The Business of Sports: From SMU’s Death Penalty to Pickleball’s Boom | George Killebrew

I had a zoo bumper sticker on my Camaro's E28 when I got to SMU in 1981 did people think that was cool? I thought it was cool, but at SMU evidently it wasn't the Z28 was definitely not cool How does Zood sticker not have been cool at SMU in 1981? How would that have been?

It's the car. It wasn't the sticker But I thought back then if a zoo sticker was on a car that automatically made the car even cooler Every girl I was trying to get was driving a Mercedes and I pull up in a Z28 with T-tops Just wouldn't SMU cool Yeah, yeah, I guess SMU cool is a whole nother level of cool in it They'd have Hawaii plates on it, which I thought made it cool Yeah, that's pretty bad ass So what was the what was the epitome of cool at SMU when I was there? Yeah, well remember that's when We had a lot of athletes on the payroll, so right Eric Dickerson would park his Purple trans am with the big gold eagle on the hood next to my white Z28 with T-tops and blue stripes, so that was kind of a highlight for me It was pretty hard to outdo Eric Dickerson back then on bad.

He was just about every way imaginable. He was cool There's no doubt about it. Yeah, he still is cool.

I'll bet you I agree. Do you like him? Oh, he was great He and Craig James both and they're back in the fold now and they're coming back to games and helping out and That's cool to see Oh, it's a big mic.

Oh, okay. All right. Yeah.

Okay. Now I get it All right, all right, here's a tip for all these Americana league teams Don't do it. You said tip.

Yeah, yeah, okay. I would keep jamming To take a colon nothing but a big gen X jerk off Here that You are an SMU guy and these days that's kind of something you want to be in it. Yeah, first time at a log Yeah, we're decent.

Yeah, I mean, what does this mean to you that they're actually good in sports again? You know, it's it's surreal a little bit You know, I mean my first job was in the Mustang club during the death penalty It has some of you that was my first job in sports and You know, we never really we had some moments of of of grandeur, but nothing like today and it's just surreal That's the only way to describe it to see the stadium full and the money that's pouring in and I mean we're in a game tonight You know to to be in in the you know, March madness and I don't know. It's surreal.

How much of your money are they getting from very little? Okay, they got they got some they got some big guys. I do my part trust me I'm over there quite a bit, but Luckily financially there's seven or eight families that have stood, you know that raised the hundred million to get into the ACC in a week by the way Yeah, which was crazy.

So it's in a in a good spot Hi everybody We're in a way here It's kind of the way we roll these days. It's your dark companion once again This is episode number which you say one two oh five Wow How crazy is that never thought we make it to three and I didn't either Like I said, I mean, they were thought It's March 18th. So if anything happens after tonight and the next time we get on you want to throw it in my face?

No, because I know what's happened and what hasn't happened Today we have George Killebrew on with us Now George is a guy that I've known for a long time We go back pretty far At least we were I don't know if we really knew each other, but we were kind of in each other's orbits I knew who you were. I think you knew who I was Or maybe you didn't I don't know, but absolutely, but anyway We New each other he was kind of working the business side of things and I was Doing that thing that I do and he's taking this business thing that he was doing to Greater heights these days Your player and stuff, aren't you? Oh, I wouldn't say that.

The business side is fun. They always say I wouldn't say that Well, yes, you said it great Well, you say it everyone believes it, but no one cares about the business guy Yeah, I don't shoot the ball. I don't you know, but thank you As I've looked around on you more than once I saw Dallas referred to as America's top sports city Now believe me.

I'm very proud of our fairberg And I love it. I've lived here all my life. I've never even wanted to think about going anywhere else But as far as a top sports city That's kind of hard for me to get my head around um Tell me why I should reevaluate that thought So there wasn't an original thought of mine.

We were actually awarded that award by sports business journal So every year it's like people in the financial world read the Wall Street journal every day People in the sports business world read sports business journal And they anointed us the best sports city Really for doing business in in the US. I think that was two years ago. So Still pretty good.

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean we have it all here, right? You have all the teams and leagues and sports marketing agencies and sports sponsors and I mean, Dallas is an epicenter So how does somebody who wants to get it on that side of sports How does somebody get their starters at what you always wanted to do or is it just where you wound up and You happen to have the head for it or how did it happen for you?

You know, honestly, I wanted to be you. Oh, I wanted to be a sports broadcaster Not you in particular, but you have no idea how well it's worked out for you Yeah, I was like a little guy growing up in Hawaii and I would fake Broadcast like games Yeah, so I kind of knew that was in my blood and I came to SMU. I got a business degree But when I was in college, they didn't have all these sports management Like tracks that they have now.

So all the universities now Including SMU have these robust sports management degree tracks where I think in the department over there There's 300 students learning this business That didn't exist when I was in school and you just kind of learn by fire Basically and when I graduated I went right to work for SM athletics and that was during the death penalty 1987 Worked there a couple of years trying to raise money. We're gonna bring football back to OMB stadium If you remember and there was no money to be had to renovate that facility and we had to go out and raise the money and I don't know of all the accomplishments if there is a list of the top 10 like that one's pretty close to the top because Who had any interest in SMU football coming off the death penalty? I must have been a tough sell It was extremely tough and I wish I could take credit for the idea But the only way to raise the money to renovate to the old OMB stadium to get it to even pass You know the structural exams We sold a five-year season ticket So we went to people and said we want you to buy a season ticket and the best for the best locations in the house You had to commit to five years up front So to give you the economics, you know the season tickets like 125 dollars So if you bought four, you know, that's 600 bucks and you had to pay it You know per seats if you had you know four seats that's 24 hundred bucks.

You had to pay it all up front for five years On a team that probably wasn't going to win a lot of games Um, let's see now. I'm trying to get my SMU lineage in order here Who is at the helm of all that back then was that Russ Pots or or who no it was post Uh Russ Pots so the athletic director was a guy named Doug single And he didn't last too long. Yeah, I remember him associate AD at Stanford And then he became the full-time athletic director at Northwestern when he was 29 So the youngest athletic director At the time and the history of the NCAA and he inherited the losing streak in football and uh, you know They got through that and then recruited him to SMU and I think I believe it was his actual idea So the only way we're going to raise the whatever we needed 10 15 million was to pre-sell season tickets for five years Wow geez that's That's quite a leap of faith Well, it's just like anything right they if you want the best seat in the house like there's always some sort of strings attached to it Right, whether it's them maps or the Rangers or what have you or and so you know I think people knew that football would come back at some point So you might as well jump in and reserve your seat for five years and we renovated that stadium We opened it on September the 2nd of 1989 against the rice owls We kicked to them They fumbled the football we ran three plays and kicked a field go we're up three nothing We didn't play the game in two years We're all looking at each other like this is easy.

