Rick Welts
CEO, Dallas Mavericks
The way I put it is, they could be successful because of who they are, not in spite of who they are.
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan Fleischmann is joined by Rick Welts, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks and a Hall of Fame sports executive. Over five decades, Rick helped transform the NBA into a global brand, creating marquee events like All-Star Weekend, helping to launch the WNBA, and leading championship teams. He shares lessons from mentors like David Stern, the cultural shifts that shaped his career, and his decision to come out publicly — becoming one of the first openly gay executives in men’s professional sports. In this inspiring episode, Rick reflects on building team culture, leading through change, and the enduring power of sports to unite communities.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
How Rick Welts changed NBA and pro basketball forever before joining Warriors - San Francisco Chronicle
Guest Bio
Rick Welts, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, is one of the most respected executives in sports and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. His career has spanned nearly 50 years in executive roles with four NBA teams, a WNBA team, and the NBA League office in New York City. Welts spent 10 seasons with the Golden State Warriors, serving as President & Chief Operating Officer. During that time, the team reached the NBA Finals in five consecutive years and won three NBA championships. Additionally, Welts oversaw the development and opening of one of the world’s top arenas, Chase Center. The project—a privately financed sports and entertainment venue and district in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood—required Welts to navigate an incredibly complex and challenging political environment. Stanford's Graduate School of Business published Rick Welts: NBA League and Club Leadership Roles Provide Platform for Broader Societal Change, a case study on Welts' career, from his days as a ball boy for the Seattle Supersonics, through college, and the NBA. It includes transcripts of interviews with individuals who shed light on Welts' career, leadership style, and impact. Drawing on his years of experience as a business executive, Welts shares the lessons he has learned in brand-building, being a leader in the face of adversity, and developing a truly diverse and inclusive organizational culture.
In recognition of the organization’s business success, Sports Business Journal named the Warriors the “Sports Team of the Year” twice—the only team to win the coveted award on multiple occasions—and Sports Business Journal named the Warriors “Franchise of the Decade,” an award that recognizes one organization among all U.S. professional sports teams. The decade timeframe paralleled Welts’ stint with the organization.
Welts owns an all-encompassing resume that includes a myriad of different roles spanning virtually every level of professional sports team management. Prior to joining the Warriors, he spent nine years as President of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, supervising all business operations for the Suns, the Phoenix Mercury (WNBA), and the team’s arena. During his tenure in Phoenix, the Suns introduced an offense that featured 3-point shooting and the fast-paced game that was the forerunner of NBA offenses today, created by Coach Mike D’Antoni, two-time Most Valuable Player Steve Nash, and General Manager Steve Kerr. The Phoenix Mercury won WNBA championships in 2007 and 2009.
Prior to joining the Suns, Welts enjoyed a successful 17-year stint at the NBA League Office in New York, where he ascended through the ranks to eventually become the league’s third-in-command as the executive vice president, chief marketing officer, and president of NBA Properties. In addition to his overall contributions to building the NBA brand, image, and popularity, his notable accomplishments at the NBA include the creation of NBA All-Star Weekend in 1984 and the marketing program for USA Basketball for the 1992 Olympic “Dream Team” in Barcelona. Together with WNBA President Val Ackerman, Welts was named “Marketer of the Year” by Brandweek for his role in creating and launching the WNBA. During his time at the NBA office, he supervised a wide range of departments including corporate sponsorship, media sales, consumer products, international business activities, media relations, community relations, team services, special events, and creative services. Welts also played a prominent role in the organization of preseason games in international cities and the opening of international NBA offices in Australia, Asia, Europe, Mexico, and Canada.
Welts was hired at the NBA in 1982 by David Stern, two years before Stern was named NBA Commissioner—a role in which he served for 30 years. When Stern passed away in 2020, Welts was one of the speakers at the memorial service at Radio City Music Hall honoring his mentor and boss.
A native of Seattle, Washington, Welts began his NBA career in 1969, at the age of 16, as a ball boy with the Seattle SuperSonics. He spent 10 years with his hometown team, serving in several roles, including as the team’s director of public relations during back-to-back appearances in the NBA Finals and the Supersonics’ lone NBA Championship. He was the recipient of the annual Splaver/McHugh “Tribute to Excellence Award,” which is given annually by the NBA Public Relations Directors’ Association to a current or former member of the NBA PR family who has demonstrated an outstanding level of performance and service during their career. He owns the unique distinction of being part of seven (7) championship teams in the NBA (4), WNBA (2), and NBA G League (1).
