you could rebound shoot handle in your basketball IQ
is top five in the NBA, You're unstoppable.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
In two thousand and six, you said the situation with
Dirk it changed. He started to take the way he ate,
the way he trained, the way he did every single
thing was different than the previous years because he had
gotten so close. He got a tape to what it
was like to play in the NBA Finals. You go
up to Oh, you're feeling, you had to be feeling.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
This is gonna be a fun interview.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
It is.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
We go, we go get to the fun stuff. So
when you go up to Oh, you just like we
got this.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
No, we were up two oh and it was the
third quarter and we're in Miami, and I always sit
right behind the bench, yes day, right, and I'm standing
up clapping and I'm thinking we're up like fourteen and yes,
and I'm thinking to my shelf, oh shit, we might
sweep these dudes. Not two seconds later, right you, Donnas
Haslim steals, the ball, goes in for lab Now it's twelve.

(38:36):
Then a couple of minutes later, Shaq pushes Eric damp
Pierre pushes him and they call foul Eric Dampierre, I'm like, oh,
if he hits these free throws, we're in trouble. Shaq
hits to freetailers, right, I'm like, oh shit, we're fucked.
And you know, went downhill from there, you know, And
Dwayne Wade goes to the free throw line nine hundred
and seventy three times, right, So it was over.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
The relationship that you have is unlike maybe only with
Doctor Buzz had with Magic, is that you party.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
You hang out with the players. You've hung out with the.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Players, do you find how do you how do you
manage that? Because at the end of the day, you
are the owner.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
I mean, you have the you can sign players, you
can trade players, you can release players. How is that
How does that has that ever interfered with your relationship
with the player?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah? For sure. Like my first year, we had a
player named Eric Strickland who I got to be really
close with, went to Nebraska, didn't have a long NBA
career with great dude, right, and we got to be
really good friends. And it was draft night and our
guys were like, you know, here's a trade we need
to do. And I'm like, oh, fuck right, we're gonna

(39:44):
have to trade them, and you know, and it was
then I learned that you've got to do it's best
for the team, and players respect that right. And players,
you know, when they get traded, they may not like
it if they see another opportunity, hopefully the next place. But
I also realized that basketball is X number of years.
Life's a long long time, right, And like even when
we screwed up and let Steve Nash go, I've gotten

(40:06):
to be friends with nashally took a time. It took
some time, right, he you know, he didn't like me
for a long time, but you know, now we're friends again.
And so you know, you just it's okay to be
friends with them, it's okay to get close to them.
You just have to be honest with them. And if
you're honest with them, it's okay.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
What do you what are your thoughts on super teams?
It's really over.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, they don't really work And it's going to be
a lot harder now with the new CBA. You know,
with the new collective Barding agreement. You know, they have
this first apron and second apron thing, right, and if
you have three max out players, you're right there. By
the time you have fifteen guys, you're over the second apron.
And if you stay at the second apron for you know,

(40:50):
two years, you know you're getting your first draft pick
moved to the end of the draft, or you get
you can't trade it. And then the second time, second year,
if you're over, you move to the end of the draft, right,
no matter what, and there's limits on the trades you
can make. It's hard to build a team, and so
I think it's gonna be harder and harder and harder

(41:10):
for teams to have, you know, a big three that
are all max out. Now, what you want is like, well,
we Hope is like a player, Well, Clay comes in, right,
and a Naja Marshall comes in, but we got someone
we drafted, like Derek Lively who can be an All
Star caliber player or better. You know, it's just like
the Celtics. They were able to make a lot of

(41:30):
trades because the Jay Brown and Tatum. Yeah, we're on
not rookie contracts, but on lower contracts as the cap
went up. That's what you need to have happen. And
if you go for it and you get three max
out players and it doesn't work, I mean, look at
the Clippers. You know, they had three amazing max out
players and you know, injuries got in the way, and

(41:55):
it's gonna be really hard to keep together a team
like that.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, it's gonna be hard for the Clippers to keep
that thing because PG is gone, Kawhik can for whatever reason,
he can't stay healthy.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
So it's tough. It's tough right now. I don't want
to talk specifically about any one team, but you know,
three max out players partually as those numbers go up, Yes, right,
those numbers go up because the max out contracts, you know,
as a percentage, you're at thirty five percent for a
supermax of the cap, and if you got three of them, right,

(42:26):
that's one hundred and five percent of the cap, right,
depending on when you signed it. Right. So it's not
going to stay that way because you know, you'll sign
a guy at thirty five percent, then a cap will
go up ten percent, right, So he won't stay at
thirty five percent, But it's close enough right over just
three guys that it's going to be hard to keep
him together.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Lebron obviously, are you surprised that he's been able to
play as well as he has for as long as
he has to be as doorable as he's.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Being, Yeah, of course I thought he was done five
times all. The guy's a beast, but he's got that
mental fortitude, right. It's like we talked about with Dirk.
He's just one of those guys that he understands the assignments.
You've got to take care of your body, you've got
to take care of your mind, you've got to take
care of your skills. His three point shootings improved like yes,

(43:14):
you know, and so he gets credit for doing the work,
and you know, that's what makes him one of the
greatest of all time.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
I tell kids, And I tell when I talk to athletes,
I say, you have to spend more time because you're
going to spend more time off the court or off
the field than you do on the field. They say,
for a lawyer, for every hour that you spend in
the courtroom, you need to spend two two and a
half hours.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, salmon business.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
So if you're going to spend on the court, you
spend that kind of time. You need to spend time
eating and taking care of your that'shous you get a trained. Yes,
it does not get easier. Yes, it does not get
Trust me, you're still young. Wait till he gets harder
and harder. You know that shit is no fun.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
But he gets all the credit in the world for
having that discipline to be able to do it. Those
guys don't.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
He wants to be an owner, obviously, you know. I
think you guys are looking at maybe bringing the team
to Vegas. I think Sea Adle is being talked about.
I don't know if there's anybody else, but I think
that's those are the two franchises, and obviously he's kind
of looking at the one and in Vegas. What type
of owner you think Lebron would be I don't know. Players,

(44:23):
it's gonna be a lot harder for a player, right.
We saw Michael Jordan. Right, great guy has some success,
but not as much as you wanted.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Right.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's hard because players have one mindset and they look
at other players in a certain way. You know why
you can't do that?