We got these guys Midway through the 4th when it's 41 to 3 rice, you know, we realize or or something along those lines But we won two games a year we beat university Connecticut. We beat the University of North Texas north Texas state at the time But that season like you know, we went into Houston. It got beat 95 to 21 Oh god, and they were throwing deep in the 4th quarter with Andre were and People like that then we took the team the next week in a Notre Dame New holds was the coach and he did his weekly press conference and said you know Don't get me wrong.

We're gonna beat SMU We're not gonna embarrass him Because what what happened at the University of Houston in the old Astridome should never happen. They were trying to hang 100 dollars That's nice of him Just be up front with it. The only good thing about that game was they it was one of the few stadiums in college football at the time that sold beer Because it was the Astridome, you know, they had other events like the Houston Oilers the next day So there was a little Silver lining in that one So how would what would you say to somebody who wants to do what you do?

Yeah, I mean now you can you can actually have this as a concentration in your collegiate Experience, you know, you can go to a sports management school and And the reason back to that Dallas being so ripe is a sports marketing city or sports management city You know, we tell the graduates there when that program's 15 years old and in the first couple years We tell the graduates like make a list of a hundred Sports entities in Dallas and you can put the cowboys at the top if you want But Mavericks to me whatever you want to do But if your list isn't a hundred deep of companies in Dallas, Texas that are in sports marketing Then you're not doing your homework So I gave that speech recently and the guy that runs the program you fast forward to today Said hey George like you know, we say now it's 250 there are 250 Companies whether they're sports marketing agencies whether they're sports sponsors like Dr. Pepper American Airlines Southwest AT&T whether it's collegiate properties whether it's Lone-star park or the NASCAR track or you know the Frisco Rough Riders or FC Dallas Or any of the other soccer teams that have been born in the last couple years like there's opportunity here And so you just got to work you got to just get out there you got a network you got to be on all their websites Everyone's always looking for someone But in the sports business it moves quickly, right? So it's not like you're going to have like eight rounds of interviews to be at an entry level job at a sports team Yeah, it's like pay attention get there if you're an intern be the first one there be the last to leave Talk to everybody ask them what they do show an interest There are so many times in our years at the Mavericks that we would have a full-time employee Leave or have an opening and we just slide the intern right in there Boy, that's a pretty big break for some guys I'll bet well, you know, we can't take ourselves too seriously, right?

This is sports marketing, right? It's basically like customer service business So you're not putting people on the moon. We're not operating on people like if you're a good human You're not stealing from us or whatever, you know, we can slide you in and teach you the job Now once you got in was it like okay, I'm in so let me just Learn as much as I can about anything I can learn about and meet as many people as I can I mean just constantly on the hustle You know work in the room that kind of thing I think so I think you know I wanted to work for the Mavericks because I saw the game in Moody Coliseum So for point of context, you know the Mavericks made the playoffs and reunion arena Was leased to WCT tennis So can you imagine in today's NBA making the playoffs and then the arena saying well, we don't have room for your home game So they move the home game to Moody Coliseum.

I'm a junior We're parking cars in my fraternity house parking lot, which is caddy corner to Moody Coliseum Some guy drives up. We're charging 20 bucks and say you don't have any cash on him. He had an extra ticket to the game And so I said yes, I'll take that and Moody Coliseum held 9,000 rene arena held 16,000 so all these season ticket holders and people didn't get like didn't get to go Well only 9,000 people got to attend that game and I had an exam the next day So I took my books and I sat in the worst seat in Moody Coliseum I'm not lying by a gigantic air conditioning event with my books in my lap thinking I'm just gonna watch a half and then I'll go to my study group And it's like the most exciting thing I've ever seen if you remember it came came down to the last shot They they below the whistle and say games over the Mavericks run into their locker room The rest look at it and call them back out of the locker room to play the final three seconds against the Seattle Super Sonics And then Dallas ended up winning and I kind of looked around said this is cool I could do this it's first NBA game I'd ever seen if you were there you will never forget it It was I mean going to games at reunion arena was one thing that was cool and I loved it as much as anybody But when we found out they were gonna play a game at Moody Coliseum You just knew that something extraordinary was gonna happen that night I mean if nothing else it was gonna just gonna be an extraordinary vibe An NBA playoff game in Moody Coliseum And as things turned out the game was otherworldly as well I had no point of reference.

I grew up in Hawaii. We didn't have an NBA team I followed the NBA pretty closely because there was a kid from the University of Hawaii that was on the Washington team back then the bullets So that was my first thing and I said wow this was pretty good. I'd like to do it the problem was The front office was like 40 people the business office was really small And like I couldn't really break in And I knew a couple people there once still there the great Steve Letson and I called Steve And he said what George?

She's no one's leaving like you know The Mavs had had a nice run through the 80s right western conference right finals You know against the Lakers and He but he said but we just bought an indoor soccer team called the Dallas sidekicks Do you know anything about soccer? I said absolutely. I'm a world-renowned Especially indoor soccer.

Let's go like I just wanted to get in and he said can you come down today And I interviewed with Norm Saunju that day Norm said go sit in the lobby call me back in at five o'clock until you get the job What was working for norm Saunju like so that's been awesome because We heard a lot about him you know about what he was like to Be around and deal with and we did have to deal with him every now and then on you know media level basis and And I heard varying things about him. I mean there were some people that liked him some people didn't But I guess you can say that about anybody Yeah, for me for a young like I didn't know anything right. I'm just a young guy and he had this attention to detail Like I've never seen before so after every group of games You know, let's say you have two or three in a week There was a staff meeting every Monday morning from eight to ten and he would go through those games with a notepad and he'd say things like At the seven-minute mark in the first quarter there was a spill in section 115 and it took the cleanup crew Five minutes to get there.

