Name: Inside the Dallas Mavericks’ Corrosive Workplace Culture
Uploaded: 2018-02-21
Duration: 7 min 6 s
Description: Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim discusses the details.

I'm Robin Lundberg joined by Sports Illustrated executive editor, Jon Wertheim. Now, Jon, you broke a story on the Dallas Mavericks specifically what you described as the corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior with former CEO and President Terdema Ussery, the offender in chief. One former employee called it a real life animal house, can you paint us a picture of exactly what was going in there? Yeah, this was a product of a lengthy investigation I undertook with Jessica Luther, who's based in Texas, a great investigative reporter. And we'd gotten a tip and pursued it. And Robin, it was just one of these stories where every call led to another. And the anecdotes, and the corroboration, and. The stories we were told the patterns it really did paint the picture, I think you quoted it the animal house line, there were number other metaphor's mostly former employees but some current one as well mostly female with some male as well and you know, all of this I think fits into this This # MeToo prism. I mean I don't know if this story comes about if this were a year ago, but in this climate, I think people felt emboldened to speak and the pattern was pretty clear. Now you were told the problems extended all the way to HR. What exactly happened when some of these incidents were reported? Yeah, I mean as you said, it did seem like one individual who was a real culprit was the CEO. So this went all the way to the top of the organization and It also seemed as though HR was problematic. That there was an HR official that a lot of th women didn't feel like they could go to him and talk formally because they had experiences that suggest he might not be taking them seriously. Now [ UNKNOWN ] was incredibly widely respected in the baseball world. His name was even floated as a possible future NBA commisioner. Does that make you worried or concerned as to how pervasive these type of issues may be across the sports world? Yeah. I don't know who knew what but, as you say, I mean, this is a figure who was in his early 30s and commissioner of the CBA. He had a very high ranking job at Nike. He was the Mavericks' CEO since the late 90s. This is someone that David Stern called a protege at one point. Again, I don't know who knew what but it did seem like there was a pattern here. This wasn't an isolated incident. Of course when people think about the Mavericks they're gonna think about Mark Cuban. No one you interviewed for this story said that Mark Cuban was involved or complicit. However, Multiple people said they didn't believe that he was unaware with one saying, of course Mark knew. Cuban told you that he was blindsided by your reporting. Do you believe him? Yeah, I mean, I think this is an obvious direction the story is going to go. This is a very promient owner. This is a guy who prides himself on hands on approaches and on micromanaging What did Mark Cuban know? I've spoken with Mark a few times since we went to them with a chance to comment. And Mark, as you say, claims to have no knowledge. Blindsided, he's been very outspoken, he's embarrassed, he's ashamed, he's been very civil conversations. He's already addressed the employees of the team. And, you know, I mean, I think that's a valid question. I think it's a reasonable question to wonder what this owner, especially of all owners, what he did or didn't know. Mark makes a distinction that, look, I'm a basketball guy. You ask me anyone's salary, I know it. You ask me about the basketball analytics, I know it. The business side is something totally separate. I don't even have an office there. These are questions that Mark will have to reckon with. But again, he's been very up front and got right back to me. And we've had some email exchanges. He's clearly upset by this and we'll see where this goes from here. Now it was systemic, you're implying it in the reporting. They had someone working for Mavs. com who was arrested For assaulting a female and then later also was in trouble for allegedly hitting a coworker who he was dating. So with all that going on under his purview, how much culpability do you think [ UNKNOWN ] should have. Again, I think he draws a distinction between the basketball side and the business side. He's already in the last 24 hours and very proactive Again, I think these are questions that are gonna be continued to be asked of him. Honestly, not a good look for an owner who claims, who prides himself, one of his great calling cards is how much he cares, how passionate he is. How hands- on he is. It's a lot he's gotta answer for. To be fair, he did tell you there's a problem in the Maverics organization. We've got to fix it. That's it. We're gonna take every step. It's not something we tolerate. I'm embarrassed, to be honest with you. That it happened under my ownership, and it needs to be fixed. Period. End of story. So, do you think he's handling it all the right way now? I mean honestly, the genesis of the story came from some reporting on the Panthers and Jerry Richardson, I never spoke to Jerry Richardson, Jerry Richardson I don't believe has made a public statement since the allegations came out. I mean honestly Mark isn't a subject of the allegations per se, but still this is the organization that he runs. The buck stops here. And Mark, in the last 24 hours alone has been very outspoken. And again, it's some action to go with the words as well. Speaking of the Jerry Richardson story, you broke that a couple of months ago. How does this story compare? It's different in the sense that this was the owner committing bad acts in Carolina. In this case, in Dallas, Mark Cuban. Let's be clear, and a lot of people wonder, Mark had to be have known. But the acts, themselves, are not attributed to Mark Cuban. Again, the response would have been very different. The Panthers were not particularly forthcoming. And within an hour of sending Mark Cuban. Some questions and assertions, we were spending sometime on the phne and have had multiple communication since, again, these are patterns, these are cultures, one thing I took away from both stories is that This has the effect of chasing women out of the sports industry and in both situations, both in Charlotte and in Dallas, there are women who worked in sports and got out of the industry because they did not feel respected, they did not feel safe. And I think that's one take away from this story, that there are bad actors and that there are me too allegations but one of the effects of this is that an industry that's already Just proportionally male. Cultures like this have the impact of driving away women and that's a problem. You talk about the sports culture, I think it's worth noting the term locker toom culture was used to describe the environment in Dallas, you had No players were implicated, in fact, you made it clear that the locker room itself was an actual refuge from all of this. So, how much do you think is corporate culture, and how much do you think is the sports culture? Yeah, I mean, that's an irony. We hear this term locker room culture, and yet we had women say, I go to the locker room, and Dirk Nowitzki great guy, Vince Carter great, coach Carlyle nothing but respectful. They go to the office and that's where the locker room culture would kick in. So, I mean this is one of the rare sports stories where the athletes themselves have nothing to do with some of the allegations being logged, let's be clear about that. But you know these are predominantly male work forces and work place and it's the sports industry and again I mean, some of the behavior This is not one guy, this is not one bad apple this is the story about a culture. John Wertham, we appreciate your incredible reporting on this. Thanks [ INAUDIBLE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ].

Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim discusses the details.