After his tenure with the SuperSonics, the University of Washington product spent the following three years at Bob Walsh & Associates, a sports marketing firm in Seattle. His non-NBA resume also includes serving as president of Fox Sports Enterprises during Fox’s ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a front-page story in the New York Times, Welts became the highest-ranking executive in men’s professional team sports to publicly acknowledge he is gay. He was presented with the United States Tennis Association’s ICON Award at the US Open in New York City, an award that recognizes and celebrates those who have had a positive impact on diversity and inclusion in the sports industry and society. He was also honored with GLSEN’s (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) Respect Award, which honors those who have made a difference in the areas of diversity and inclusion. Welts was honored by GLAAD, the nation’s LGBTQ media advocacy organization, with the Davidson/Valenti Award, which is presented to an LGBTQ media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality. He also served as the celebrity Grand Marshall of San Francisco’s Pride Parade. He was honored by the Anti-Defamation League with its “Torch of Liberty Award.”
A member of the Delta Chi fraternity while attending the University of Washington, he was named “Delta Chi of the Year” by the national organization. Welts delivered the commencement address at his alma mater, the University of Washington, in front of 40,000 people (about twice the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden) at Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Welts is currently a member of the Board of Directors of two public companies – GoPro (NASDAQ GPRO) and Oportun Financial Corporation (NASDAQ OPRT). He serves as a board member of the Bay Area Council and the Warriors Community Foundation. He also advises individuals and organizations on sports-related projects.
He and his husband, Todd Gage, were married in 2020 by San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a ceremony in her office at City Hall.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I’m your host, Alan Fleischmann. I’m joined today by one of the most influential and respected executives in professional sports, Rick Welts, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks. Over a remarkable career that has spanned five decades, Rick has helped transform basketball into a global phenomenon and has left a mark on both the NBA and the world of sports business. Rick’s journey began humbly as a ball boy for the Seattle SuperSonics and grew into leadership roles that shaped the NBA’s rise to international prominence, including his instrumental work in launching the WNBA and creating NBA All-Star Weekend. He has served as president and CEO of the Phoenix Suns, chief marketing officer of the NBA, and president and COO of the Golden State Warriors, where his leadership helped turn the team into one of the most celebrated franchises in sports history. In 2018, Rick was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Rick is also a trailblazer for representation, becoming one of the first openly gay executives in men’s professional sports, inspiring countless others with his authenticity and courage. Today, his career continues to be a model for innovation, leadership, and the power of sports to unite and uplift communities. I’m excited to explore his early influences, his experience at the intersection of sports and business, and the many lessons in leadership he’s learned along the way. Rick, it is such a pleasure to have you on Leadership Matters. I’m so happy we’re doing this.
Rick Welts
Yeah, I am too. Great to be with you.
Alan Fleischmann
Let’s start with your early years. Tell us a little bit about family life, just to get a sense of life around the house and any early mentors, for example. I’m also curious: how early in your life did basketball enter the picture when you were growing up in Seattle?
Rick Welts
Sports were always a big part of my family life. That really was the currency my dad and I had for our communication. I was going to University of Washington football games when I was three years old, and that was our time together. We went to games, enjoyed that experience, and really built our relationship around attending sporting events.
In 1967, the NBA, in its wisdom, launched a brand-new expansion franchise in Seattle called the Seattle SuperSonics, the very first major league sports franchise in the city. My dad and I started going to Sonics games, and I fell in love with the sport right away. But there was something more to it that really set me on my path: what that team meant to the city at that point in time. It was the first time you could pick up a daily newspaper and see Seattle in the same standings with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. That team was a tremendous source of pride in our community. It was a sign that Seattle had kind of arrived. Watching games there, I could really feel the power that sports teams can have in communities, and whether I realized it or not, that’s probably what set me on my journey.
Alan Fleischmann
And being a ball boy there early on was your first career move, I guess. Anything behind the scenes you would share—moments where you thought, “I’ll never forget this”?
Rick Welts
It’s really hard to explain to people, because it’s always the punchline and the joke, right? I get introduced as “ball boy for the Sonics,” but I got a big promotion after six months: I was made assistant trainer. In today’s NBA that would take four graduate degrees. At the time, it meant I knew how to use the washing machine and the dryer and could get the uniforms in the right lockers before the next game.
But it also meant I was the one kid in the locker room that nobody was paying any attention to when all the business of a professional sports team took place: relationships between players, relationships between coaches and players, and the dynamic when the team owner came into the locker room. I was the one who opened the door after a game and let the media in. Seeing all those interactions was like a graduate course in sports management. As much as the field of sports has changed, so much remains the same in terms of the dynamics of those human interactions that, if done right, create the secret sauce for a winning team. I rely every day on the experiences I had as an observer, a fly on the wall nobody was paying attention to.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. When you went off to college, did you know sports was going to be your focus?
Rick Welts
I couldn’t imagine there was a career there. I was still working part-time for the Sonics and thought I was going to become a journalist. I wanted to tell great stories through journalism. I went to the University of Washington during Watergate, and I have to remind young people that journalists used to be heroes and truth-tellers. I didn’t want to be in front of the camera. I thought maybe documentary film was my path.