That's like really too long. Mm-hmm like Details and it's like Maybe at the time you thought it was a little much and by the way when by the time I got to the mavericks my first year We were 11 in 71 Right like right worst team in the league and then we got really really good the next year with 13 in 69 Yeah, I remember those years it's so like I'm sitting here thinking we're the laughing stock not just of the NBA But really of sports and we're talking about the spill in section 115 But I look back on it and I've never watched a sporting event the same way again because I'm always My eyes are always wandering and all those years sitting in my seats at the mass We'd have our sponsor prospects with us and our customers and find the person sitting next to me would all inevitably every now and then look at me and go what are you looking at Games run front of you and I'm looking for there's a woman holding a baby on the first row Which we don't allow because a player could go into the front row and then you know All these rules and then just really how to operate a franchise. You're looking for the spills Yeah, I mean it's soup to nuts right You know you're watching the centerhung scoreboard.

They go up with the graphic and there's a spelling error And like I get like shivers to this day. I'm like oh my god. They spelled that wrong What are they thinking and they chuck it like you know, so it was that level of detail that kind of In a strange way kind of turn us all really into professionals as it becomes to presenting a game And that's what I really liked about Did you get to picking up spills after that Yeah, I mean Yeah, times exactly.

I I stirred the nacho cheese. I did everything there. It was awesome Gotta learn from the ground up, you know Did you at the time look at that as a big beat down or did you know is gonna help you later on down the road or How did you view it back then?

I must just be weird because it was such an honor for me to go to work for the Mavericks And that's when they were the laughing stock everything and I would wear My Mavericks stuff everywhere even like socially I just got married and would go to a party and like it'd be like a press conference people are like You work for the Mavericks like what is wrong with you guys? You're the way they just go at you And I'm like I'd explain to them that I was literally the lowest guy on the channel on the total pull at the time But I was like really proud of that like that's what I wanted to do and I knew that after seeing that game in moody And I was gonna take any grief from anybody because it's cyclical we knew things were gonna turn We think it was gonna take 10 years Who are the guys that influenced you influenced your sports business thought early in your career? Well, you know at the top I was lucky.

I've been lucky to work with three billionaires You know I work for Ross Pro Jr I work for Mark Cuban and I've worked I'm working now with Tom Dundin and They those kind of guys are visionaries, you know, they they think differently and they They're looking at things that while I'm looking for spills. They're looking at you know Ways to really make the franchise more valuable and and you know mark for sure I spent most of my career with Mark 20 years with Mark And it like you know people ask all the time like what's he like? I'm like he was awesome because you know He was on it 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year I could text him right now and he'd respond right back like having a boss like that that's that immediate Is really refreshing and he didn't he wasn't wishy-washy like the things he thought In 2000 or the same things he thinks today I'm not an operator game and and and do the things that we do so you know he is setting that chair Hasi was he good?

Oh, yeah, he was excellent He was he was great. We had a great run. I love working for someone now sometimes the message was was hard like Was wasn't always rainbows and butterflies like no you suck and this this and this and but you know It's immediate you get immediate feedback and we ran very fast and we grew a great business together And we led the NBA in all the things that the NBA measures And that's not easy You know and then he set the tone.

Yeah, that's something to be proud of too. I'll bet We won a lot of awards when we got when he got there Remember we hadn't been in the playoffs in 10 years. We he gets a half season in So I've done really count next year We get in the first round against Utah and we beat him last time Carmelone and John Stockton ever played in a playoff game And just right from there as a rocket ship You know, and then we built a great business in those years and we were the you know We got to the finals obviously and we're not successful then got back against the same team You know in 2011 and one and that that body of work there You know when you look at the boring business stuff We led the NBA or a top five team in the NBA in everything the NBA measures ticket sales sponsorships marketing television ratings social media presence broadcast merchandise all these things that the NBA does so brilliantly to benchmark You know, we were usually a top if we weren't a top five team.

We're always in the top 10. It was a great organization I mean from top to bottom. It was a great organization I know he's just working around it from the media standpoint It was always square away with a great Kevin Sully Sullivan at the helm Absolutely Um, let's see Any others influence you besides um, yeah, I think Ross Perot gets kind of a short short end of the stick a little bit as a sports owner But you know, there would be no American airline center if there was not a Ross Perot junior Just he understood politics.

He understood how to get that vote To go positive now remember there's only a hundred thousand or so votes cast that day and We won that vote by 1600 which is a very small margin. So if that goes south No telling kind of the direction of the franchise And you know, he was very good on the real estate side. We're able to build the American airline center It was kind of the perfect storm as the stars were coming off their Stanley Cup win Cuban buys the Mavericks the economy's great So we do the biggest naming rights Agreement with American Airlines in existence at the time We sold all the sweets and all the club seats and all the sponsorships for that building And it was just great and you know Ross You know, you asked most Mavericks fans like who takes credit for Dirk Davisky They'd say well mark you but well no Ross Perot on the team when Dirk was drafted Ross Perot hired Don Nelson If you'll remember and got him out of Maui somehow to come run Mask it will help for the maves under Ross's Ownership we traded for Steve Nash so those those cornerstone pieces were in place with Ross I he's and he's a great man too, so I but I feel like you know He wasn't really the most sports-minded guy who's a business real estate guy and so he checked the boxes He got the building built we built the you know the entertainment facility around the building and you know the rest is history What do you think Sports here in our Fairburg might look like had the Voter whatever to build the American Airlines Center gone the other way Well, it just didn't leave a lot of wiggle room because you know, I don't think Ross and his partners were willing to write You know the whole check You know, they were looking for a municipality to Participate that was did participate but not to a big extent more about roads and improvements So you would end it up in a suburb, you know or somewhere and then we'd have you know our our friends out in Arlington We'd probably be somewhere else stars as well and you know, it's just that was a really Watershed moment.