Speaker 4 (44:39):
I could do that.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I can do Let me show you, right, Michael Jordan,
I'm fifty five years old. I'm gonna whoop your ass. Right.
But yeah, it's it's just completely different perspective that's hard
to disconnect yourself from. And it's hard to be objective
and not have your player mindset. And so like when
you've seen general managers that are former players, they're not
the great players that were you know, that are good

(45:02):
general managers. It's the role players that got to watch
everybody else and understand how to fit these pieces together.
And so for any superstar, it's going to be hard.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Being an owner.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
What's a typical day for Mark Cuban when you when
you were the full time owner of the Mavericks, what's
a typical day?

Speaker 4 (45:22):
What time do you wake up? And what's your schedule?

Speaker 2 (45:25):
So it depends what part of the season it is.
So during the off season is when I spend had
to do most of the work right because the free
agency and the draft and everything, So that's where I
had to pay the most attention. And then when you
get to the trade deadline, that's another time when you
have to pay a lot of attention. Otherwise I'm just

(45:45):
screaming and yell on right, there's you know, as long
as there's you know. And it also depends if you're
winning or losing. If you're winning, it's easy, everything just goes.
If you're losing, and you don't want to lose because
there's there's rebuilding, and then there's losing when you think
you're going to win, and when you're losing when you
think you're going to win. That's when an owner has

(46:06):
to do with stuff right, because you've got to communicate.
You've got to make decisions. What about you know, is
it the coach? Is it the players? Is the general manager?
And is it the decisions we made? Is a chemistry?
Why are we not performing the way we expected this
team to perform. That's when it's hard as an owner
because you've got to figure it out. I mean, I remember,

(46:27):
like it was two thousand and eight, maybe we were
playing in Sacramento, and no, it was later than that,
but in any of that, we're playing in Sacramento and
we were just were not playing hard. And I remember
walking to I've only given probably four locker room speeches, right,
And I walked into the locker room and I start
pointing in to different guys, Yo, do you get your
paycheck this week? Yeah? Do you get your paycheck this week?

(46:49):
And I went around to all of them, you get
your paycheck this week? And they all said yes, the
motherfucking play like you got your paycheck right, because you're
doing shit right.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
And so so I can imagine it looks like and
we lost that game.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Do owners that.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Because I heard you say, You're like, is it the coach?
The players, is the GM if anything else in the staff?
Do owners ever look at himselves like is it me?

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Of course, oh all the time, right, because it's my
final responsibility, like we said before, and you're gonna make mistakes,
and I've made plenty.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
I traded early on. I traded for this one dude,
and literally I thought he was the unibomber. I thought
he was gonna blow shit up, like for real, blow
shut up, and I'm like, what the hell did I do?
You know, And at the beginning, it was just like, okay,
let's see if we can integrate a mintegrant. It just
wasn't going to work out. So he was just on
the StairMaster all day, every day, and that was it

(47:50):
because we couldn't trade him. He wasn't tradable. But you
so you make mistakes like that, and you just got
to own it. You know, in the early days when
I first bought, you can kind of buy your way
out of mistakes and buy your way into a better
team because there are a lot more old school owners
now there's you know, either super super rich people or
private equity groups and they can afford to play the

(48:12):
whole game. Back in the early days, and you know,
the two thousands, there were a lot of old school
owners pops, yeah, lomma pops that have been there forty years, right,
And you know, you could buy a draft pick for
three million dollars and I'd be like, okay, you know,
make a trade and take on twenty five million dollars
in salary to save their ass, right, Okay, But you
can't even do that in the CBA anymore. And now

(48:33):
they have a lot more money, so they don't do
like they're like, okay, I'll buy that pick, Get the
fuck out of here.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Mark, you made a decision that you sold the majority
share of the Mavericks. And I know what the Mavericks.
Of all the companies, I think the Mavericks are your baby.
I think they they meant the most and to you.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, that's the only one I've ever been for twenty
four years.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Right? How difficult? How how did you come to that decision?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
And was that a difficul decision because I'm sure you
thought long and hard, like I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
No I'm not, Yeah, no, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
I mean it had more to do. Well, there was
two reasons, only two reasons, right. One because of my family. Right,
you know, I'm at that age and I'm not going
to be around for thirty years, right, And so are
my kids. You know my kids now are fifteen, eighteen
and twenty one. Are they gonna want to run this?
And what if they decide not to? And then what
do I do?

Speaker 4 (49:24):
Right?

Speaker 2 (49:24):
And so that was the biggest thing. And you know
what sports are like too, is also I don't want
to just automatically put pressure on them. It's great when
you're winning, right, everybody wants to run a team when
you're winning, correct, But when the ship's hitting the fan
and you suck, and you know what social media is like,
and kids are on social media all the time, I
don't want didn't want to put my kids in the
position where they're like you, you know, and they have

(49:45):
to deal with that stuff while they're just developing as adults.
So that was one and number two. To compete in
the NBA now is expensive. Not all teams make money.
It's not like the NFL. And in order to have
the money to be able to do whatever you need
luxury tax, whatever it may be. It's not just about
technology or tickets or TV anymore. Like technology, Okay, I

(50:08):
got that down right, TV media got that shit down.
To streaming, got that shit down. But now you got
to build real estate. I don't know shit about real
estate and never was it never did. And so when
I had a chance to work with Patrick Dumont starting
years ago, we would talk all the time about bringing
you know, resort based casino gaming to Dallas or to Texas,

(50:29):
and you know, he would talk about what it takes
to build a casino and to build a new arena
that fit in there, And I'm like, I don't know
anything about this. And so if the MAVs were going
to compete, I was going to have to learn all
that stuff, and honestly, I don't want to learn it.
And if that was, if it was going to take
two billion in cash to make all that work, Steve
Bomber's got that. I don't have that your heart, right,

(50:52):
I do now, which I'm happy about.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
But now you don't want to be now you don't
want to build?