When I was 17, I made a documentary film for a high school class on the Pike Place Market in Seattle, one of the most perfect places in the world, which at one point was slated for urban redevelopment to tear it down and build office buildings. I was so passionate about saving the Pike Place Market that I made a film about it. That’s what I thought I was going to do. I was working part-time in the Sonics’ media relations office while I was going to school. Then I got my biggest break: I was offered a full-time job in that office when I graduated. I could justify it because I was working with the media, trying to understand and influence the media, and that set me on the path I’m still on today.
Alan Fleischmann
I imagine that was a very strong base—PR and communications from the business side of sports. When I think about all the things you’ve had to do in leadership roles over the years, having a keen idea of strategy, messaging, and positioning probably served you well.
Rick Welts
One of my first mentors was Governor Dave Watkins, who ran marketing and public relations for the Sonics. In my mind, he was the smartest person I’d ever been around as it related to business, marketing, and sports, and how to draw fans to basketball games. I got a lot of really good lessons running around with game notes for reporters at Sonics games.
Alan Fleischmann
You built that trust relationship, and I imagine some of those reporters were there for a long time.
Rick Welts
It was a time when that’s how fans got their information—by reading the beat reporter’s daily recounting of their favorite team. There weren’t many voices in the media world then, and for sports fans, those were the most important ones.
Alan Fleischmann
In your early 20s, were there mentors along the way? You just mentioned one, but were there people who stood out even before you took the job full-time, or the people who hired you into those full-time roles—people you’d say were mentors or guided you? Or was it more, “I raised my hand, worked really hard, and they liked my drive and grit”?
Rick Welts
It definitely was the latter, but I also had some key mentors. One was my fourth-grade teacher, Frank Jones, who was probably one of the five most influential people in my life. I went to an all‑white grade school in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle. At the time, your first-grade class moved together to second, third, and fourth grade, and you knew who your teacher would be each year. After my third-grade year, the woman who would have been my fourth-grade teacher retired.
On the first day of fourth grade, the news spread like wildfire on the playground that our new teacher was going to be a young Black man in an all‑white grade school with an all‑white faculty. You’ve never seen 30 more well‑behaved kids in your life. Frank Jones was amazing. His teaching was incredible. After fourth grade, I would go into his classroom after school in fifth grade and hang out, clean blackboards, anything there was to do.
I’ll never forget one day when we heard at lunchtime on the playground that the President had been assassinated. Nobody talked to us about it, and we didn’t really understand what it meant. I went into Mr. Jones’s classroom after school, and he looked at me and said, “Don’t you know what happened today?” He sat me down and explained, from the perspective of a young Black man, what the death of JFK meant. We remained friends throughout his lifetime. I got reacquainted with him shortly before his death. He taught me more about life as a fourth-grade teacher than almost any other mentor I’ve had.
Alan Fleischmann
He really wanted you to experience the love of teaching and mentoring.
Rick Welts
He kept track of me his whole career, which made me very proud, because he was someone I admired so much.
Alan Fleischmann
When you look back on your path to executive leadership, were there early career decisions or risks that, in hindsight, feel bold—or maybe moments where you just “fell into it”?
Rick Welts
One day just followed another, and opportunities kept presenting themselves. When I was about 26, I got what I thought was my dream job: media relations director for the Sonics. It was the year after the team had fired Bill Russell—another great mentor of mine. I’ll buy the popcorn if you can tell me who the coach was after Bill Russell in Seattle. You can’t, because his greatest claim to fame was that he was Bill Russell’s cousin.
So here I am in my dream job, and we start the season terribly. In our first 22 games, we were the worst team in the NBA—we won 5 and lost 17. That coach, Bob Hopkins, was fired, and we hired Lenny Wilkens, a storied former Sonics player. We went to the NBA Finals that year after starting 5–17, then came back the next year and won the NBA championship, both times playing the very poorly named Washington Bullets. Two years, two Finals, one championship.
A courageous thing I did was quit the week after we won the championship. We had a total of about 15 people in our front office. The Mavericks today have around 225 people doing what those 15 did, staging games. I didn’t think there was really a long-term career for me there, given what professional sports looked like as a business at the time. So my first big chance was leaving. That eventually brought me back to the NBA, but at the time it felt risky. I went to work in a small agency in Seattle doing things I loved until the opportunity to rejoin the NBA came.
Alan Fleischmann
And then you went to the NBA from there, right? I know you had a big mentor and colleague there. You became chief marketing officer and helped create and curate the league’s identity, which still exists today. What prepared you for that high‑profile role? And can you share some of the biggest wins you had—especially around All-Star Weekend and the WNBA?
