Dallas Mavericks name former Timberwolves, 49ers executive Ethan Casson as team president

Ethan Casson’s lengthy attainment list during a quarter-century in pro sports includes the successes of San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium and Minneapolis’ Target Center, but now he’s seizing what he believes is an even more momentous opportunity.

Casson, 51, is coming to Dallas as the Mavericks’ president of business operations.

Actually, he arrived Monday and was introduced Tuesday morning to Mavericks employees, but his first official day on the job won’t be until Aug. 11.

Casson will report to CEO Rick Welts and oversee much of the Mavericks’ day-to-day business operations, enabling Welts to focus on “macro-level strategic initiatives,” including development of a new basketball-specific arena and entertainment district.

Mavericks

Casson told The Dallas Morning News one of the most enticing parts of coming to Dallas is the chance to work alongside Welts, whom he has known for two decades and considers a mentor. Another major selling point was Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont’s vision for the franchise and arena.

“It was clear to me this is an owner focused on building a championship-caliber team for the long haul,” Casson said. “But also, in parallel, focused on delivering one of the most transformative arenas and real estate development projects in the world.

“And not just the world, but specifically for the city of Dallas and for Mavs fans.”

On June 20, Casson announced he would step down after nine years as the Timberwolves’ CEO after the long-pending sale of the franchise was finalized.

Four days later the NBA Board of Governors approved the sale to a group headed by Marc Lore and ex-baseball star Alex Rodriguez. On and off the court, the Minnesota franchise has thrived, advancing to the Western Conference finals the past two years, including against Dallas in 2024.

Ethan Casson (left), shown in a 2017 file photo with Glen Taylor, then the Minnesota Timberwolves majority owner, was announced as the Mavericks’ team president Tuesday.(Charlie Neibergall / AP)

Casson simultaneously served as CEO of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx and the G League Iowa Wolves.

“Being named president of the Mavericks is an extraordinary honor for me, one of those rare chances in a career where you’re stepping into something transformative,” Casson said. “When I think of the Mavericks, I’ve always seen them as an iconic franchise. And I’ve always looked at the Mavericks as having one of the most passionate and loyal fan bases in the NBA.”

Minnesota revival

In 2024-25, the Timberwolves achieved franchise-record growth in season-ticket sales, attendance, corporate sponsorships, merchandise and social and digital media engagement.

It certainly helped to have a roster led by Anthony Edwards, but the $150 million Target Center renovation Casson oversaw in 2016-17 not only rejuvenated the franchise, but also downtown Minneapolis.

In 2023-24, the Minnesota franchise received the NBA Inclusion Leadership Award, which Dallas won in 2020 and 2022 under then-CEO Cynt Marshall, with whom Casson also forged a close relationship.

Casson also has served as the Timberwolves’ alternate governor, a title Welts holds in Dallas, with Dumont as lead governor and his family as 69% majority shareholder.

“The Mavericks are committed to being an elite professional sports franchise, and fundamental to that goal is adding top-tier executives like Ethan Casson to our senior management team,” Dumont said. “With a demonstrated record of leadership and success as an NBA executive, Ethan will help us advance our primary goal of building and maintaining a championship-winning team.

“Additionally, we continue to be focused as an organization on efforts to enhance the game-day experience for our fans — in both the near-term and with the construction of a new state-of-the-art arena in Dallas in the years ahead.”

Dallas Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont, shown with minority owner Mark Cuban during last month’s news conference to introduce Cooper Flagg, hired Ethan Casson as team president on Tuesday.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

Casson made it clear that Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Welts unequivocally is his boss and that Welts absolutely will continue to spearhead the arena efforts.

“I think it’s important that we’ve got a clear role and responsibility that we’re able to articulate,” he said. “That said, the thing that we’ve been talking to each other about is being each other’s thought partners.

“And I’m not going to be able to, or don’t want to, manage the day-to-day operations without Rick Welts and his level of expertise and insight. And as he and Patrick continue to gain traction in-market on all things new arena and entertainment district, I know I’ll be supporting in that initiative, as well.”

The unspoken, but pragmatic perspective is that Welts is 72 and was lured out of retirement by Dumont last December.

Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts responds to a question from a media member while on the blue carpet at the10th annual Mavs Ball which was held at Silo Dallas,1340 Manufacturing Street in Dallas, on March 2, 2025. (Steve Hamm / Special Contributor)

He’s been a full-throttle dynamo since arriving in Dallas, but Welts and Casson know from experience that sports venue projects take a half-decade and sometimes longer.