I think for the city and I give Mark a lot of credit to he said we're gonna stay in Dallas We're the Dallas Mavericks and now the new regime is saying the same thing like we we're gonna be the only team that I guess It wears Dallas on their jerseys that actually play in Dallas Which is great, you know, and I think it is great. It didn't really be a bummer to lose all of them Well, you know the divorce with the stars or whatever you want to call it That was a great business to like we had a 30 year we will have a 30 year partnership And like I said we caught it at the right time that building cash flowed from day one when the operating losses of both teams were significant You know both teams were not making any money, but this building all of a sudden you get 50 or so maps games You get 50 or so stars games and you get 85 third-party events To a hundred per year concerts and other things And we were getting if a concert went on a East Coast swing They'd stop in Dallas if a concert went on a West Coast swing they'd stop in Dallas the acoustics of that building You know, we're really really great where you could you know get a Poverati, you know to say I'll play there Like you see the money to make it great and And all those things as they came together Dallas is a great concert town and we built it for 20,000 So there are a lot of arenas that were 16 or so, but people don't realize that that additional 4,000 tickets is a big deal to a concert Like that's a lot of money And so when you're looking around you're like I want to play the American Airlines Center There's another publication that arena people read and the American Airlines Center is consistently top seven in the US still And top ten in the world for an indoor facility Because we get we get all the tours What do you think about both teams abandoning the AAC? It seems to me Like that building still got some some juice left in it It was a really well built building You know, so that's a HKS design Dallas architectural firm Same design architect and sports architect that built the ballpark um And the difference is so the building that came online right before the American Airlines Center was a staple center And everyone talked about how great the staple center was You know their naming rights agreement staples paid 5 million a year for 20 years and everyone said you won't get that kind of money in Dallas This is only LA kind of money and we got six and a half million a year for 30 years with American But the maintenance of these buildings over time Is really what keeps them alive and every summer The guys that run the American Airlines Center Dave Brown who's done it from the beginning And his team would come to ownership and say we need X amount of million dollars While that and when the teams are done and out of the playoffs and we're gonna paint and we're gonna Recarp it and we're going to do all the necessary work to keep it Above grade and I think if you walk in there today You you'd agree that no one believes it's 25 years old.

No And it could it's preposterous to me That they're that these two teams are talking about abandoning that place I mean your choice is and a lot of like it land. I just went through this they renovated put 400 million Into their building and Giving it another 10 15 years or 20 years maybe I mean, that's a choice. That's a choice they had But you know in defense a little bit You know I remember when Mark first got here the American Airlines Center was designed and coming out of the ground He had no influence on it.

I remember we went to him and said hey Sorry, you know the two faces way out of the tube on this deal. Do you want to Way in here and he goes yeah, can you name like One of the beer pubs on the upper level motley's pub that was the name of my bar at Indiana University It's like now He we backed up a little bit technology wise and he was able to weigh in but it was already done So all along if you're gonna build a basketball mecca It's hard to have a partner in it with hockey because the ring takes up more room And so here's this new ownership group. It's within their right if they want to build Dallas the finest basketball arena in the world Then that's good for Dallas right and if it doesn't work with but they should be shaking hands And we should be high-fiving and they should go out in the last five years here on a high note.

We should be celebrating The work that we did together to build that building and make it what it is And then the maverick should be saying hey stars good luck wherever you're gonna end up We want you to win Stanley Cups and they should should be saying the same back to the maves and your part friends And that's it and maybe the building stays still a great concert facility If you remember we kept reunion for a couple of years Yes, when we built the American Airlines Center because Philly had done the same with the old spectrum And we just couldn't make it financially viable in reunions case And so we took it down because everyone wants to play the new shiny one not the old didn't you one and um So we'll see what happens about how long of a shelf life do you think the AC Was designed to have Well, it does seem like 30 years seems to be about the average of most you know sports buildings Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a magic number but 30s a lot a lot I remember when I met Tom Galardi for the first time and he goes 30s not a lot I said, well, how do you say that? He goes why build hotels they last for 50 years Okay, like you know legit right But you know you want for the fans you want all the bills and whistles And then you visit LA's new arena, you know for the Clippers and It is just mind blowing right so like technologies come a long way Yeah, you could we could paint out we could spend 400 million on the American Airlines Center and and we'd be fine But it's it's never gonna be kind of what some of these new facilities are just easier to start over and start fresh Yeah, if you're gonna spend that much you might as well just go ground up And I think probably that's what the Adelson's think you know, I mean, they're a very deep family. They don't do things On the cheap, you know, you look at their their casinos around the world and you know, they're about quality And you know, they're the new owner they get to decide that right is it Adelson or Adelson?

I've always said Adelson You know people asked me a lot You know wow, this was when Mark first sold this is way out of the blue who are these people? They just popped out of nowhere, but people don't realize is Mark and mr. Adelson had a relationship for a long time And I'll never forget being added to an email with the two of them and mr.

Adelson was asking Mark to take his son As our intern So mark adds me the email and says yeah, George will run point here. We'd love to have your son as our intern So we I before I respond I go find mark. I said what's the deal here like what colleges yet?

He goes he's 16 So we so Matan Adelson was our intern at the Mavs as a 16-year-old fast-forward. He's now a 23-year-old owns a professional basketball team overseas and But so they didn't just pop out of nowhere. Yeah, we marks that a relationship with that family forever and and they're well-capitalized This is George Kilibrew as you can tell He is a sports biz guy and he's got sports biz stories and we'll have more with him In just a second here, but right now it is time for us to stop down For that crazy little thing George that we call the dreaded and feared mid show read him You relax for a second if you want to thank you have some water Um, I'm holding in my hands something that is very near and dear to me for because of what it did for me not too terribly long ago When I needed something done and I couldn't find anything else that would do the trick But this stuff did this is from the CBD house of healing It offers muscle and pain relief.

It is a full spectrum Savstick and not too long ago I was dealing with a pinch nerve in my neck that was driving me crazy It hurt All the time and there was no getting around it and I tried Everything every kind of pill out there that you can think of I tried it And then I decided to look at something else and I found out about the CBD house of healing I went down there told them all was going on And asked what do you got? Well, just so happens That the owner of the CBD house of healing is a registered nurse And it just so happens That I know you hear CBD and you may think this or you may think that but down there They approach things from a highly medicinal standpoint and if you got something wrong with you like this They will find something to treat it. They gave this to me I used it and it made it feel a whole lot better now.

Did it go away? I don't know I don't know if it did or not. I do know that it doesn't bother me like it did before And I will take that any day of the week So you're probably thinking okay, what is all this leading to?