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Well, no, it's just didn't no right, I'd be want that.
I could have borrowed it and all that stuff, but
I would have to learn it or I would have
had to just trust somebody, and that's just not my style.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
That's a lot of money to trust.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
It's a lot of money to trust and a lot
on the line. And so now I've got a great
partner who will know going to improve the arena we
have today, will build something new. We'll be able to
make a destination that Dallas will be proud of. And
he knows things, he's forgotten more about building than I've
ever known. And so it makes a great partner, which
puts the MAVs in a much better position to compete.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
What are your thoughts on gamble? Do you think you're
gonna be able to do have gambling here in Texas?

Speaker 2 (51:30):
I do. I don't know when, but I do, because
I mean, you guys live outside of Texas. Yes, what
is it that you save up and get excited to
come to Texas on a vacation? To do you ever
thought about coming to Texas on a vacation? No? You
know anybody who does?

Speaker 4 (51:45):
I guess college kids go to what South Padre or
something that?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, for spring break. Yeah, you know, maybe you go
to Austin to sixth Street or you know, Austin city.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
Limits south by Southwest.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, you know, but it's not really like a vacation.
You don't think of it as a vacation destination anywhere
in Texas. And so let me change that question. If
we put a Belagia or a Venetian in downtown Dallas.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Yeah, they come. People want to gamble.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Yeah, and not just gamble. Right, you like you go
to Vegas now you spa, you got you know, you
have the shows, right, You've got all that stuff and
you become a you know, being in the center of
the country. If you put a Venetian right in the
middle of Dallas, we're going to all of a sudden
become a top three tourist destination in this country. And
so that's why I think it'll pass.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
I read a report and let me let you think
about this, is that Americas are spending more on sports
betting than they are in investing.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Are you surprised by that?

Speaker 2 (52:40):
I think it depends on the age of the person,
because I read something similar, right, And so if you're
real young, you're you're betting, but you're not betting a lot, right,
or you're buying crypto dogs going to the moon baby,
you know. But you know it's hard. It's hard for
kids to save money, right, and so you know how
kids are, right. You know, you're a tenty two year

(53:00):
old dude or woman for that matter, in college, right,
and I know sports. I know sports, you know, and
so you play and you're probably going to lose. But
it's fun, right, It's it's just entertainment money, kind of
like cryptois. But yeah, I just think when you get
to people who were in their thirties, forties and fifties.
I don't think, you know, the numbers I've seen are

(53:20):
that they're not unless you have a real problem. They're
not overspending.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
When you sold the company, mark you gave your employees
it was reported thirty five million dollars. You gave them bonuses.
Why did you feel the need to do that?

Speaker 2 (53:35):
You know? And it ended up being a lot more. Actually,
but I'm not there without them. And I did it
my first two companies. I did it with micro Solutions.
You know, we had eighty employees. They all got paid.
I did it with Broadcast dot Com. Out of three
hundred thirty employees, three hundred became millionaires. And I wanted
to do the same thing with the MAVs. You know,
they they were there for me the whole time. And

(53:56):
you know it was enough money that for those who
were there, you know, twenty years or more, it was
life changing money.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
You should think.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, So when you started the first streaming platform, you're like, okay,
I can foreshadow I can think this is heading in
this direction. You said, you and your partner, you bought
a computer. You and your partner you got sit down
and you start coding. How long before you before it
started becoming profitable, because that's that's the hard.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
I mean, it took us four years to get the
break even. Okay, so we had gone public. It was
the number one IP on the history of the stock
market in nineteen ninety eight, and we sold it in
June of twenty twenty, I think it was, and that
second quarter we were right around cash flow of Blake
break even. But we were only in business for four
years and say two thousand, right, yeah, and so we

(54:48):
were only in business for four years, so that wasn't
horrible for a tech business like that. Did you ever
mean YouTube? Netflix?

Speaker 1 (54:56):
I remember just had to be nineteen ninety nine, two thousand.
I went to a nail I went to a nail
shop and the lady was telling me about how she
get movies from Netflix. I said, so, tell me about it.
She said, What you do is that, you know, you
tell them what you want and they'll send it the
DTV right right to your door. You watch them when
you want to, and you put them back in the

(55:17):
thing and send them back. I was like, I said, well,
what about Blockbuster? She's like, nah, I think Blockbuster is
gonna go away. I'm like, I don't know about that.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
She was right. She was right.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, had I just taken
like ten fifteen thousand dollars and.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Put it into Netflix, boom? Did you know that it
would blow?

Speaker 1 (55:36):
That there would be a net because you were YouTube
and Netflix before they were even Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Sure, I mean that's why I was so upset with Yahoo,
Like they had a huge opportunity. I mean, they were
YouTube before YouTube. When they bought us, and you know,
when the Internet stock bubble bursts, their border directors just
say pull everything back instead of sticking with it. And
you know, re day Stein's and the folks in Netflix,
they were like not pulling back, right, they were going
for it. And then YouTube shows up and they couldn't

(56:03):
even afford to stay in business. But then Google buys
them and that just changed everything.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, because at first YouTube was with streaming platform, not
anymore like ads.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
I mean yeah, I mean it was like two thousand
and six they started, and it was just like little
short videos and stupid videos and stuff. But you know,
credit to them, they got Googled a partner, and Google
did it right.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
So when a company comes there and they says, Okay,
we're gonna buy you is.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
That all cash? Is that cash plus stocks?

Speaker 2 (56:30):
In our case it depends on the company, right, But
in our case with Broadcast dot Com, it was all stock.
And so in my mind I was like, oh shit, right,
what if this is all the stock market crash? So
I went once I was legally able to, I did
something called a caller, So I sold the right to
somebody to buy the stock at a higher price. That's

(56:51):
selling calls. And then I used that money to buy puts,
which protected me in case the stock price createred. Well,
the stock price did creator, and those puts became worth
even more money than I would gotten from the stock.
And they called it one of the top ten trades
in Wall Street history.