Rick Welts
I was the lowest person on the totem pole when I joined the NBA in 1982. I was the 35th employee in the league office. There was a young lawyer there who was starting to build a business organization. I fit all three of his criteria: I was young, passionate about the NBA, and probably most importantly, cheap. That young lawyer was David Stern. Two years later he was elected commissioner. I got to ride his coattails for 17 years, reporting directly to him, and lived to tell about it. He was one tough guy to work for, but as a visionary, mentor, and friend, he more than anyone guided my career. Without him, there’s no way I’d be sitting here talking to you today.
It’s hard to explain to people today how badly regarded the NBA was in 1982. I was coming from Seattle, where we’d won a championship, and I thought everyone loved the NBA. My job was to be the first person ever to try to convince corporate sponsors to invest in the league. It was the worst job in America. I couldn’t get a meeting or even a phone call returned. The NBA was far down the food chain and poorly respected. What changed that was largely Stern’s leadership.
Alan Fleischmann
David Stern was incredibly well known and had a big reputation. Are there things about him that people don’t fully appreciate when they think about his legacy? He wanted strong, good people around him, right?
Rick Welts
He absolutely did, though he was still pretty sure he was the smartest guy in the room. When he was putting this together, he was doing it with Band‑Aids. We didn’t have budgets or owners eager to invest. They didn’t see the same future for the NBA that David saw. He had to gain their confidence to start hiring people like me, build a small business organization, and get a few early wins.
Most important, we had to get our house in order. There was a reason the NBA was poorly regarded. It was accused of widespread drug use among players, and there was more talk about teams going out of business than expanding the league. The league’s image was broken. Stern’s job, before and after becoming commissioner, was to fix that. One of the first steps was an anti‑drug agreement with the players, where he and Bob Lanier of the players’ association shook hands and agreed that any player found using drugs could be banned for life. That was a huge statement to the world about the players and the league coming together.
Then came the first salary cap. It sounds restrictive, but in reality it was a partnership: every dollar that came in, players would get an agreed‑upon percentage in salaries. If they helped grow the league and make the pie bigger, their slice would grow too. It completely changed how people viewed the NBA and transformed the relationship between players and management. To this day, it’s a model for sports leagues and collective bargaining.
Alan Fleischmann
How many years were you there?
Rick Welts
Seventeen. I started as director of national promotion. Stern and I, until the day he died, argued about how much I got paid. He swears it was 42,000 dollars; I know it was 47,000, but we never agreed on that. By the time I left, we had over 1,100 people around the world. My last role—executive vice president, president of NBA Properties, and chief marketing officer—made me third in command of the league. It was a group of us he’d brought along from those early years who represented league management and helped give form to the NBA we see today.
Alan Fleischmann
Clearly it wasn’t easy working for him—tough guy, high standards—but you were there 17 years. That says you loved it too.
Rick Welts
I loved it. He was passionate about basketball. He grew up in New York, sneaking into Knicks games when he couldn’t afford a ticket. He cared about the game and its history. One lesson I took from him everywhere I’ve gone is that, by the time he became commissioner, the NBA had turned its back on its history. We didn’t have video or photographic archives. We had no relationships with former players.
He reached out to players and coaches who’d been part of the league and wanted to memorialize their stories through photography and video. He wanted them to have a direct relationship with the commissioner on down. He felt that was what a sports league should do: we only had jobs because of the people who came before us, and preserving that history gave context to the success we were having. He loved the intellectual challenge, loved a good battle, and loved the nuances of winning on the legal side—how to organize a business to protect intellectual property. He really set the NBA’s course in all those areas.
Alan Fleischmann
When you and your team came up with ideas like All-Star Weekend and the WNBA, was he all over them and eager to be creative, or reluctant around change?
Rick Welts
He loved it. We had the challenger’s advantage. No one considered us in the same category as Major League Baseball or the NFL, so we could try things and fail. Nobody was going to pay much attention if they didn’t work.
For All-Star, we were going to Denver in 1984. Denver had a great ABA heritage, and Carl Scheer, president of the Nuggets, came to New York. We had a drink at the Waldorf Astoria, and he said, “One of the most famous events in basketball history was the 1976 ABA slam dunk contest in Denver. Why don’t we have a slam dunk contest at halftime of the NBA All-Star Game to honor that history?” I said, “Carl, we’re on CBS. We have programming. We can’t do that.”
That night, in my little Manhattan apartment, I turned on the TV and saw an old-timers baseball game from Washington, D.C., called the Cracker Jack Old Timers Game. Some 60‑year‑old guy got up and hit a home run over the right‑field Cracker Jack sign. Everything clicked. Stern had been elected commissioner but wouldn’t take office until the end of All-Star Weekend in Denver. He’d been talking about getting back in touch with our game’s history.