Well, it's leading to this If they can do that for me they will do it for you So if you are roaming around this world in pain. There's no reason for that man Go to the CBD house of healing talk to them. They've got something for you I promise you they've got something for you The CBD house of healing is located at the intersection of Northwest Highway in Plano Road In the northeast quadrant of that burgeoning intersection Stop by and do tell them you heard about it from me here on YDC Let the CBD house of healing go to work to make you feel better Anything else Yes Where is it?

I don't know I can't see it. Well, I can't see it either So we don't have anything else No, that's a big mistake to make All right, let's see Yes, the Eric Nadal birthday benefit concert celebrates its 14th edition By featuring two of Eric's favorites bands Brooklyn-based semi-ray and the friends And Bay Area favorite Chuck profit and the kumbia shoes the benefit supports The work of the Grand Halliburton Foundation. That is a local non-profit They provide mental health education training and support to teens and families To learn more what you need to do is go to grandhaliburton.org Sponsor tables and sweets are available through Grand Halliburton Foundation Visit grandhaliburton.org Eric slash Eric Nadal to learn more Or to purchase a sponsorship.

This is Eric Nadal's birthday benefit He does it every year. It's presented by Haynes Boone and KXT 917 featuring semi-ray and the friends with special guest Chuck profit semi-ray and the friends Chuck profit date is Thursday the 14th of May 2026 doors open at 630 downbeat is 730. It's at the Longhorn Ballroom the legendary Longhorn Ballroom and gone Corinth Street and Dallas Everybody show up and turn out for the Eric Nadal birthday bash a good time is guaranteed for all Is that it?

A quick swig of tea and we will be back here take a drink everybody. Thank you. I'm proud of everyone Yes All right, this is George Kilibur.

He's regaling us With sports biz stories and I'm a big sports biz guy this aspect of sports fascinates me about as much as the games Themselves, but you were kind of oriented like this from the start, weren't you? Yeah, I mean, I didn't have any athletic talent to speak of so this was kind of my fallback if I wanted to be in the business and So yeah, that's what I've been doing It's worked out very well for you 27 years with the Mavericks You rose to the Chief Revenue Officer Now that's a lofty title George. It's a nice one.

Yeah, it is a nice one And then it was on to major league rugby in 2019 Where you earned an even loftier title best title ever He was commissioner of the league. Yeah, pretty damn good commissioner Of major league rugby the commission Yeah, yeah, the number one guy the number one guy Two two great things about the job The title so I made my kids start calling me commissioner and set it down Anyone who dress me of George. I just give him the hand and say let's back up here And then the second is you know your signatures on the ball Yes, that's right.

So think Adam Silver think Don't lose other guys think bud ceiling Did you have to individually sign each one or did they let you just Make a copy and I should have brought some for you My bad. I'll send it over. No, I had to sign once and then they fair enough put it on there But in quite there's a third great thing about the job rugby players are the greatest guys like it's they are great athletes It's an unbelievable game.

It's a beautiful game They you know, it is as rugged as you've seen there are no pads They're they're kind of pioneers. You know the sport hasn't really You know flourished in North America the way it has all around the country And that was awesome and then we bid for the rugby world cup for the United States Which we won for the men in 2031 And the women 2033 so those are the good things that came out of that being the commissioner by the way of a league Whew, that's a tough job. I'll bet now it's good for guys like silver that make you know a lot of silver right a lot of A lot of dollars like my my contract wasn't identical to his Um, and really it's just a hard job people are on you all the time when I got there.

We had 17s. We grew it to 14 Um, but it's tough like rugby hasn't quite made it yet in the United States Uh, they have till 20 to 31 to get their ducks in a row because they say the rugby world cup is the third biggest Sporty event in the world like people Love this thing in Australia and places like that. So Let's just hope they are on the right pathway to To world cup success.

Do you think they are That's hard. You know, I mad. I think about it a lot because I wish I could have done more Out of three or contract.

I stayed for blame mark Cuban for this by the way because that was his game He played rugby at the University of Indiana All those rugby buddies used to come to maths games and drink beer all night and things So I kind of blame mark for this, but um It's tough. You know the rules are hard Like I couldn't learn the rules like I tried my best. I actually settled up next to a retired player who was the captain Of the English rugby world cup team like there's pictures of him on his Instagram page with Prince Harry like it's a big deal Right and so you got to help me.

I got to learn these rules and he goes Oh, I've been playing the game 20 years. I still don't know them all Like Americans like to know their rules. I insisted on three rule changes and you would have thought I was gonna get struck down by the rugby gods, but we put in a shot clock You know, just like you have in the NBA because they they have these kicks these free kicks and it takes them forever And then I asked the I just said what what percentage of the kicks do they make and it's like 85% I'm like all right We're put them on the clock like I'm only if they're making 85% of the kick think I kicked the ball And then you know a couple other kind of tweaks to the rules which Was not popular, but I'm cheering for it.

It's tough Um, but it's a great game and these athletes are incredible and they're the nicest guys And they'll do anything for their sport and they get beat up or send any other athlete I've ever seen I mean no pads That's what I've heard that as far as sheer Physicality it's at the top of the heap Well, they you know, they teach you how to tackle Without using the head and neck And so a lot of NFL teams p carols the first one that said I need rugby people to come in and teach our guys how to tackle You know, so there's there's a lot of crossover there, but um man, it's It's a brutal sport After that you got involved with the guy that you referenced already on the presentation today Tom Dundin That is a guy which um Some people may know the name Others might not But he lives right here in our fairburg And he owns among other things the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League And with him you got involved in the United Pickleball Association where you are right now I believe yeah chief revenue officer May they these guys like to stick you with making money, don't they? It's the hardest job every and everyone you know if there's any problem or anything you need Underwritten just go to the revenue guys. Yeah, just find a sponsor for it.

It's easy No, it's Tom's great. Tom's uh, he's he's a lot he's very similar to Mark Cuban, but he's not really interested in the public eye Uh, he's he's really more behind the scenes. He's Wicked smart for sure just like Mark was yeah, but he you know, he bought the Hurricanes and he and his partners have bought the Portland Trailblazers and so That will be voted in here At the end of this month at the NBA board of governors meeting He started he was a big golf you know, he helped build Trinity forest But kind of the golf course here in Dallas, but he he doesn't he likes to stay in the in the not in the spotlight He pushes other people for a little bit more and uh, we started playing together start playing pickleball For five years ago he had some courts at his house that he were tennis courts that he changed to pickleball And it it's just been really really fun and then all of a sudden I fell off the invite text to play at his house and Me and my partner and who was our CMO at the Mavs and worked for Tom at Santander and So we reached out to him.