Speaker 4 (57:04):
So that's how they called it.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
The Yeah, so what was that that number one e
commerce purchase?

Speaker 4 (57:09):
What did you purchase?

Speaker 2 (57:10):
I bought a jet online.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
G I had to be a golf Stream yeah, G five.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Yeah. So I just got paid and like time is
like my number one thing. I want a jet, right,
I want a jet? And so I'm like, well, I'm
an internet guy. I'm going to practice what I preach.
So I got to contact at Gulf Stream. I emailed
them and I said, okay, can I get a test flight?
They set up a test flight. I'm like, okay, I

(57:38):
like this hard to you know, figure out?

Speaker 4 (57:40):
I liked it?

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Right, what's the price? Told me the price was forty
million dollars. I texted him on a deal, right, send
me the paperwork, Email me the paperwork, emailed it to me.
I did a wire transfer, did the whole thing online.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
So the jet was already because you can build your
own jet, but you didn't.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Know you can't build your Hello, would you want, Hey, Shannon,
come on to my jet that I built, would you
joh the features?

Speaker 4 (58:02):
And yeah? Yeh.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I don't know nothing about flying? No, right, yeah, So
that's what I did. So I asked for, you know,
where's the where's the kitchenen? And how many seeds? What's
the layout and all that? And the test flight that
they gave me. Match that, okay, tell us about was
it American Airlines? You bought a lifetime passes.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
The lifetime passing, you bought two lifetime passes where you
could fly first class anywhere in the world whenever you
want it.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Right, So it's just one. It was a little card
I got, right, But I could take anybody with me, right,
and so this was after I sold my first company,
micro Solutions. I was twenty nine, I think thirty, and
you know, just sold this company, walked away with a
few million dollars. And I was like, my buddies and
I going out just got destroyed. We went to all
one of these old school steakhouses they don't really have anymore,

(58:49):
but where you could ask for a phone and plug
it into a jack in the wall there right at
your table. Yes, And I'm like, you know what. They're like,
what do you want? You know, what do you think
you're going to do with all this money? And I'm like,
I don't care about cars or houses it, but boy,
you know, I fly a lock for work. If I
could get this lifetime passed, I wonder if such a
thing exists. So I'm like, like, I even because I

(59:11):
had memorized because I traveled like one eight hundred and
four three three sixty four sixty four of the American
I think that's still the number, right, is it? That's
not right? But anyways, yeah, whatever, And so I called
them up, just luring my words. Do you guys sell
lifetime passes? They're like, let me connect you to the
air pass department. I'm like, what dam right? And so

(59:32):
I got all that information hungover as hell and I've
signed up and it was initially it was one hundred
and twenty five thousand dollars and then I upgraded it.
I think I forget out how much I paid. But
it gave me almost unlimited miles for me and somebody
else for the rest of my life. Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
Yeah, So where where's the past at now?

Speaker 2 (59:53):
I gave my dad's passed away. I gave it to him,
and then I gave it to a friend as a gift.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
So it was transferable just one time, just one time.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Yeah, But because my dad died, they let me do
it because he didn't use it a lot and I
didn't use it a lot, so they let me transfer
I don't think they do that anymore. No, they don't,
they don't. They don't.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
You put somebody in the way, people.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
But what a deal, right, I mean, let me just
tell you, like one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars
and I'm thinking, okay, doing the math, that's twelve cents
a mile. I can deal with that, right, And like
I'd be out in La or wherever, Dallas. I'm like
you on a road. Triplet's let's call American Airlines and
see if they got any flights tonight. Let's go to Vegas.
What's your name again, doesn't matter, Let's go to Vegas. Well, yes,

(01:00:38):
I did. That was what the early nineties. Man, that
was a different time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
What type of investor is Mark Cuban now?

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Just really conservative? You know? I like investing in small companies,
startups where I can help entrepreneurs because I like to
do that. That's what I do in Shark Tank. But
with interest rates at five plus percent, why take risk?

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
So it's easier to do that, either through tax freeze
or treasuries or whatever. But I still like to invest
in startups.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Man, you're on Shark Tank, y'all be taking them? People?
Many How y'all go take half the company?

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
It don't work like five ten years trying to build
this up. Andy, y'all come in and taking twenty seven percent?
They offered you five?

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
Could you go to ten?

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Why?

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Damn Well?

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
It depends on the size of the company, right, because
I'm giving them a lot of money. Because if they
didn't need the money, they wouldn't be there. And so
they're not there because you know, maybe they're there because
of the commercial, but they're there because they need help.
And so, you know, it's been a lot of fun.
I've invested in hundreds of companies there over the fifteen years.
Some have done really well. Beatbox Beverages you may have

(01:01:45):
heard of, Dude Wipes, you probably have heard what I
heard of. There's just a bunch of them that are
just destroyed, just killed it, and some of them didn't
do as good, right, And so you've got to You've
got to understand that, you know, twenty five percent are
going to go billy out for what ever reason. Forty
five Now, let's say sixty percent are going to be okay, right,

(01:02:07):
and fifteen percent are going to kill it. And I
got to make sure those fifteen percent I really get
paid on it to cover all the other ones didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
Ring didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Ring came on. But I didn't like that deal anyways,
right because Ring had to They sold for a billion dollars,
but they had to raise like five hundred million to
get there. You know, obviously it was a good product
and it paid out, but I have a rule, right,
if you have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars
to do tens of millions in sales. It ain't gonna

(01:02:35):
work for me right now. If you're able to sell
and get an exit, more power to you. And he
was able to, so he deserves all the credit.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Have you gotten upset when a shark stole one of
your deals?