I went to his office the next morning and said, “I’ve got it. Let’s do a second day of All-Star. We’ll do an old-timers game, bring back the players you want to reconnect with, and have them play. Then we’ll do a slam dunk contest to honor Denver’s ABA heritage.” He liked it, but he wasn’t commissioner yet, so he went to talk to Commissioner Larry O’Brien. He came back later and said, “I don’t think that’s going to happen.” A couple of days later he returned and said, “Okay, O’Brien says you can do it, but two conditions: don’t embarrass him on his last weekend in office, and we have no budget—you have to figure out how to pay for it.”
Three months later, we had the first All‑Star Saturday in Denver. I convinced American Airlines and Schick to sponsor the old-timers game, and Gatorade—still sponsoring it today—to sponsor the slam dunk contest. We showed up in Denver, and the atmosphere was completely different. The Brown Palace Hotel was buzzing—Jerry West over there, Oscar Robertson over there—players nobody had seen at an All‑Star event in years. The media was going crazy. Julius Erving, at the very end of his career, came back and dramatically participated in the slam dunk contest, losing in the finals to a young rookie named Larry Nance. Stern became commissioner the next day, we had 10 pages in Sports Illustrated, and he was labeled a marketing genius from day one. We were off to the races.
Alan Fleischmann
Along the way, did you ever think you’d leave the league office—or even succeed him?
Rick Welts
Maybe once or twice I had the notion it could work out that way. But if you’re wired like me, the league office, while awesome, doesn’t fully satisfy you. I got to travel the world and meet amazing people, and it was intellectually challenging. But every night, half the teams are going to win, half are going to lose, and somebody’s going to win the championship.
If you have the “defective gene” I do—where you attach 100 percent of your emotions to a team’s fortunes, where a live audience of 18,000 people judges every night whether you’re doing your job well—nothing at the league office can match that. That’s what it’s all about. I always knew I’d get back to a team; it was just a matter of when and finding the right opportunity.
Alan Fleischmann
Was David open to that? Was he frightened you might leave?
Rick Welts
The worst day of my life was walking into his office to tell him I was leaving—to go to baseball. That part of my résumé rarely shows up. I left to effectively run the Dodgers when Fox owned them. I became president of Fox Sports Enterprises, which sounds impressive until I tell you I was the only employee. I was president, but I didn’t have anybody else to talk to.
That was really hard. Eventually it set me on the path back to an NBA team, but at the time, looking at someone who meant the world to me—the person who made my career possible—and telling him I was leaving was the hardest thing I ever had to do. We remained not only friends; we got closer after that. We could talk as confidants about things we couldn’t discuss when I worked for him. He was a remarkable man and, I think, the best leader sports has ever seen.
Alan Fleischmann
What did you do after the Dodgers situation didn’t work out?
Rick Welts
I took a little detour. There’s a young man named Casey Wasserman—you may have heard of him—who’s running Wasserman now. He and I became friends and started a little company together that became Wasserman. My life became very different, and I stayed with Casey.
Then I got a call from another great mentor, Jerry Colangelo. He grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Chicago, became the youngest GM of the Bulls, then the first president of the Phoenix Suns as an expansion team, and did well enough to buy the team. He was all our hero. Jerry said, “Time to quit screwing around. Time to get back to what you love most. My son Bryan has been running the Phoenix Suns’ business and basketball. We’re going to split that up. He’ll run basketball. I think you need to come here and become president of the Phoenix Suns.” That was my path back to the NBA in 2002.
Alan Fleischmann
And you moved to Phoenix. How long were you there?
Rick Welts
I was there for 10 years. It fit the pattern of things I find interesting. When I got there, I thought the NBA had unlimited potential but wasn’t in great shape. The Suns had been very successful and well‑respected but had fallen on tough competitive and business times. Jerry wasn’t a deep‑pocketed owner. When I got there, every Friday we had to figure out how we were going to make payroll the next week.
It was also a time when our teams in Phoenix helped change the game of basketball. We went from the “Bad Boys” defensive style to having coach Mike D’Antoni and point guard Steve Nash, playing high‑scoring, three‑point shooting, fast‑paced basketball. That’s exactly the style you see in the NBA today, but it was invented then. My job, as always, was to get the business engine ready so that when the team gave fans a real reason to care, the business could accelerate from zero to sixty overnight instead of slowly building the infrastructure. Another great mentor in Jerry Colangelo and great lessons learned in Phoenix.
Alan Fleischmann
When you laid out your priorities and plans there, was that hard to do? Was it pioneer work?
Rick Welts
In some ways, yes. Something most people don’t understand is that while the leagues look alike, they operate very differently. NBA culture is unique in that it’s based—going back to Stern—on sharing business practices and data with each other. To this day, I can talk to counterparts in baseball or football and they’re amazed that I have detailed financial information on the Lakers and every team—how much money they make in every part of the business.
