Rick Welts brings corridor of fame ardour to Dallas Mavericks CEO function

Rick Welts took over as the brand new CEO of the Dallas Mavericks on Jan. 1, 2025.

After attending his opening press convention in December, I wished the chance to sit down with the NBA Corridor of Famer to get to know him, his method to management and his plans for the Mavs shifting ahead. 

We got an hour for the interview, which was carried out 4 days earlier than Luke Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in a transfer that shocked the sports activities world, Mavs followers, and even the Grammys.

This story facilities round Welts’s expertise and imaginative and prescient for the Mavs and North Texas. It focuses on the staff’s enterprise, from broadcasting to constructing a brand new area, and paints an image of what the staff and its residence may appear like within the years to return with Welts on the helm.

Rick Welts fell in love with basketball as a boy. 

“In 1967,” Welts started, “the NBA expanded to Seattle, Washington. And I fell in love with my brand-new staff, the Seattle Supersonics. And I did fall in love with the sport, however I feel greater than that, I fell in love with what that staff meant to town.”

Thanks to a college buddy, he bought his begin as a ball boy for his hometown Supersonics as a teen. 

“The best child at Queen Anne Excessive Faculty the place I used to be going to high school was Earl Woodson,” Welts smiled. “He was a ball child for my favourite staff, the Seattle Supersonics, so we might disguise at the back of our English Lit class out of sight of the instructor, and Earl would give me the news on my favourite gamers and every thing about my favourite staff, and Earl, uh, got here in at some point with a really unhappy face and like, dude, what’s fallacious?”

His household was shifting out of city, and though Earl was unhappy, Rick was elated.

“My alternative, proper? Earl, such as you’ve bought to take me down and introduce me to whoever that’s that hires the ball children, which he did with Jack Hearn, the coach for the Sonics, and at 16 years previous, I used to be a ball boy for, for my favourite staff that sort of was the dream of a lifetime,” Welts mirrored.

Welts’ journey in skilled basketball has spanned almost 50 years in a Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame Profession. Now, he’s bringing that have, ardour and management to the Western Convention Champion Dallas Mavericks in his new function as CEO.

Get to know extra in regards to the man charged with ushering the Mavs into a brand new stage of success.

Welts tells the story of his life nearly like a sequence of coincidences. When his time as a ball boy got here to an finish, someway he bought a name to hitch a reasonably new and really small staff with the NBA. That decision got here from David Stern, a then-young lawyer who would go on to develop into the 4th commissioner of the NBA.

“Amongst the American sports activities leagues, you recognize, it was not a very well-respected league, and once I bought there I had fallen on, you recognize, some actually strenuous, troublesome instances when it comes to its public picture,” Welts mentioned. 

There was no enterprise operation on the NBA, so Stern was tasked with creating one and recruited Welts to deal with its advertising. 

“I checked all three of his necessary containers. I used to be passionate in regards to the NBA. I come from Seattle, a championship out just like the NBA is the best factor ever. I used to be younger, very younger, and most significantly, I used to be actually low cost,” Welts laughed out loud.

He grew to become the primary particular person to ever exit and speak to corporations about investing advertising {dollars} within the NBA. Throughout his time with the league, Welts had an thought. 

“I used to be determined to promote one thing and maintain my job, keep employed, and we have been going to offer you a timeline, we have been going to the All-Star in Denver in 1984 in February. Denver had a terrific ABA heritage and the president of the ABA president of the Nuggets got here to New York in November. That is once we began planning February All-Star video games again then.”

Welts pitched a slam dunk contest with among the legends of the ABA, together with a younger Julius Irving. 

“We present up on the area and we promote out each ticket in McNichols Enviornment, $5 every. We have been a little bit apprehensive in regards to the ticket worth, however we bought them and what occurred that day was sort of magical, proper? Julius Irving got here again on the very finish of his profession to do the slam dunk contest once more.”

Irving misplaced within the last, but it surely was a win for the NBA. 

“We bought 7 pages of protection in Sports activities Illustrated that by no means touched the All-Star recreation earlier than. Stern turns into commissioner the subsequent day. Individuals speaking about how he is a advertising genius and he was off to the races,” Welts mentioned.

Through the years, Welts would proceed to work his means up within the NBA. He was instrumental within the formation of the WNBA. Considered one of his most iconic contributions would are available in 1992, with the advertising for what’s now often known as the USA Basketball “Dream Staff. 

Welts remembers, “It was like being across the Beatles of their heyday. In all probability the best staff ever assembled in a staff sport within the Olympics, uh, however what that did for the game of basketball world wide, these two weeks moved basketball forward 20 years.”

One of many wildest components of that marketing campaign is, the Sports activities Illustrated cowl that marks that historic staff was photographed in secret! 