We're like Tom. Uh, I saved this text. It's very classic We we're not getting the invite anymore and he said yeah, that's right.

You know, you guys aren't good enough He goes I'm taking this very seriously and I've hired the number one player in the world to be my personal coach In fact, I'm only playing with professionals now But if you guys want to do that then you're welcome back Good lord Then I reached out to him a little while later. He said I'm taking this very seriously I said, I know I got fired from your friend group It's terrible I'm heart broken. I have to find another place to play He goes, that's not what I mean.

I'm taking the business side series I'm going to buy the PPA tour which was think of the PGA tour go city to city 17 times a year in the US was based in Salt Lake City. I'm going to move it to Dallas. I'm going to buy the other Professional league which is called major league pickleball because we can't have two Professional pickleball leagues.

They're going to kill each other So we got to kind of work on buying that. I'm going to buy a lot of the digital assets like pickleball.com where everyone goes to get their Information a company called pickleball central, which is where you buy all your gear think of tennis warehouse tennis players look at We're going to put it all together. We're going to put it in one of my buildings in Dallas and Let's let let's go.

Let's run with this a little bit and it's been a blast Must be cool to have money I'm just going to buy these leagues and move them here It'll be my little play thing, but I'm going to kick ass with it Yeah, this one's interesting because it's kind of it wasn't a lot of money Visa V the Portland Trailblazer is at four and a quarter billion dollars, right? And you know, he just has a passion for he just loved it and You know, and it's just growing like nothing I've ever seen It's just the the participation numbers So it just got awarded for the fourth consecutive year by this outside agency called the SFIA which is sports and fitness industry association Which measures participation sports in the US Four year fourth year in a row fastest growing sport. Yeah, so I get it one year Uh, but to get a second year and then a third year and a fourth year of double digit growth and You talk to the people like if the parks and wrecks and Dallas and they say the number when complain is they're not enough courts in the city like we need more courts It's a phenomenon because it's a pretty simple game.

It's a game you can play with your seven-year-old son or your seven-year-old dad There's a huge social and community aspect to it And the pros are just exploding. It's the best player in the world when I first got there was a 16-year-old female by the name of Analy Waters She's now 19 just turned 19 and male or female. She's the best player in the world Just beats everybody wins women singles women's doubles and mixed doubles pretty much at every tournament triple crown and she did it last week So it's not like a once in a life like she and her mixed doubles partner Ben John's who was the best male player in the world who Tom hired to be his coach um Are virtually unbeatable in mixed doubles something like a hundred and thirty five and five Wow It's like it's like the we haven't been graded in storytelling like a lot of people like let's not really a sport Well, you know whatever, but some of these stats that are coming out are incredible Analy just signed with Nike.

It's Nike's first head-to-toe pickleball athlete Which is kind of a proud moment for everyone in the pickleball world and and the and the tour goes on You know, it's it's just great I've always been curious about Tom Dundin because you know Like I say, it's a name that I know and I know that he owns the hurricanes. I'm aware of his His pickleball scene Yet I couldn't pick the guy out of a lineup. I know nothing about him chances are I've been in the same place at the same time with him Just didn't know I mean he's really a low profile guy He is um, and I this is the second time I worked with Tom and he in mark So Tom was a big map.

He's a hoops guy Hoops was his first love. Mm-hmm. Had great Maverick season tickets called one day and said, you know after he sold his company There was a headline in the Wall Street Journal that Dallas's newest billionaire is 40 years old and it was Tom like Tom is wicked wickedly smart And he asked he said would mark sit down with me as some of course he would Tom like he was such a good friend of the Mavericks For a lot of years I go but what's the subject he goes?

I want to try to maybe buy an NBA team So they got together and at the time there was nothing for sale in the NBA and Tom said, you know what maybe I'll start out by buying an NHL team and I might be simplifying the story But like I can't think of any other sports owner that didn't just buy the one that they had passion for like yeah mark or Jerry Like it wouldn't about other NFL teams for Jerry Jones or other NBA teams from Mark Cuban And Thompson and I might just buy the hurricane so he does The hurricanes were a bottom third team and everything they were doing business hockey and everything and now there are top third team in everything They're doing and when he and his group You know Looked at the trailblazers. That was that was a bidding process That was Paul Allen's estate selling yeah, and so there were a lot of groups involved there And then when he got selected I was actually kind of surprised and I called someone very high in the NBA And I said she's that's great like you're getting He but he's not a he's not gonna politic for it. He's not he just doesn't do that And they I said what led you to Tom and they said well What he did it the hurricanes because we don't want to move the trailblazers like we have there's a proud tradition of basketball I'll be it a long time ago in Portland and we don't want a group to come in and buy them and move them to Vegas or somewhere like that We're not interested in it and his work his body of work so far at the hurricanes leads us to believe he could do that with the trailblazers So just behind the scenes just getting it done very quiet Doesn't like the spotlight mark, you know mark marks a little bit that way I mean there's a side of Cuban that he's a little anti-social But he can turn it on for the cameras and he can do shark tank and do great And Tom's just the opposite, you know, it just doesn't want that spotlight Are there other places for you to go in a career like this?

I don't know. What do you got? I got nothing Maybe you could be our CFO That might interest you You know, I love what we're doing at pickleball because I play three times a week now So I'm going to need some of this CBD Bomb, please I can barely like get out of my car to come in your studio You know what it works.

Yeah, I'm using one and it definitely helps me But I'll get on the bandwagon with yours. Just kind of support the sponsors. That's what I do That's right.

You know the import. I'm going to the CBD House of Paying wherever that is on the corner of Plano Road and North West Island. North West Island.

I got it So I'll support the family here, but yeah, I love what we're doing. It's fun It's you know, it's it's not as serious as the things I've done before like there's an effervescence in this sport and like others like Pickleball people are the happiest people you've ever met They are just happy all the time like they get to play this game that they love. It's a cold following And you know, they're all smiling and you go to tournaments and tour stops and watch the major league pickleball teams compete and everybody's just happy Like it's not as serious as Some things we went through in rugby or things we went through at the maps or things we went through at SMU.