We lie, cheat, and steal to beat each other on the court, but off the court we’re partners. As any one team improves, it helps the league, so we’re all about sharing best practices: what works in ticket sales, sponsorship, broadcasting, and so on. There’s a wonderful foundation if you’re prepared to grab it and make it your own in your market. If you get a little lucky with the basketball team, you can have a lot of success.
Alan Fleischmann
And you were there until 2011, right?
Rick Welts
Yes, until 2011.
Alan Fleischmann
Then you were going to say Warriors—you left and then…
Rick Welts
I actually “retired.”
Alan Fleischmann
That’s right, you retired.
Rick Welts
I didn’t really retire; I left the job. It was just after the New York Times article about me coming out. I had met someone—who’s now my husband—who lived in the Bay Area with two children. I’d decided to leave the Suns and relocate to the Bay Area.
Alan Fleischmann
That must have been a big decision. At the time you were the first openly gay executive in all of men’s professional sports. That moment meant a lot to so many people. How did it change you?
Rick Welts
It changed everything—and all for the better. It took me a long time because there had never been anyone in a role like mine at any professional sports team or league who’d gone through this that I could watch and feel confident it would turn out well. I didn’t know how it would turn out.
I’d reached a point in my life where it was my time. I’d had a breakup with a longtime partner largely because I couldn’t bring the most important person in my life into my work life. I shouldn’t say I couldn’t; I chose not to. My dad had passed away, my mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and it was just a point where I said, “This is my time.”
I went to Dan Klores, a terrific media guru in New York, and over dinner said, “Here’s my story. I can talk to the people I work with and accomplish what I want, but I’m too close to it to know if there’s something bigger here.” He looked at me and said, “If you’re prepared to do this, number one, I want to help, and number two, I think it’s page A1 of The New York Times.” That was a little more than I’d bargained for. He introduced me to a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, Dan Barry, who flew to Phoenix. Dan and I spent a couple of days together. His conclusion was, “You’re a really good executive, really good at what you do, but nobody knows who you are. The people you’ve befriended in sports are people every sports fan knows. If we can get them to tell your story, I think we have something.”
That started a series of one‑on‑one meetings with people I’d never had this conversation with—starting with Bill Russell, then David Stern, then Steve Nash, and a couple of others. Each graciously agreed to be part of the story. In May 2011, just as Dan predicted, the story ended up on the front page of The New York Times.
Alan Fleischmann
Where were you working at the time?
Rick Welts
I was with the Phoenix Suns and hadn’t told them this was going to happen. There was a lot of secrecy about how The Times would handle it. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. I tried to handicap it as 90 percent favorable, 10 percent knuckleheads. I had no idea, but I knew people I’d worked with would be great.
I received literally thousands of emails from people who figured out how to contact me. I printed every single one and still keep them in binders. They’re incredible. It doesn’t sound believable, but of all the people who reached out, I did not receive one hateful or negative email. It doesn’t sound possible now, but it’s true. Just last week we did a partner summit with Mavericks business partners, and a woman came up to me and said, “When your story came out in 2011, I was closeted. It meant so much to me that I wrote you an email, and you wrote me back. I still have the email.” She later forwarded me both emails.
For some people, having someone they can see who went through this and came out the other side in a super positive way—who can show they can be successful because of who they are, not in spite of it—that’s a gift that keeps giving every day.
Alan Fleischmann
Especially in a world with so much division, people are often looking for that hateful moment. To know you went through that so publicly and it was celebrated, respected, and understood—that’s something to hold on to.
Rick Welts
It’s been great. Coaches, players, office staff—everyone—have been incredibly supportive. It’s been a real gift.
Alan Fleischmann
And soon after that, you went to the Warriors.
Rick Welts
Yes. It was similar to what I described before. Everyone had looked at that franchise for 20 years and said, “If you could ever get this in the right ownership and management hands, the sky’s the limit.” The Warriors had missed the playoffs in 16 of the previous 17 seasons in a league where more than half the teams make the playoffs every year. You couldn’t script that level of lack of success. But all the ingredients for success were there if we organized and presented it the right way.
Alan Fleischmann
It sounds like you’re “Mr. Fix It”—coming in to turn things around.
Rick Welts
I pick really good cars—potentially really good cars. It’s the same thing coming to the Mavericks. This is a remarkable market with unbelievable fan support. Every ingredient for success was here. We had some success on the basketball side, but we hadn’t tapped the full business potential of this franchise in this market at this time. Again, it’s about getting the right people in the right roles and creating the right messaging as part of the business side of what we do.
Alan Fleischmann
With the Warriors, building culture and a unique organization was clearly a big part of the transformation—three championships in five years. Was culture central?
Rick Welts
One hundred percent. The Warriors had a culture of losing—in the locker room and in the business office. It became business as usual and accepted: pretty good gig, season ends in April, you get a nice summer vacation, everybody gets a raise, and you do it all over again. Players had no expectations of success.
