the Stars filed a counterclaim<\/a>, alleging the Mavericks had no right to claim a breach of agreement \u2014 only the city could \u2014 and that the Mavericks cannot claim the Stars\u2019 interest in Center Operating Company until a court of competent jurisdiction finds that the Stars breached certain obligations owed to the city.<\/p>\n\u201cUltimately, this will either get resolved by negotiation or the courts will resolve it,\u201d Bettman said. \u201cBeing a bit of a lapsed lawyer, I like what I see from the Stars\u2019 side.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mavericks first raised awareness of the agreement breach over a year ago, a few weeks before the team and the city of Dallas say the Stars backed out of a $300 million deal to renovate AAC, according to interviews and documents obtained by The News.<\/p>\n
In the deal, according to the city and the Mavericks, the Stars agreed to remain in AAC through 2061 and would have paid no renovation costs, with the city and Mavericks footing the bill 50-50.<\/p>\n
The Stars strongly deny they agreed to the deal and say had it gone through, the Mavericks and Stars would have shared half the renovation costs. The Stars maintain they agreed to a different deal that would extend the existing lease with both teams staying at AAC through 2035.<\/p>\n
Days after last year\u2019s deal collapsed, the Mavericks on Oct. 25, 2024, cited the breach of contract and seized the Stars\u2019 half of AAC\u2019s operating company.<\/p>\n
The city of Dallas sided with the Mavericks, affirming the contract breach, both last October and in December, when city attorneys prepared a default letter to the Stars. Not explained is why apparently no one from the city noticed the Stars\u2019 breach in 2003.<\/p>\n
Bettman said he believes the Mavericks are seeking to pressure the Stars into a deal that wouldn\u2019t be in the NHL team\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n
From a league standpoint, much of the frozen funds are counted as part of the NHL\u2019s hockey-related revenue, or HRR \u2014 all income generated by the NHL from sources like concessions, merchandise, ticket sales, parking and TV revenue. Independent accountants determine what they expect HRR will be, and the league uses that to determine salary cap. HRR is also shared with the league\u2019s players and owners in a 50-50 split as part of the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
Bettman said the league has been aware of these frozen funds, and they\u2019ve already been factored into HRR.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not an issue,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd frankly, that\u2019s the least of it under all of this. Withholding funds from the Stars is not nice, and maybe the Mavericks think erroneously that the Stars are desperate for the money. The Stars can take care of themselves. Tom Gaglardi can take care of the Stars. Not an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Stars battle with the Mavericks and city of Dallas over the future of American Airlines Center, the team is also considering a home outside of the city entirely. The Stars have spoken with at least eight other cities outside Dallas about relocating, including Plano, where the Stars are considering a new billion-dollar arena at the Shops at Willow Bend Mall site<\/a>. <\/p>\n\u201cIt seems to me that the Mavs don\u2019t want to be at American Airlines Center. They want to be somewhere else, doing something else. The Stars are committed to their fans, to Dallas, the Greater Dallas area,\u201d Bettman said. \u201cI think the Stars are being prudent and looking at what their options are because obviously based on where we find ourselves today, the Mavericks have made the situation untenable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staff writer Brad Townsend contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
Find more Stars coverage from <\/b>The Dallas Morning News<\/b> here<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Monday slammed what he called a \u201cfrivolous\u201d lawsuit by the Mavericks…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":354298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[19491,3139,1320,293,62,4810,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-354297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-american-airlines-center","9":"tag-dallas-mavericks","10":"tag-dallas-stars","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-stars","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115489816279453691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}