The Dallas Mavericks and other NBA teams will likely open the season later this month with few or no fans inside their arenas, and Mark Cuban has tried to shed some light on the financial impact that will have.
During an appearance on 96.7 The Ticket this week, Cuban spoke about the ongoing obstacles created by the coronavirus pandemic. He said the Mavericks are sure to lose more than $100 million with the restrictions in place.
“Am I going to lose a lot of money this year? Yes. No question about it,” Cuban said, via CNBC’s Tom Huddleston Jr. “More than $100 million when this is all said and done? Yes. No question about it.”
The Mavericks have yet to announce their official plan for fan attendance, but the season begins in two weeks. Cuban said he is optimistic that arenas will be back at full capacity later in the 2020-21 season.
“Fans will be in arenas, and it wouldn’t shock me if … we reach a point in time where there’s enough people with vaccines and everybody’s confident, maybe it’s March, maybe it’s April, maybe even May since we started [the season] late, and we’re just selling out the place,” Cuban said.
We’ve already gotten an idea of the massive amount of money leagues are losing without having fans at games. Teams can try to offset some of that with creative advertising and marketing plans, but their revenue streams won’t normalize until all COVID-related restrictions are lifted. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.