The big cultural shift started with Mark Jackson, our coach when I arrived. He began changing the locker room culture. We started to have players who believed they could win instead of expecting to lose. We also started getting wins on the business side, and people began to believe the “crazy guy” who put everyone in a conference room on day one and said, “Here’s what this can be. We’re going to be winners. If you’ve been here a long time and don’t believe it, this might be a good time to part ways. But if you want to jump on the bandwagon, this is what this can be.”
Whenever we felt too good about our success, I reminded Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, the primary owners who hired me, “You bought a team that already had Steph Curry on the roster. Your chances for success were greatly enhanced.” He wasn’t yet the Steph Curry we know—he was a skinny kid with bad ankles—but fast forward and he’s one of the truly great players in NBA history.
Alan Fleischmann
How long were you with the Warriors?
Rick Welts
Ten years.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you retire and then go to the Mavericks, or was there a gap?
Rick Welts
I was happily retired for three and a half years. The Warriors were an amazing experience on many levels. From a business perspective, we moved the team from Oakland to San Francisco and built Chase Center. That process took seven years. They now have a platform for success that will last decades. My work there was done: the building was open, we’d won a few championship rings, and I’d been working my tail off my whole life. It felt like a good time to take a break.
I retired, living a great life between Chicago and Palm Desert, California. I had a few clients very active in the sports space, so I stayed involved and used my connections to help people. Then this opportunity came along, like the others I described. This market—Dallas—has everything you’d want for a successful NBA franchise, and we’re going to build a brand‑new building. My joke is, there’s a reason they call it a once‑in‑a‑lifetime opportunity: no one would be stupid enough to do it twice. Yet here I am. We’re going to build another home for the Mavericks that will hopefully be what Chase Center was and more, creating a foundation for success in Dallas for decades and memories for Texas families for generations.
I love wherever I’ve lived, and I’ve lived in many places. I love the challenge of a new place. I still have my first house in Palm Desert and will always go back there, but I like learning a new market and experiencing something different in where I live and what I get to do.
Alan Fleischmann
You’ve served in so many important roles, and this one is equally significant. Are you enjoying it? What are the big priorities and challenges? It’s never easy, but is it as complicated as it looks?
Rick Welts
This is by far the most complicated. The Mavericks were in the Finals two years ago. I arrived on January 1 and was still figuring out how to drive to the office when, on February 1, we “broke the internet” by trading Luka to the Lakers. That move was not received well by our fan base. It led to 100 really hard days for the organization.
Sports teams are largely staffed by twenty‑somethings living their dream of working for a franchise. They’re also the front line for fans. When something like the Luka trade happens and fans are unhappy, it’s tough. That was unexpected. I found out about it an hour before the fans did, and it was clear it would take time to rebuild trust. The glass‑half‑full view is that it gave me a big peek into how passionate this fan base is. That told me there would be a way to get that back, because fandom doesn’t just go away. It can be damaged and hurt, but if you conduct yourself well and have success going forward, it comes back.
Then on May 12, at the NBA Draft Lottery, the Mavericks had a 1.8 percent chance of winning the top pick. Lightning struck, and we got the number one pick in a year when the consensus choice is Cooper Flagg, potentially one of the great NBA players of all time if his development in the next 18 years matches his first 18. He’s the most celebrated 18‑year‑old in the history of the game, left high school a year early to play at Duke at 17, and was consensus college player of the year last season. He’s a remarkable young man from a remarkable family. Expectations are off the charts for him, but that’s how this business works. We went from the hangover of the Luka trade to the brilliant future of the Mavericks with this generational player, Cooper Flagg, who will start playing very soon.
Alan Fleischmann
You’ve had a good few months. I’m curious: what opportunities and challenges do you see ahead for sports, and for sports leagues in particular, in a global and increasingly digital marketplace?
Rick Welts
You’re not going to find anybody more bullish on our future than me. For the NBA in particular, if you look at any business, you ask what differentiates you from the competition. David Stern identified in the early 1980s that basketball is played in every country in the world, second only to the most popular sport—what we call soccer and the rest of the world calls football. Baseball and American football are not global in the same way. That gave us a competitive advantage if we could make the game and the NBA more international.
I often use the soccer example: if you grow up in Buenos Aires kicking a soccer ball, you dream of playing for your club team there and someday for Argentina in the World Cup. The kid who grows up dribbling a basketball dreams of playing in only one place: the NBA. Now, with roughly a quarter of our players coming from outside the United States, we have an unbelievable opportunity to both import and export the sport and grow it. The league is even talking about potentially establishing a league in Europe—something maybe even Stern didn’t fully envision. The internationalization of the game, greatly aided by the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona—which moved the sport ahead 20 years in about two weeks—makes it impossible not to be bullish about the NBA and basketball’s future.
