Luka to LA Was Not A Business Decision
The "follow the money" philosophy has gone too far
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, Jacob sorts through a shocking trade.
How can you explain what just happened?
In the hours after superstar Luka Dončić was shipped overnight from Dallas to the Lakers, fans seemed to offer every conceivable theory for why the Mavericks would do such a thing.1 Did Mavericks GM Nico Harrison know something about Dončić’s fitness, his appetite to hoop, his desire to play internationally?
Two conjectures seemed to gain the most ground: (1) Maybe new Dallas ownership was seeking to tear the team down so it could justify moving the franchise to Las Vegas, and (2) Maybe the Mavs had to trade Dončić because it couldn’t afford to pay his next contract given shrinking local TV revenue. In both cases, believers argued a bad basketball decision could actually be defended as a business call.
In short: no.
You don’t tear down a team by trading for an All-Star who’s six years older. And you don’t make up for an income shortfall by getting rid of one of the NBA’s most popular players. The Mavs are not some small market team anyway; they currently rank 12th with a $4.5 billion valuation. None of the reporting that has come out since Saturday ties ownership to the trade idea—though they did greenlight it—and the org has since denied the Vegas rumors specifically.
But both theories point to a worrying trend—a cynical belief among viewers that everything they see can be explained by a bottom line. Sports business essentialism, essentially. The NFL favors the Chiefs because KC brings eyeballs, which convert to dollars. Officiating is purposely hamstrung because it leads to controversy, which creates conversation, which generates revenue. Want to see how pervasive this thinking is? Just search “Follow the money” on Sunday.
Of course, plenty of decisions are financially motivated. Baseball added a pitch clock to juice attendance. The NBA is changing the shape of its shot clock to coincide with a long-term sponsorship deal. College QBs sit out of bowl games to ensure pro windfalls, while their teams hop conferences in chase of dough. Yes.
Yet personnel decisions—and the actions of those on the court or field or diamond or ice during games—remain sacrosanct. Team staff is generally split between those responsible for winning games within a budget, who report up to the general manager, and those who commercialize the endeavor, reporting up to a president or CEO.2
For example, I don’t get the impression Andy Reid or Bill Belichick have sat in on many marketing meetings. It’s why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell continues to dismiss the notion that football is in any way scripted.
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Onlookers, however, increasingly struggle to trust the divide. And you can’t blame them, as athletics become a bigger business and fandom a more transactional experience. Maybe it’s partially our fault too, for constantly pointing out the financial ramifications involved in the day’s biggest sports news.
At some point though, these rumblings will erupt as a crisis of faith. Without the confidence that every game is a genuine contest and every move is made in order to win them, the emotional roller coaster is dulled and the magic of sports dissolves into mere entertainment.
In Dallas, some season ticket holders are reportedly already asking for refunds.
For his part, Harrison has stuck to his guns. “It's going to make us better,” he said recently of the trade. “We believe that it sets us up to win.”
He better be right—or the theories will linger. And that’s not good for business.
Eben’s ⚡ Take: Insert [HangoverPokerTable.gif] right here. Maybe people in sports—including ourselves—can benefit by constantly reminding themselves of Occam’s razor. This Luka trade was seemingly either 1) a move that the Mavericks thought was the best basketball decision, or 2) some sort of 3D chess move to pressure local legislators, tank attendance, provide local leverage, push other suitors out of pursuit of a Vegas franchise, deny the NBA a $5+ billion expansion fee in Sin City, and convince the league to abandon the nation’s fourth-largest media market? Yeah, I know which of those is the simpler option…
Lev’s ⚡ Take: Sports teams and leagues brought this upon themselves by making so many decisions motivated by finances that fans are naturally wondering where the line is drawn. And it's not just raising concession prices, pushing alternate jerseys down people's throats, or adding extra games to the season that nobody asked for. It's personnel decisions too. Every trade deadline, several NBA teams make deals for no reason other than to get under the luxury tax or the fourth apron or whatnot... PJ Tucker has been passed around like a blunt the past few years. "Follow the money" often does work.
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Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the normally generous ESPN draft graders hand out an F.
For what it’s worth, journalism works similarly, with those responsible for coverage kept away from those handling business. Though I’m not sure newspapers are the role model I’d point to when it comes to inspiring public trust.