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
No one steals my shit.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
You have a loss of showing they come on this,
ay Mark, I want to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Yeah for sure, Right, you haven't watched show you that
anybody got one of mine? No? Hell no.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
But I'm other than the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Mavericks. Obviously that was a big investment. But you own stuff.
You own Netflix Amazon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I did for a while. Yeah, when they were turning around,
right when people didn't understand what they were doing. I
made a lot of money about calls, which you know,
the right to buy to share it at a higher price,
and I bought a lot of them, a lot of them,
and they went up ten times what I put up.
So I was a happy camper.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
But when they say it takes money to make money,
because you've been in the situation, because you've created these
companies and been able to have money, so when these lesser,
when the like you said you like to invest in startups,
you're able to make a kill it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Yeah. I mean, look, in order to be a billionaire,
you have to be lucky as fuck. There's no way
around it, right. I don't care how smart I think
I am, or Bill Gates or Steve Balmer or Buffett
or Elon Musk. It takes luck, right, you know, You've
got to if I started doing things five years earlier,

(01:04:08):
right and coming out of college and the Internet wasn't happening, yeah,
you know right, you know it's just when we started costplay,
when we started broadcast dot com, that was right at
the right time, and no one had done streaming, and
the end the Internet stock market was just blowing up, right, Okay,

(01:04:29):
that's how you become a billionaire. And that you know,
I worked my ass off, I was smart. I did
shit other people were afraid to do. But if the
Internet stock market hasn't hadn't been the same, I'd be
just some guy, you know, just chilling, you know, the
Vice House, and you'd have no idea who I was.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Right but it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
But you have to take some risks because I remember
when Google came out and they thought that the shares
were going to open up about eighty five dollars. This year,
and I remember sitting to my financial guys and I
was like, oh, you know what. I had just signed
with the Ravens, so I had some money and I
was like, man, I like buy you know, three hundred
thousand dollars worth? Well, it opens up at one fifteen.
And he says it's overpriced, and so you know it's

(01:05:06):
gonna come back.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Right, they don't have the profit. Yeah, hey, I've done
that for you. I know you're not the first one
that says it's like in video. It's like in video
right now?

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Like I told my son, my son wanted to invest in,
and he bought some and I'm like, you know, I'd
rather see it come down first, and my son's like,
got you, who's the expert now? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
Ebody? And how many times has Google split?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Oh? I mean you know it's worth over three trillion
dollars three trillion dollars trillions trillions, I mean not billions,
that's a thousand billions, a trillion dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
So that my investment, I'd have been a billionaire with you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
Right, you fucked up.

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
I need.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
I fucked them bad because Netflix and Google and I
had the money to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:53):
But somebody talked me out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
But but he But then there's twenty five other ones
that right, you thought you should go in, he talked
you out of.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
They lost their butt and say so it evens out
when people, when you so benevolent, when people try to
take advantage of you, are read that you had an
employee that steal from me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
When you've been as generous as you have over your
the course of your career, how does that make you
sour on people?

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
No? No, because people steal. What am I going to do?

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
Feel for somebody else? Don't steal from me?

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
So you know what, it's a good problem to have, right,
That means you got it, Huh, I can afford it. Right,
Like my first company, micro Solutions, Though, there is a
lady Renee Hardy r E n E e h A
R d Y Right. We she was our receptionist and
her job she had one job. Right, take their payables

(01:06:47):
for our vendors, put it in an envelope, Lick the envelope,
take it to the post office. Right, we had eighty
four thousand dollars in the bank. I'll never forget get
a call from the bank, sir. This woman just came
through the drive through and the checks were white it out.
The paye was white it out. Remember white out was yes, Yes,
she wrote her name in it. And I'm like, you

(01:07:09):
didn't cash them, did you? Of course we did, We're
a bank, sir. She took eighty two of the eighty
four thousand dollars that we had. We were flat broke,
and the eighty two thousand was supposed to go to vendors.
So now we had to call the vendors say, please
work with us, we'll bust her ass, we'll make sure
you get paid. And they did. They worked with us, right,
and the rest is history. But she could have just

(01:07:29):
boove done. Then I was mad. That's why I always say,
Renee Hardy, did you press charges? We couldn't find her.
That's been years and no one's found her since. And
now I get emails from people right that are like
I heard about this name from day Hardy, you know,
and so and so's names. It's just random names write
the same name, and like, no no one's ever found her.
She's probably changed her name or whatever. Mark.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
When you accumulate the amount of wealth that you have,
how has you in a circle changed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
It hasn't hasn't at all. Like my guys from you know,
grade school, high school that I grew up with, we
just did a zoom. We do every two weeks they
come out to MAVs games. I go see them. They're
still my buddies, my college buddies. You know, Ben and Tim,
you know, still my best friends. I played rugby in
college and after my rugby teammates are still my best buddies.

(01:08:20):
When I came to Dallas, I slept, you know, five guys,
six guys in a three bedroom apartment, and you know
Shippy and Sues and Ronnied and you know Fred Turner
and all these guys. They're all still my great friends.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
At the end of the day. At heart, you're a
college frad guy, oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
But you know he got six guys and we in
the bedroom, we just hanging out. We go out, Drake,
be you matter right, and you know, live like like.
I bought a book when I was in college. It
was called How to Retire by the Age of thirty five,
And basically what it says is live like a student
so you can save all your money right, and then
if you do that, you know and you you know
even if you're investing in like just treasuries whatever they
pay three four five percent. Okay, you know, you get

(01:09:00):
you know, a million dollars and you make five percent
on that. That's fifty grand. If you're living like a student,
you turn that into two million, et cetera, et cetera.
And that was my goal, right, And so moving down
the Dallas and living, you know, sleeping on the floor
the whole time, you know, going out and literally buying
one beer and eating all the fried mushrooms and shit.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
I was cool with that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
I was having a blast. There was no problem at all.

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
What was your fan?

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Because I think the thing is it's easier said than
done because a lot of time I'm just speaking to me.
I don't want to speak to anybody else, but speak
to me. We didn't have anything growing up, and I've
always wanted to make sure that I could take care
of my family. But I wanted some things that I
couldn't get when I was growing up. For sure, I
wanted to be able to go to a restaurant and
if I wanted something nice, to be able to go
if I saw something, you know, clothed as far as clothes,
maybe a watch, I want to be able to get it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Your mom and dad were you like middle class?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Yeah, my dad did a polsterrying car so or see.
So if you if this had a ripping it, you
take it to where my dad worked and he'd sew
it up. Right. My mom did odd jobs.

