What the Mavericks/Stars Legal Resolution Might and Might Not Mean

Yes, they'll still be leaving American Airlines Center in 2031

On Monday afternoon, the Stars and Mavericks sent out a joint press release announcing “an agreement” about the outstanding legal issues between the two teams. Here’s what the statement said, in both picture and block-quote form:

Here’s the statement

The Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars have reached an agreement that resolves the outstanding matters between the two organizations. American Airlines Center will continue to serve as the home of both teams at least through the 2030–31 season.

It’s not the most detailed of statements, but Dallas’s city manager, Kimerly Bizor Tolbert, said that Dallas is pleased with the resolution, for whatever that’s worth. She also added an extremely optimistic statement about both teams’ “long-term future in our city,” and well, I don’t think today changes the fact that I have a very hard time seeing such a future lasting beyond 2031 in any meaningful sense, even if the Mavericks’ Valley View Mall site is technically within Dallas city limits.

Anyway, a settlement between the two teams (as we presume this vague announcement to be describing) was always the likely outcome, even if it dragged on for a bit longer than you might have expected. As Mike Piellucci wrote over at D Magazine, lawyers are expensive, and with both teams having already made clear plans to play elsewhere in five years, a settlement of some kind just made too much sense not to happen sooner or later. And from the little that’s out there publicly, both sides will say that they are happy with just such a settlement.

As for the specific details of that settlement, don’t expect to hear the terms any time soon. Neither side seems to have much incentive to reveal them, but I do think there are a few things about the overall developments that we can reasonably conclude at this point.