We’ve done some things very well. We have new national television agreements starting this season that are roughly triple the value of the previous deals. But local broadcasting is broken. The regional sports network model is collapsing across baseball, hockey, and basketball. We still have work to do there. Our new partners include Peacock and Amazon, so on a national basis the NBA is reaching out to consumers where our young fans are. We’re not going to win through network and cable TV anymore; we have to get the product in front of people in the format, way, and on the device they want to use. Big challenges, but huge opportunities.
Alan Fleischmann
And the people‑to‑people part of sports, I imagine, is only getting more important as we get more digital and AI‑focused. Moments that bring people together, no matter where they’re from or where they’re going, seem more vital than ever.
Rick Welts
So true. Our athletes resonate in a way very few athletes in other sports do. They’re culturally significant as well as athletically significant. Whether it’s fashion or music, our athletes show up everywhere. They’re culturally relevant to kids today. That’s another gigantic advantage and a big reason I’m so bullish on our future audience growth.
Alan Fleischmann
Have you shared the “Rick principles” of leadership—things you follow or recommend to others—drawing on coaches, players, and your own path? There was no roadmap for your career.
Rick Welts
I don’t think I had a great phrase for it until I was with the Warriors. We had a marketing theme for years that resonated because it came from the locker room, not the marketing department. It described Steve Kerr’s coaching philosophy: “Strength in Numbers.”
For the Warriors, that meant the team’s success depended on every player understanding his role and how his contribution impacted the team. Yes, we had Steph Curry, but the team wouldn’t succeed unless everyone understood and embraced their role. Everyone contributed, everyone got credit, and everyone took pride. That’s the kind of culture you want on a team or in a business.
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling tickets, selling corporate partnerships, putting on a broadcast, or staging a community event—every role contributes to the franchise’s success. If you understand your role, are appreciated for what you do, and are recognized for your contribution, the power of many people feeling that way is tremendous. “Strength in Numbers” was the first time I encapsulated that in a phrase that really resonated with me.
I like to hire really smart people. If we’re in a meeting and everyone looks like me, I’ve failed, because we won’t get creative thinking. Our fan base is as diverse as they come, and the people in our office making decisions for the Mavericks have to reflect that. I’ve learned more from people who are different from me than from people like me, and I don’t think I’ve ever learned anything while I was talking—I learn when I’m listening. If you create a collaborative culture where opinions are expected and respected, and where once a decision is made everyone gets on board, that’s the kind of culture I hope we’ll develop at the Mavericks. It’s served me and the organizations I’ve worked for very well.
Alan Fleischmann
Back to culture building: it’s a hugely important ingredient in good times and tough times.
Rick Welts
Especially in tough times.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s when talent and character really show. If you’re bigger than one person and your mission is team‑focused, it’s easier to go through a tough time than if someone is worried only about their own reputation and relevance. In moments of crisis, that’s the last thing you should focus on; you should just raise your hand and dive in.
Rick Welts
Completely true. Talent shows, but character shows even more in those moments.
Alan Fleischmann
As we wrap up, when you reflect on your journey, what impact or legacy do you hope to leave behind years from now in the sports world?
Rick Welts
We’re in the business of making memories. We do something that can be additive to people’s lives. The memories that happen in our arena can last a lifetime. For me, it was family. My relationship with my dad is what I think of every time I see a sporting event. To have the opportunity to do something in the community that brings people together—there aren’t many places doing that anymore. Being part of that legacy is what I’ll be most proud of.
Alan Fleischmann
When you think about juggling the intensity of your work, how do you manage the personal side? Do you meditate, journal—any tricks of the trade?
Rick Welts
I hang out at home and take the dogs for a nice long walk. My two dogs love me no matter how good or bad my day has been, and that half hour walking them in the morning is about as zen as I get.
Alan Fleischmann
As a dad of two daughters and two furry guys, I get it. No matter what’s going on, they greet you with a big smile. That makes a difference.
Rick Welts
I’m sure your daughters are pretty fond of you too, but yes, the dogs help.
Alan Fleischmann
I knew this would go by too fast. It’s been a great hour with you, and I hope to have you back so we can continue the conversation. Is there a book in you—something you’re writing or thinking about?
Rick Welts
You’re killing me. I’ve taken a lot of notes. Writing a book is hard work. I don’t have the time in the day right now, but maybe at some point there’ll be a little wisdom and a bit of my story I’d like to share. It’s just not on the immediate horizon.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s something people will look forward to—your journey, the extraordinary people you’ve worked with and for, and your own leadership principles and ideals. Then there’s what you’ve managed to create and recreate, and the role model you are. That’s a pretty amazing book, Rick.
You’re listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I’m your host, Alan Fleischmann. We just spent the last hour with Rick Welts, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks. Rick, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on. You are an incredible influencer and role model. You have a unique combination of vision, confidence, and humility, and I’m grateful to be your friend. Thank you.
Rick Welts
Thanks so much, Alan.