The Dallas Mavericks are coming around the to realization that the front office betrayed its fan base last season. This new announcement by CEO Rick Welts is one step in mending that relationship.
The Dallas Mavericks are coming around the to realization that the front office betrayed its fan base last season.
Trading beloved superstar Luka Doncic and offering questionable support doesn't require much hindsight to pinpoint the mistake ... and the rest of last season played out with a handful of more catastrophic moments that ripped Mavs fans' relationship with the team more and more.
Fate of the franchise then took a dramatic shift when Dallas won the odds to draft new superstar-to-be Cooper Flagg, giving the team a brighter path out of this dark tunnel than they could have ever imagined receiving.
The emergence of Flagg as the new face of the team has now ushered the Mavs' front office into a completely new era, beginning with the firing of former general manager Nico Harrison and trading of Doncic's failed trade return, Anthony Davis.
What's next? This offseason, the Mavericks will narrow their search for Harrison's successor. In the meantime, co-assistant GMs Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi are running the team in interim.
On the executive side next to co-owner and governor Patrick Dumont is chief executive officer Rick Welts.
Welts is a Pro Basketball Hall of Fame exec with nearly five decades of experience in the league. He is fairly new to his position in Dallas (hired Jan. 1, 2025), and in the fallout of the Doncic trade, his job has gotten increasingly more difficult, especially with Dumont's urgency for a new arena rising.
The CEO's latest announcement could go a long way in retaining as much fan support as the Mavs can amid this collective rebuilding phase.
On the broadcast of Dallas' loss on Thursday to the Sacramento Kings, the Mavs' sixth-straight defeat inside American Airlines Center, Welts announced that season ticket prices for the 2026-27 year will not increase. This contradicts an announcement made shortly after Doncic was traded in February of 2025, where the Mavs said season tickets would increase by as much as 20 percent.
Welts explained the conversation with Dumont that brought them to the decision to halt price adjustments.
"It was one of the strangest meetings I’ve been in in my 48 years in the league, where you sit down with the owner," Welts said. "The staff has done two months of work to figure out where tickets might be underpriced.
"Patrick preempted the conversation before it got started and said, ‘Look, we didn’t deliver this year. We didn’t deliver on the team as expected. We’re not going to raise one ticket price this year.’ A popular decision. The right one as well."
The comment from Dumont on delivering to the fan base is rather striking considering his reported stamp of approval for Harrison to carry out the Doncic trade that sent everything into a spiral in the first place. Nonetheless, this insight is a glimpse into the internal acceptance of the past and commitment to reconciliation the front office has taken, prioritizing the betterment of Mavs fans just as much as the reputation of the franchise.
Additionally, Welts explained how the Mavs are taking pride in being the team that wears Dallas on its jerseys and plays within the city's limits, unlike, for example, the Dallas Cowboys of Arlington.
Welts said that the organization is targeting having a new stadium location determined in July, with a formal announcement then to follow.
"I feel like we turned the page in what’s been a really difficult chapter in Mavericks history," Welts added. "And we have a plan. We have a generational player we are going to build around and create that kind of championship-caliber [team]."