{"id":282040,"date":"2025-11-03T11:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/282040\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:41:10","slug":"mavericks-and-stars-take-rare-step-of-litigating-over-shared-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/282040\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks and Stars Take Rare Step of Litigating Over Shared Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Dallas Mavericks<\/a> and Dallas Stars<\/a> are locked in a rare legal battle over their joint management of the American Airlines Center, their shared Dallas arena<\/a> since 2001 and owned by the city.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe battle is an extraordinary litigation pitting two franchises from major sports leagues against each other. Sports franchises usually go out of their way to avoid court battles, which are played out in public before fans and media and can lead to the release of testimony, videos, emails, texts and other disclosures that might spur controversy. Two franchises that share the same arena have even greater incentive to avoid litigation, given that they essentially live in the same house.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mavericks and Stars use an entity, Center Operating Company, to lease the right to play their games and operate the arena. In a lawsuit filed in the Business Court of Texas, the Mavericks contend they should be recognized as the sole owner of Center Operating Company because of an alleged breach by the Stars.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Stars are accused of \u201cuprooting\u201d their headquarters to Frisco, which is about a half-hour away from Dallas, as part of an alleged exploration of potential new arena options in Frisco, Plano, Fort Worth and other locations. As described by the Mavericks, the lease requires each team to maintain its headquarters in Dallas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mavericks also maintain that the Stars are \u201cholding the American Airlines Center hostage\u201d by not authorizing investments for maintenance and improvements. Arena employees are also allegedly hurt by the Stars, who are portrayed as vetoing annual bonuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the longtime and knowledgeable employees, the Mavericks warn, are now \u201cpolishing their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s\u201d and seeking new jobs. The Mavs seek, among other remedies, a court declaration that they have \u201credeemed\u201d the Stars\u2019 interest in Center Operating Company.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Stars\u00a0offer a starkly different account<\/a>\u00a0of the situation. The team contests the Mavericks\u2019 portrayal of facts and describes the Mavs as attempting a \u201chostile takeover\u201d of their shared control of the arena. The Stars also point out what they describe as substantial monetary investments in the arena in recent years.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe litigation essentially amounts to disputed interpretations of contractual language. It also reflects some of the operational challenges faced by franchises sharing the same facility. As described in court documents, the Mavericks and Stars need to both sign off on substantial investments in the arena and agree on other expenditures. It\u2019s foreseeable that the two teams would sometimes disagree about those business decisions. At least at this point, the Mavericks and Stars lack a shared understanding of how to reconcile those disagreements without turning to litigation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mavericks-Stars relationship with the American Airlines Center is different from arrangements of several other NBA and NHL teams that share the same arena. The New York Knicks and New York Rangers, for example, both play in Madison Square Garden, but both teams are owned by James Dolan and Madison Square Garden Corp. The Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins both play in TD Garden, but while the Celtics play there through a lease, the Bruins and TD Garden are both owned by the Jacobs family and Delaware North.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes teams sharing a facility leads to disputes that they find a way to resolve. As\u00a0Sportico\u00a0detailed in January<\/a>, a disagreement between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Flyers about their arena plans was resolved by an agreement on a new building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOwnership changes with the Dallas teams are also likely a relevant factor. Tom Gaglardi has owned the Stars since 2011, but the Mavericks have relatively new ownership. The Adelson and Dumont families acquired a majority stake in the Mavericks in late 2023 from Mark Cuban, who still owns a minority share. Patrick Dumont, the Mavericks\u2019 governor, has talked openly about the attraction of a \u201centertainment district\u201d not currently offered around the American Airlines Center and the Mavericks\u2019 interest in a casino. Based on statements by the two teams about each other as part of their legal battle, it doesn\u2019t seem the current alignment of those teams\u2019 owners is working too well.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most likely conclusion to the Mavericks and Stars\u2019 dispute is a settlement. But the longer it takes for them to find common ground, the more lasting the damage to their relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars are locked in a rare legal battle over their joint management of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5117],"tags":[789,196,5047,147,5278,5,4,197],"class_list":{"0":"post-282040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-stars","8":"tag-arena","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallas-stars","12":"tag-dallasstars","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-stars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115485585436980072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}