Yeah This is a really effervescence sport and it's not going anywhere It's just like everyone's waiting for the chink in the armor But you know back to that report that just came out so there's anywhere between Depending what you believe 20 and 40 million people play in the game And it's all ages we have perfect gender equity our female professionals earn the same amount as our male professionals They get the same amount of TV time We're on CBS two weekends ago big CBS on a Sunday 12-to-2 window did 750,000 households Which is the biggest we've ever done meeting the last time we did it which was 500,000 it peaked it over a million You know, so all the things that like business guys like me look at in sports You know gate receipts sponsorships merchandise sales TV ratings in this thing are growing exponentially faster than most most sports All I know is every time I drive past that place down there on McKinney Near North Dallas high school. Yeah co-park where once Tennis was played At all hours day and night. They're not playing tennis there anymore Yeah, and it's you know, so for the record all racket sports are doing well tennis is doing very well Pickleball is exploding.

There's a new game coming that's Latin American base called Padel I say Padel some people call it paddle But it's like it's more like rack of all it has walls um, and you know the part of the beauty of pickleball is the ease that you can play it So you can put two pickleball courts, you know on one tennis court And you can play doubles and play with whoever you want and you just can affect more people So tennis is growing too. It's it's not about us versus them by any means It's a whole different ballgame and when we first got there We had a lot of tour professionals that were ex tennis stars So like Jeannie Bouchard who played in the finals in Wimbledon and women singles is now playing pickleball Jack Sock an American player won a Olympic gold medal In men's doubles is now playing pickleball. So there's this crossover And all the stars of today probably were playing tennis and now maybe aged out of being competitive Yeah, and now are playing pickleball, but what's happening now are these kids that are coming up playing pickleball We just signed a 14-year-old Kid from my home state of Hawaii Japanese kid my name is Thomas Shima Bakuro So he's a 14-year-old signed to professional contract in his on tour Just turned 15 the other day Got to the round of eight here in Texas and he's you know, he's gonna be great like the so you're not gonna sit on top of this sport Like a Michael Jordan or LeBron James for 20 years because the youth movement's coming and these kids never played tennis They yeah started with pickleball It's pretty good So now we've learned that you're a native of Hawaii You have the same name as a baseball hall of favor The great harman kill a brew that is Uh With all of this are there any is there anything else out there that you'd like to do in your career?

Oh that cheese that's a loaded question. I don't know. I mean, I I just feel really lucky to stay in the same market Like that's very rare for guys like me you got to move around a lot and kind of we're able to raise our Family here and you know and when I became the commissioner major league rugby they said you can move it wherever you want So we moved it to Dallas, Texas and you know Tom you know obviously with his holdings He you know has some office buildings downtown.

So you know free rent and that's where we are and so I really Don't see myself like going elsewhere for a sports job outside of Dallas and you know like you mentioned my My favorite sports hobby, which is now SMU athletics is right here in my backyard too and life's good there and I just don't see any reasons To really get crazy now You never say never though. No, you do never say never but I am all for a guy like you staying around this scene This scene needs guys like you Consistency is a big deal in sports marketing You know, and that run with the maves having the same owner and kind of the same coaching staff and same GM and same star Like you point to things like that fans want consistency. They want they want to know what they're gonna get from you And we were able to deliver that over a 20-year period and it's hard for them to let their heroes go, you know I mean you look at Dirk you what an enigma and And jeez we had it again, and you know, it's slipped through my fingers, you know Talk about Yeah, I mean I get to I got to spend one year with with Luca and it was special like we're grooming that and he saw what Dirk and what Dirk means to the city and life after Basketball you if Dirk were sitting here and hopefully you will like This is his city, you know, and kind of has the keys to the city and Boy, I just love those athletes that can have a long run to have to be the whole career But a long run like that and they're in a few around here and and Dallas loves when that happens Like they celebrate them, you know, and it's it's an interesting phenomenon all right one more thing And after this we will let you go with our great thanks for doing this course But I ask anybody who has any affiliation with the Mavericks Who has come in here and sat in that chair.

I must ask Where were you and how did you learn about it? It's like the Kennedy assassination It is everyone knows where if you're old enough exactly where there were or 9-11 like I can tell exactly where I was that day So I was a Saturday night We're at our lake house. I was watching a movie And I had my phone kind of turned over I was like 10 30-ish and I remember turning my phone over and having like 75 texts and I'm like Someone died.

I'm like someone died like oh my god. What has happened here? So jump up and I start going through it And I jump on to Twitter because people like it's hoax Love people like it's a hoax and I looked at champs, you know, and he had it and then I texted Mark And I said what's going on here?

And he said I have no idea and So Mark has no idea. Where do you go after that? Well, I kind of went back to maybe it's not true Because I thought if anything's going down of that nature Mark was in the room and was a part of it and You know, he he wasn't and you know, I saw you know, it's it's hard like you don't You know, you don't want to throw people under the bus and you don't want to speak poorly of those that are gone now And Mark stopped short of until the other day when he said that was a mistake hiring, you know, Nico is a GM And I didn't know him, but I knew he'd never been a GM Like I would have loved to have started my career as a CRO at the Mavericks, but that's not the way it works You got to go do some other things and right earn your way in and I just remember Kind of saying well jeez there these days in in pro sports in any of them You have all these GMs in the making all these wonder kids that are out there You know doing great things at low levels.

It's the air expulsora story of working your way out of the I'm like, well, why don't we find somebody that's doing that, you know That's if you don't want the sitting GM. Let's find out who's the next hot GM and Let's do that and not that it was any I'm not trying to say I was involved in those decisions at all But I was surprised I remember Mark say no, he goes you're missing it He said, you know, he's a Nike exec and he's gonna have all these relationships with players And come free agency will have an in there and we'd struggled in free agency um I got to be a part of that for the last six years. I was there in a kind of weird way But we know we were swinging for Dwight Howard and we were swinging for deandre jordan We're swinging from mike conley jr.

We were swinging for the Marcus Aldridge. We didn't get any of them And so you know, I give Mark a little credit there. It's like hey, this is an easy.

