#36 George Killebrew, United Pickleball Association | Better to Be Hated or Loved Than Ignored in Sports: The Mavericks Approach | The Deal Table

George Killebrew, Chief Revenue Officer of the United Pickleball Association and 27-year veteran of the Dallas Mavericks front office, joins The Deal Table to break down how professional sports franchises actually make money, from media rights deals and naming rights to sponsorship activation and playoff economics.

The conversation traces George's unlikely entry into sports business, from parking cars at an SMU fraternity house during a Mavericks playoff game at Moody Coliseum to becoming one of Mark Cuban's chief business officers. He generated over $500 million in sponsorship sales at the Mavs, earned 15 NBA awards for excellence, and helped negotiate the American Airlines Center naming rights deal ($6.5 million per year for 30 years, the largest at the time).

George walks through the business transformation of the Mavericks under Cuban, how the team went from 11-71 (the laughingstock of professional sports) to consistent playoff contenders with top-5 revenue in the NBA. He shares the inside story of the 2011 NBA Championship, the financial impact of winning consistently versus losing, and why franchise values keep rising even when teams struggle, driven primarily by media rights deals.

The episode also covers his time as Commissioner of Major League Rugby (building sponsorship from barter deals to over $1 million in his first year, securing the league's first Fox Sports TV deal), the inside story of the American Airlines Center partnership with the Dallas Stars (and why that relationship is now unraveling), and his current role scaling the business of pickleball, a sport that has been named the fastest-growing in the U.S. four years running with an estimated 20-40 million players.

George closes with his perspective on Dallas as the top sports city in America, why private equity is changing franchise ownership, and how emerging sports like pickleball and padel are creating new billion-dollar opportunities.