Speaker 5 (01:09:55):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
My dad never made more than forty thousand dollars a
year in his life.

Speaker 4 (01:09:58):
That was good money. Though.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
You realize when you no, I know, I'm not complaining it. Yeah,
I'm not complaining right, Yeah, I'm not complaining right. But
still you know, and that's you know, he wouldn't retire,
like even after I started making money, he wouldn't retire. Really, no, No,
he had to work, right, that's you know, that's his thing.
That's just thing. Yeah, And like he had to be
able to pull out that credit card if we all
went to dinner and pay for it, because if I
paid for that, that was an insult.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
Wow, I read you had your hip to replace.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
Yeah, both of them. I had both of my replaced
A lot better, isn't it. Well, it's a new lease
on life. I'm telling you. You wake up and it's
just like, oh, I.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Mean that I'm living cause back I was surviving the pain.
It's like, on a scale of one to ten.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Was the pain ten for right, because you like you,
you'd be in bed, right, you'd be trying to sleep
and they would lock up and you'd have to do
like a push up and like drop. I would have
to do a drop just to get them unlocks so
I can walk. And like I remember I was. I
got one done at forty nine and then the other
one done like five years later. And I remember walking

(01:11:01):
through the hall of the arena and one of our
guys like, dude, you walk like an eighty year old man.
And I'm like, okay, it's time. It's time. You know,
my legs wouldn't go that wide.

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
It was just like it's I mean, how you have
to get out of bed? You gotta roll?

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Yeah, yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
It's but I mean, and the doctor told me say,
you're gonna have a new lease on life. I'm like, yeah,
I did you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
Everybody every doctor says that after surgery.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
But boy, who changed everything?

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
It absolutely changed everything. This new company tell us about
the new drug company. Cost Plus Drugs is helping me
in hold on, y'all help me and buy Viaggress. Saulis
for a chieap of price.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Are you buying from us?

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Nah?

Speaker 4 (01:11:41):
I do that roast. I'm on romans, the roast barks.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
No funck that right.

Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
No, let me just tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Let me just tell you. You can buy ninety generic
sialis or generic viagra for a lesson. You pay for
a bag of M and ms from costplus Drugs dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Wow, but the one that got marked, they knocked five marks.
That's the name Marks, got that red spark on it.
The re appeal, take the re appeal.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Let me just tell you, right, if you get like
the twenty milligrams, you won't let anybody walk with it.
Never mind. But you go to costplus Drugs dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
I actually got a cold email from a doctor named
doctor alex Osmyanski and her offices right across the street there,
and he goes, I want to start this pharmacy that
manufactured compounding pharmacy that manufactures drugs that are on a
shortage list right so that people can't get them. I
want to make them so they can get access to
their medications. And I'm like, that's great, but what more
can we do? And so we started talking, and this

(01:12:41):
is right about the time the farmer bro is going
to jail. And I'm like, if this dude can like
buy one drug dare prem and just jack up the price,
then do something wrong with this business. Let me let
me look into it. And it was really obvious, really
quickly that what was missing is transparency. Nobody trusts the
price of healthcare. Nobody trusts health care at all, right,
particularly medica medications. Right. So if you get a prescription

(01:13:03):
for something, the first question they ask is, and you know,
can you afford it? It's like where's your pharmacy? Right?
And then you know, we've all heard stories people waiting
in line, don't know what it's going to cost and
can't afford it, loser insurance, whatever. So we started this
company called cost plus Drugs dot Com cost plus Drugs
dot Com. And so when you go to costplus Drugs
dot Com and nothing you need it. But like if

(01:13:24):
you put in Cialis with to Dila Fhill, which is
generic Saalis, and you need ninety of them, we'll show
you our cost. Right, whatever we pay for it, we
mark it up fifteen percent, we add our shipping and
handling on it, and then when you add it all
together in this case, less than a bag of M
and MS. But it's going to be cheaper than anywhere else.
And so what else is cool about it, though, is

(01:13:48):
there are a lot there are a lot of companies
before us that these things call pharmacy benefit managers. We
don't need to get into it that just jack up
the price of certain drugs because they're they're not used
all that much. Yes, supply demand and so like, I
had a friend who was in this car wreck and
he lost his insurance and they were going to there's

(01:14:08):
a struke called drop a Doza, Drop a Doza, and
they were like saying they were going to charge him
thirty thousand dollars every three months. And he's like, I
can't afford that?

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
Can you help?

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Now? Not very many people can't afford that. I'm like,
let me check. So I check into it, and this
was two years ago, and I'm like, okay, Landed, I
can get it to you for sixty four dollars a month.
There's these other drugs for muscular differ multiple sclerosis rather
and we're seeing our price be twenty one dollars, twenty
two dollars. Other people are charging two thousand dollars. Other

(01:14:39):
drugs you know, and Mattenev, which is for chemotherapy, and
heyhere from two hundred to two thousand dollars depending on
this trend, our price is like twenty three to twenty
four dollars. And so when someone comes to the site,
you know, you've got this disease and we're the only
way you can afford your medication. Not only are you
buying from us, but you're telling everybody, you're telling your doctor.
And so we you know, we launched January nineteenth to

(01:14:59):
twenty twenty two. So here we are two and a
half years later, millions of customers, just changing people's lives.
I get emails and texts and social media almost every
day saying, oh my god, you saved my life. So
if right now we're almost we have like twenty five
hundred generic, seventy four different brands, and we're adding more
and more brands. But if you want to see if
you can reduce the price of your medications, go to

(01:15:19):
costplus Drugs dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
What made you decide to do that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
The healthcare industry is fucked up? I mean, what could
be you know, I've done a lot of people, Yeah,
I mean, what could be a better legacy. What could
be a better way, you know, to really be successful
in business than fucking up the healthcare business? To me,
that was everything right to come in. And we've only
been in two and a half years and we literally
are changing the whole industry. And so I'm proud of that.