“It was a stupendous cowl with Patrick Ewing and Larry Chook and you recognize, Magic Johnson and others on the quilt and a few nice copywriter in a again room at Sports activities Illustrated wrote the headline, Look out world, this may very well be America’s dream staff. From that day ahead, it was the proper identify and it grew to become universally adopted because the identify of the dream staff,” Welts mentioned.

In 2011, Welts got here out publicly as a homosexual man in a front-page story within the New York Instances. The primary govt within the NBA to take action. 

As soon as, Welts shared that he saved binders of all of the notes, emails and letters of help he acquired as a result of he says he didn’t obtain a single detrimental remark.

When requested what it means to him to see the evolution on this nation and to be CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, dwelling his life brazenly. 

“Nicely, it is, it is a great freedom for me personally. I actually had no thought at that second how it might affect my profession going ahead,” Welts shared. “I do not suppose within the 20 hours of conversations I ever had with Patrick Dumont we even talked about it like, so I suppose that is an indication of progress however, pay attention it is one thing I am very thrilled to have had the chance to do as a result of I feel it is enabled me to play a little bit totally different function in our trade. I feel it is enabled me to be a contact level for individuals who is perhaps in the identical scenario I used to be or do not feel like they’re able to take that step.”

Throughout his opening press convention in Dallas, Welts shared his dedication to range, fairness and inclusion as a result of he believes, “Sports activities ought to be the place the place we see that sort of fairness. For no matter purpose, I feel we’re nonetheless fairly a bit behind in that a part of our society, however you recognize, it is an ongoing story and it continues to get higher.”

Whereas the acronym DEI is on the middle of controversy of late, Welts encourages folks to, “Neglect about calling it that. It’s a enterprise technique, so my view and it has been confirmed to me one million instances, is if in case you have a bunch of people that look alike from the identical background sitting round a desk speaking about your small business and the way you tackle your complete fan base, you are not prone to make actually good selections.”

“You probably have folks sitting round that desk with totally different life experiences who’ve grown up in several methods, come from totally different views. That debate goes to be way more productive and also you’re more likely to make the appropriate resolution for the folks that you just serve your fan base.”

Although some contemplate DEI a social technique, Welts, “With out hesitation, I name it a enterprise technique. It’s a enterprise technique. It is the way you make higher selections and companies that make higher selections are profitable. So we’re going to proceed to do it.”

In 2011, Welts was employed as president of the Golden State Warriors. He would go on to steer the group to a few NBA Championship wins and the development of the Chase Heart in San Francisco.

Rick Welts was additionally a 2018 inductee into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame throughout that point. Welts left the Warriors in 2021 however is bringing that have and management to the Dallas Mavericks.

He’s been quoted saying professionally, that he enjoys coming into struggling organizations and turning them round however this subsequent function is totally different.

“The Dallas Mavericks are something however a large number, however all the opposite issues that I noticed in these different groups are current right here. In order I say, like each ingredient for fulfillment for a franchise that I feel can stand toe to toe with any franchise, not simply within the NBA however on the earth, all these elements exist right here.”

Welts spoke to the colourful North Texas group being a terrific place to stay and recruit gamers to return play. He is also impressed with Mavs followers domestically and the company help from the group. 

“The whole lot that you’d need is right here. The one factor particularly that is totally different about this and the opposite two groups that I went to, is now we have a terrific basketball staff, proper? That is a brand new factor for me to go to a staff that truly has a terrific basketball staff, which is a big head begin,” Welts emphasised. “My job is to protect that legacy and that tradition on the identical time look ahead in our enterprise as a result of I feel we do have some superb enterprise alternatives going ahead and that is the place I do know I could make an affect.”

The Dallas Mavericks are contemplating a brand new area. 

Little doubt, the expertise of clearing all of the hurdles concerned in getting the Chase Heart to the end line was engaging to Mavs Governor Patrick Dumont who shared he was in a position to recruit Welts for the function as a result of, “I could be very convincing once I must be.”

On the subject of anticipated challenges with getting a brand new area in Dallas, Welts defined, “We’re taking part in in a 25-year-old area. It lacks numerous the facilities that we might like to have that would improve that fan expertise.”

WFAA wished to know what these early conversations a couple of new area have been like. 

“We nonetheless wish to make investments extra on this constructing. Patrick Dumont in our first assembly was actually like all I may speak about was funding in Dallas, funding in Dallas funding in Dallas,” Welt mentioned. “Sooner or later, now we have to have a spot to play that basically addresses our fan’s wants and our wants, and our wants are to have a facility that can permit us to compete for championships 12 months in and 12 months out as a result of it could generate the sort of income that NBA groups want to have the ability to compete for participant expertise on the very highest stage.”