So we maybe we're not doing something right So why do the same do it the same way and what we kind of learned about free agency a lot of times is the team That has the player probably are going to be able to re-sun him because they can give him the extra year That was the case with mike conley jr. He didn't really love his current situation, but they could give him the fifth year and that's a lot of money Well, it's a night. I will never forget.

I'll tell you that. What were you doing? I was sitting at the at the lakewood landing And I just picked up my phone and started looking at it, you know, just and they're drinking doing a little drinking And I started scrolling and I came across this Mavs are trading lucodonchich to the Los Angeles Lakers I just thought no no that that That's crazy and then I looked around to see if if anybody else was doing the same thing And nobody seemed to be so I just thought I just I just turned it over put it down And went on about my business probably 30 seconds later.

I was just back at it again, you know, I couldn't sleep I don't think I don't think I saw I mean I'm not sure I did, but I'm responding to all these and A lot of them were like threatening text messages. Yeah, it's like what I you know like if you do that then I'm gonna drop my season tickets for I'm gonna drop my sponsorship for I'm gonna like and I'm like this is a lot Like we've traded players before we fired coaches and you know, you go through these stages this one That stage of just the hangover effect went six months. I'd run into people who would undress me Somewhere and go yeah, I just don't I go do you realize I don't work there?

Yeah, but you know, you've been the you were there 27 years. So I'm gonna lay it on you I'm like including my two kids Well, I sat over there and kept scrolling and I'd probably been Just you know focused on the phone for about I don't know five or ten minutes or so and I look up And there are three or four people just standing around looking at me like I did this, you know someone makes sense of yeah, yeah I think what you know, I didn't know what to tell them though, but Man, it was off. It was a crazy one night and a crazy time and I think you may disagree with this, but I think it's the biggest sports catastrophe We've ever had here All I would say is if you made the decision you were gonna move away from Luca Doncic for maybe some reasons we don't know about That's okay But you got to shop it for the best deal with all the other teams and get a ton of first round draft choices You don't just call the Lakers and take whatever they give you and get talked out of at least one extra player.

Yeah Godly it's still the rest day. It's just shocking like there's no words for it If you've ever seen anyone defend it No, anyone with any intelligence go. Let me tell you what you don't know And this is why this was one of the great deal.

No one's ever said that to me. No, they never will I think there's a brief moment of trying to Understand it, you know that three quarters that AD played with Kyrie or something and that's it Then he got heard and yeah, it's like okay, that's why this is silly, but it's not like it's a surprise that he's a health risk Well, yeah, and that's thing like we're worried about Lucas future health, but we're trading for a guy that's already Anthony day-to-dayvice Yeah, there's some really weird responses from people that I know and I respect from that They were just well bet just you know biting like cutting and And I you know still until this day like if I see someone I hadn't seen a long time Had a chance to take a shot. I mean they take a shot She gets thinking like well, I'm not taking a shot.

I just wondered remember when we traded Jason kid Remember that yeah, I do December like the 22nd right before Christmas and He was kind of that was a junior effect of that You know like oh, okay, we got my family. We got that was our starter kit Yeah, I mean that are like the Steve Nash letting him go free agency, but and Marcus said probably there's like a little bit of a runway with those deals Yeah, the luca thing it just came out of nowhere. Oh, we got that's what we added to it when we sent kid We got Finn and we got AC green if you remember I believe he was in that trade Sam Kassel some guys who could play back in the day, you know and Yeah, it's that's a tough one It is tough personally.

I wouldn't have made that trade if I was the GM which is like Luca. Yeah, it's more you could be the GM I'm trying not to be controversial. You got to throw your bad name to new GM.

Yeah, that's another kind of Like it's been a spot for a long time. Yeah, could be you shoot me. Let's do it.

I Know Finn if Finn were sitting here. He would like I remember him telling me when he came back in before like he doesn't want to work this hard Like I don't I don't want to speak for him. You'd ask him, but I don't think he wants to be the GM Like he has a lot of other things that he does outside of basketball and pretty good life overhaul and you know So he's like half GM with the other guy now and but it's don't you think it's also kind of that they hadn't Made a replacement yet Yeah, a little bit for whatever reason they seem intent on getting through the season and then naming someone but they still trusted Finley and his a rachardi I don't know him, but maybe he's that young guy, but trust him.

He's a Dallas guy Yeah, maybe those two to make the deal of getting rid of AD They did make a pretty good deal out of it, but Yeah, in your interim GM's co-games. Yeah, but there's no way you bounce back from something like that Just no say it always set you back We we looked at you know when even when deandre jordan committed and then left and didn't stay with his commitment That set us back. Yeah, because we were out of the free agency game And if you remember the only one left and you know just respect to this guy was as opportunity So he became our starting five Because we didn't get to really make a real pitch for Lamarcus Aldrich who was also free at the time So it's like you know the when when these kind of catastrophic things happen to you It sets you back from a basketball's perspective and when you don't get the ping pong ball that you're supposed to get You know that sets you back and you guys will remember this with Don Carter You know they were supposed to get that pick that would turned into shack Oh the ping pong balls went wrong and that's when you know The you know Scott Murray was flying with Don Carter to the lottery doing this whole thing for channel five And that's when Carter looked at him and said maybe I'm not the right guy to own this team After that went south and that's when you know it kind of because that you know when you're supposed to get the number one pick And that ended up being shacked.

That's the game changer Right and then also you get Cooper flag which is That's the craziest part of the whole story And they go still trying to salvage that by saying now you're seeing the vision It's like yeah, you're 1.8% chance. Well, you're in the come on dude. Yeah, you're in the lucky Wait, we won't say the word cloud by getting the number one pick you know for Cooper flag You know, I mean that there's no skill involved But it's just like the basketball gods just messing with you right the only vision anybody wanted to see was him leaving town We got it.

We got it. We did get that hashtag blessed Well, I didn't think the name of Zaza Pashulia was going to be brought up here today There you go. Yeah, some names from the past for you Thanks, man.

Thanks for doing course. We really enjoyed having you on. It's fine.

Thank you. All right. That's George Killebrew There with us today Uh, I hope you enjoyed that and as I always tell you In fact, I don't tell you I beg you Help us get out there.

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