(01:15:43):
I mean, it's exciting and it's fun and we're just
getting started.

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
What are your thoughts on ozimpic It seems that that's
the new.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Yeah, the Holby Wood. I mean, I'm not a doctor,
but whether it's to zeppatide which is zep bound from Lily,
or ozempic which is from Nover North right by the
way Lily. Just so, there's two ways you can get
the diet drugs, right, the glp ones is what they
call them, and there's two ways again. You can get
them with the pens, right, or you can get them
with the vial right. And if you get them with
the vial, they just started selling them with the vial

(01:16:12):
this week. Instead of it being thirteen hundred dollars a month,
it'll be four or five hundred dollars a month, and
so the prices are starting to come down and if
they live up to the billing again, I'm not a doctor,
I'm not the scientist, but if they live up to
the billing, it's going to change a lot. People crave foods,
and if the thing ever got down under one hundred
bucks a month, everybody's going to take it right, and

(01:16:33):
it's gonna you know, you talk about investing, right. Are
people going to eat less food, Yeah, they're gonna eatless food.
Are people going to be healthier and lead less health care? Yeah,
they're going to need less health care? You know, Are
there gonna be fewer heart attacks? Et cetera, et cetera.
Bey though, Mark, everybody's you know, I mean we don't.
We want people of different sizes and different bodies. You
don't have to and not everybody responds the same way.
You don't, and you don't have to take it right.

(01:16:53):
You don't have to take it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:55):
So I guess if you take it, you try to
get skinny, huh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
I mean yeah, but you don't have to, right. I
mean there's studies that say, you know, you see athletes, right,
some of these dudes six ' eight, three hundred and
fifty pounds that are just insane shape and great athletes.
Everybody's their own thing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
The Illuminati. I've had people over here and they talk
about the Illuminati.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Do you believe any fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Literally, people come on and think it's real. Yeah, okay,
So like, what are the other ones? There's the Illuminati,
and who are the other ones that are like that?
There's like other secret groups.

Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
Right, yes, yes, yes, secret societies.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
I'm like, I'm rich as fuck, I'm Jewish. Nobody asked
me to join none of them secret societies, right, nobody.
I'm like, hello, can I at least get an invite
to a cocktail party? Nobody? Noboddy. I'm like, okay, maybe
it's me.

Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
You go blow the lid on the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
No, if it's cool. I mean I've been in many parties.
I haven't said shit.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Right, social media? What are your thoughts on social media?

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I mean bad, good and bad?

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
It's not so good for kids anymore. It's not good
when it comes to politics and medical information. There's a
ton of misinformation. But I mean when it's social, it
can be great. But social media isn't social anymore. You know,
maybe some on Instagram, maybe some on TikTok, but even there, right,
you post something you think is no big deal when

(01:18:24):
people are killing you right, they're giving you shit about
everything just because they can, and there's just no way
around that. And even worse, right, the way the algorithms
work now, everybody's social media feed is different. Yes, you know,
yours is different than mine, than different than each one
of the folks here. Everybody's different, and so the way
things are sold has changed. The way people consume information

(01:18:46):
has changed. We have an election coming up, right, and
everybody gets their own feed, and nobody knows what's real information,
and everybody now thinks that things in like fifteen thirty
second sound bites.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Anyways, Delonte West, he's falling on some hard times and
you've done several times, you've reached out and tried to help.
How hard it is to see someone that played for
you struggle with brutal mental health, illness.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Brutal right, because I thought we had them. I thought
we had him turned around. You know. We sent him
down to Jason's place down in Florida and it's like
a farm, Jason Williams, and you know, he's like he's
making progress, sending pictures. Dante's emailing me and I'm like, oh, yeah,
we're getting this. Then Dante throws the ship over the fence, disappears,

(01:19:32):
we bring them back again, making progress. This is it
same shit, only so much you can do? Wow?

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
Ye what can people learn from that story?

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Mental illness is real? It is real, and you just
don't wish it away. You don't just rehab it away.
You know. I've got other friends, you know, Tanya, these
other people that I support and help you just you
want them to get help. But some things you can't
help on everything.

Speaker 4 (01:20:05):
He went the shareholder in Twitter before, No.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
I was I wasn't. It was, I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't.
So what's your what's your back and forth with with yeah?
Oh man, I just love the fun with him, right.
It's like nobody likes to fuck with him, right, So
I'm like yeah, yeah right. I mean he's got really
thin skin and so it just makes it easy. It's

(01:20:29):
like he sets himself up. Right when when you think,
when it's your place and it's your business, it's like
a club, right, yeah, come on in, have a drink,
and every you just assume everybody's just gonna really, you know,
say yes to you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
Nobody ever says that dinner sucked, right, I just it's
just fun and I don't have anything personal against him,
and I never initiate it. Right. The only time I
ever come go back at Elon is when he tries
to fuck with me. So like he's called me a racist,
he's called me a fool, he's called me all these
different names. So he's always called me name. I don't care.
But if you're going to call me a name, I'm
just gonna fuck with you, right, because it's because you're Elon.

(01:21:04):
If it's just some random what's the point?

Speaker 4 (01:21:08):
How important is this election in twenty twenty four?

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
Everything? To me? I mean, look, if you don't think
Donald Trump is a threat, you don't think this is
the most important election I do. I just don't. I've
known him for twenty five years. I don't trust him, right.
I don't think he's moral. I don't think he's ethical.
I've seen him rip people off. I don't. I don't
believe pretty much anything he says. And so to me,
you know, I've been trying to support Kamala.

Speaker 4 (01:21:33):
What are your thoughts on d I d I. I
like it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
I think it's good for business, right, you know, I
think a lot of people try to misrepresent what it is.
But to me, diversity means, you know, good business go
look for people where other people aren't looking. Right, Not
all companies recruit at HBCUs right, not all companies recruit

(01:21:57):
you know ed, you know, different schools where there's a
large Indian population or where there's a large LGBTQ populations,
and so you know, I want, like any other business element,
I want to look where other people aren't because that's
where you find smart people. And then once you find
those smart people that got to be qualified, you're not
hire them if they're not qualified.