Welts says they’re working from a “clean sheet” of paper proper now in terms of specifics however identified, “All we all know is we’re ready to take a position no matter it takes to create that have.”

The Chase Heart took round seven years to deliver to fruition. The Mavs have about the identical left on their lease on the American Airways Heart, which is up in 2031. 

“We’re on the clock to a point to sort of give you a plan. It takes a very long time to construct this stuff,” Welts mentioned. “However there isn’t any preconceived notion at the moment of the place and the way and precisely what kind that is going to take.”

When requested if he believes sports activities betting must play a job, Welts was, “Very shocked that sports activities betting was not already a part of what we do right here. What we’re speaking about shouldn’t be contingent on that in any respect. It doesn’t matter what, the Mavericks want essentially the most superb place to play that is ever been envisioned. It may inform the form and different facilities that now we have in a challenge, but it surely would not by any stretch of creativeness drive whether or not or not we uh we go down this path.”

Welts is somebody who, all through his profession, builds issues. He’s constructed organizations, groups, tradition and arenas. When requested why he got here to the Mavs, he lit up speaking in regards to the folks right here.

 “I have been to Dallas lots. I by no means have lived in Dallas earlier than, overwhelming, the reception was. The variety of folks like at any recreation I am sitting there, I’ve 3 or 4 season ticket holders that come over and introduce themselves, welcome me to Dallas. Inform me how glad they’re that I am right here. This group is de facto extraordinary,” Welts smiled.

As for his first 30 days on the job, Welts shared he’s most excited to look at a wholesome Mavericks staff. 

“Significantly, I spent numerous time earlier than I bought right here, you recognize, fixated on the Mavericks and seeing them once we’re wholesome and we’re actually good. Like we’re actually good once we’re wholesome.” 

The brand new CEO is encouraging followers to hold on by means of this stretch as a result of, “The glass half full aspect of that’s I like our roster. I feel it is fantastically constructed to compete for championships. And the expertise that our youthful gamers are getting at the moment, if we get everyone wholesome, it’s going to be invaluable as we go into April, Might and June.”

The present Western Convention Champions are longing for a return to the NBA Finals quickly. On the subject of making a championship tradition, Welts added, “If everyone should purchase into what their function is and really feel appreciated and energized about delivering that piece of the puzzle, then power in numbers can win you championships.”

 It shocked the sports activities world when the Mavs traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Followers instantly grew to become fearful the franchise may transfer. The staff shared a press release with WFAA that, “The Adelson and Dumont Households have already began and are dedicated to investing and constructing in Dallas/Fort Value. The households have completely no plans to maneuver the staff out of North Texas.”

There’s pleasure and a vibrance as Welts talks about what’s on the horizon for the Dallas Mavericks. WFAA is thrilled to have the Mavs on KFAA, which has been a powerful automobile to succeed in extra followers domestically.

Trying forward towards recreation distribution, Welts has referred to as the present mannequin the largest problem dealing with the NBA and the Mavericks. “Nicely, it is in all probability a little bit nerdy” he started “however that is essentially the most talked about enterprise topic in skilled sports activities at the moment outdoors the NFL. NFL distributes all their video games on a nationwide foundation. Baseball, hockey, and basketball. The normal regional sports activities mannequin is completely damaged and it isn’t coming again. So, groups have performed their finest to place collectively a distribution system, ours on Channel 8, Channel 29, does that and broadens our attain.”

This Mavs season, 70 video games, have aired or will air on KFAA 29. Fifteen Mavs video games this season have been set to broadcast on WFAA as properly.

“We’ve a very elegant answer for Mavericks followers to uh to look at our video games at the moment,” he mentioned.

He’s additionally keen about alternatives to develop the NBA internationally because it mirrors soccer as one of many few sports activities performed all around the world.

He’s centered on a brand new area that may improve the fan expertise whereas being dedicated to partnering on a plan for the American Airways Heart working with the Dallas Stars and metropolis management. 

“We’re within the enterprise of making recollections for folks,” Welts mentioned, “whether or not that is going to a Mavericks recreation or whether or not that is going to your first live performance. That is going to create a long time of recollections for individuals who stay in our residence.”

However first, it’s about basketball. When requested what he sees as the best alternative for the Mavs within the subsequent 5 years, with out hesitation, Welts replied, “Championship banner. Would that be okay? We do that as a result of we’re opponents and we do that as a result of we need to win basketball video games and we all know that profitable basketball video games brings numerous enjoyable and delight to everyone in Dallas. So, pay attention, yearly that is the purpose. Yearly would be the purpose.”

Rick Welts is prepared for the problem. In any case, he’s bringing the identical love of basketball he had as a child and one heck of a legacy to steer the Dallas Mavericks into the longer term.