The Mavericks have stressed that they intend to fulfill their American Airlines Center lease, which expires in the summer of 2031, but Welts also says the clock is ticking on a replacement arena and that his goal is to select a site, ideally within Dallas city limits, by the end of 2025.

Welts told The News on Monday that the city of Dallas has presented several site possibilities and that “we are doing a deeper dive on two of them currently to see how viable they are. Neither may work and we may refocus on others.”

A primary reason Dumont hired Welts was his shepherding of all aspects of San Francisco’s Chase Center, which took seven years to conceptualize and get approved, ultimately opening in 2019 at a cost of $1.4 billion.

By then, Welts had long been a friend and mentor to Casson, dating to the mid-2000s, when then-Suns COO Welts gave a tour of fellow NBA executives that included Casson, who at the time was in his first stint with the Timberwolves (1999-2010) as senior vice president of corporate partnerships.

Casson actually preceded Welts by two years to the Bay Area, joining the 49ers in 2010 as vice president of corporate sales.

“When Rick joined the Warriors, that’s where friendship and calling each other for advice and and sharing best practices and things of that nature started to formulate,” Casson said.

Casson was promoted to the 49ers’ chief revenue officer in 2014, the same year Levi’s Stadium opened, with Casson securing a 20-year, $220 million naming rights partnership with Levi Strauss & Co. and helping land Super Bowl 50 in 2016.

“And then when I actually decided to leave the 49ers in August of 2016 to rejoin the Timberwolves, it was Rick who I met with to really help me with that decision,” Casson said.

Crazy but enthusiastic

Like Welts, Casson’s sports roots, and heart, were in basketball and the NBA in particular.

Casson, a Connecticut native, grew up in the small New Hampshire community of West Chesterfield and helped lead Keene High School’s basketball team to the 1992 state title game.

He later starred at New Hampshire’s Colby-Sawyer College, which in 2015 inducted him into its athletics hall of fame, but long before his 1996 graduation he knew playing in the NBA wasn’t feasible.

“So, like so many people, I thought, ‘Well, what would be the next best thing?’” he recalled. “I came up with this crazy idea of, ‘What if I worked in professional sports, specifically the NBA, that would be the second closest thing I could get to.’”

By age 22 he’d had six pro sports internships. Those included the United States Basketball League; jobs in minor league baseball and tennis tournaments; but above all there was an internship with the Boston Celtics.

“And I thought, of course, one of these things is going to break for me, right?” he recalled with a laugh.

In the winter of 1998 he opened his 1995 Celtics media guide and began cold-contacting NBA teams in alphabetical order. Relentlessly, he went through the order multiple times during a span of months.

“I would go through every night I would leave a voice message and a fax, alphabetically, for every NBA team,” he said, “I get asked all the time, ‘You must be from Minnesota or have a connection to Minnesota?’

“It was February of 1999 and I just happened to be on the letter M and called them, I’m guessing, for the third or fourth time. The woman in HR picked up the phone late one night and I would not let this poor person get off the phone without letting me come out for an informational interview.

“She said, ‘Ethan, we’re not paying your way out here. We have no job. You seem a little bit crazy here, but I applaud your enthusiasm.’”

Casson talked his way into an entry-level position in corporate partnerships, earning $24,000 annually. He rose step-by-step in 11 years before departing for San Francisco.

Returning to the Timberwolves in 2016 as CEO clearly was gratifying, but for obvious reasons he brings to Dallas a deep understanding and appreciation for the rank-and-file on pro sports’ business side.

“Those folks are coming in every single day with a sense of pride,” he said. “They’re coming in with a sense of purpose and really leaning into that energy and trying to build the best team you could possibly build.

“I know it’s a cliche to say that these organizations are extensions of our families, but I truly believe that.”

How fulfilling was his time in Minneapolis? His wife, Lisa, is a Minnesota native. Their 4-year-old son Lucas was born in Minneapolis. The Cassons have another son on the way, due in October.

Already, Mavericks-themed stuffed animals have found their way into Lucas’ bed. And father-son Nerf basketball matchups not only include shoutouts to Edwards, but also Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg, who, like Ethan, is a native New Englander.

“Lucas gets to pick the teams. I started working the Mavericks into the rotation,” Casson said. “Last night he introduced Klay Thompson, which I applaud a 4-year-old, to go that deep.

“As we look into our future, I just couldn’t have imagined not just the job, the market, but the people we could not be more excited about joining. This is going to be our new home for a long, long period of time.

“That’s a big change, but I can tell you, the excitement in our little tribe of three is pretty high.”

Mavericks CEO Rick Welts updates team’s progress on potential new arena sites in Dallas