Speaker 4 (01:22:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
But just some people think like, okay, I hired someone
who's black or LGBQ or Hispanic, Well they must not
be qualified. No, you're not going to hire them a
lesser qualified, right, So the DEI doesn't mean hiring less
qualified people. It just means finding people that, yeah, well
just they happen to be diverse. Right, you're looking to
other people, yes, right, Because you can be as diverse
as you want. You can be LGBTQ, trans, black and Hispanic.

(01:22:41):
But if you're not qualified, you're not getting hired.

Speaker 3 (01:22:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
That doesn't do you any good. Right, But I want
to go where other people aren't looking. And then once
you hire them. The E is equity, right, it means
I'm going to put you in a position to succeed.
I hired your ass, right of course, I'm going to
try to put you in a position. Yeah. Yeah. And
then the I what we're talking about is just I'm
gonna let you be you, right, And so being inclusive

(01:23:07):
means if you're LGBTQ, if you're trans, I don't give
a fuck as long as you're good.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
Yeah, I don't care, right, you'll be a lumberjack.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
I don't care. Right, you're gonna walk around and seeing
a lumberjacksaw, I don't care, right, But you know, I'm
gonna make sure people are in the workplace in the
organization respect that. Right. If you know you're a boy
and you want to call yourself Sue, I don't care, right,
people are gonna call you sue. And some people they
use it as an excuse if they don't get a job, right,
it must be DEI but no, I mean, and either

(01:23:39):
a qualifier or you're not right. And once you get there,
just because you were hired in your diverse doesn't mean
you're getting a promotion, doesn't mean you're getting the next job.
And to me, that's what DEI is and that's why
I've been a big supporter.

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
I want to get you out of here on this one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Mark how hard because you got married after you had
already had some paper, major paper.

Speaker 4 (01:23:59):
How are you able to tell that you know what
she loves me for? Be a market or do we ever?
Do you really know?

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
Yeah, of course you know. I mean if she'll let
you hit you with the touch oven God. No, I
made her. I made her go to to Oh my god,
spacing out, what the fuck? The little Burger's white castles? Right? What?

(01:24:26):
I made her go to white That was the test
before we got buried. And so I'm going we're going
to white castles because I went to go in Indiana.
White castles were everywhere, right, yes, And so I was like,
we're going to white castles, and if you really love me,
you'll eat a white castle burger. She did.

Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
Give me three things that you tell your kids, because
obviously you you want your kids to be productive citizens.
You don't want to hand them everything. So what are
some of the advice that you give your kids? Because
obviously they know who you are, they know what they.

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
What you have, So what they have.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
So Number one one is when your friends get drunk,
nobody cares, right when you get drunk, because you're my kid,
You're on the front page of the paper, and you're
all over social media. So always pay attention to where
you're at and what you're doing, and be respectful. Right.
Number two, you've got you've got to set your own path.

(01:25:20):
You know, you've got to understand that as you get older,
you're gonna want to define your own future. So you're
gonna have to do to work like I literally just
work my son a note to that effect. And then
just generally right, and I say this to all kids
and all people right. To be successful, you have to

(01:25:40):
be curious because the world's always changing. You have to
be agile because the world's always changing. And then I
was I also have a couple of really stupid sayings, right,
and you asked for three, but I'm gonna go further.
Number one is how you do anything, and is how
you do everything right. Applies to sports, and I think
it applies to life, right, And I'll leave it at
that one because that that's probably the most important because

(01:26:03):
most people will cut every corner that they can, right.
And I don't want them to cut corners because you
know they don't have to worry about money.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
Is it true that you don't have a shelf, a maid,
a butler.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
I don't have we have a maid, right. So when
I traveled, you know, I've got different places. I don't
have anything there, right, So I'll do my own laundry.
I'll make my own food. Yeah. So it's like I
have a little shithole in Manhattan Beach in LA because
it's close to the ocean and I hang so, yeah,
I'll get my own food there. If I'm in New York,
we have an apartment there. I do my own thing there. Yeah,
but we do Mark, Yeah, but I do in Dallas, right,

(01:26:36):
we have somebody who cooks my food because I try
to eat healthy and my wife makes it for everybody else.
But she cooks her own food. But we do have
we do have people to clean the house. It's twenty
two thousand square feet. We ain't cleaning that shit, right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
Last question to get you out on this, Anthony Edwards
and Maggie Johnson and Man said, basically, Michael Jordan was
really the only skill got back then, so it was
eating long story short, Magic said look, I ain't taking down.

Speaker 4 (01:27:02):
Listen, nobody they want no time, got.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
No titles, right, no level? Good for Magic? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:27:07):
Good?

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
What? What?

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
What are your thoughts on that? Because you know Magic,
I know Magic twenty five years. You probably know him
a little better than I do. But I've never heard Magic.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
Go go back at somebody like, oh, he's always super sweet.
Your's Magic? Yeah, right, that was irving, right, right, that
was irving, right. And it's not like anybody else has
brought the skyhook to the game either, right, you know
with Kareem and so look, you know, and that's his vibe, right,
He's gonna talk, he's gonna talk shit, he's gonna stir

(01:27:35):
things up. So I respect that. I mean, he's been
great for the NBA because he's just got a great
energy to him, right, And he's he's a social media kid, right,
he grew up with that, so that's the way it works.
But yeah, Magic was right, and going back at him,
I'm glad he did.

Speaker 4 (01:27:49):
Mark Cuban, Ladies and gentlemen, this.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Is great, great job. I really yeah, I really appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:54):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:27:56):
All my life grunting, all my life, sacrifice Hustle, pay
the price. Wanta slice? Got to brow the dice, that
squad all my life. I've been grinding all my life,
all my life, running all my life. Second price, Hustle,
pay the price. Want a slice, Got to brow the dice,
the squad all my life. I've been grinding all my life.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
Yeah mm hmm

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Shannon Sharpe

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