Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that he believes that Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Murphy v. NCAA will double the value of sports franchises overnight, he told ESPN in an interview in Dallas on Monday.
"It doubled the value of the professional sports franchises in a second," Cuban said. "It will increase interest, it will add to what happens in our arena and in stadiums. It will increase the viewership for our biggest customers online and on TV. It helps traditional television because it's much lower latency, whereas online, because of cachet, it's much higher latency."
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992 was unconstitutional, overturning the law that prevented individual states from legalizing sports gambling individually. The case, between New Jersey and the NCAA, was first heard in December.
"Some of the technologically advanced states will move relatively quickly, but my hope is that there's a federal approach to it, as opposed to everyone having to deal with each state individually," Cuban said. "If that's difficult in the short term, I think it'd be really smart for the commissions from as many states as possible to work together to standardize things, because that will enable the most creativity. When each state has its own rules and requirements, that jacks up the expense for everybody, which minimizes the entrepreneurial and technology opportunities."
Cuban is one of several NBA owners, alongside the league office itself and NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who have been outspoken in favor of legalized sports gambling. Cuban, Silver and Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis spoke on the ruling on Monday to various different media outlets.
Cuban is an investor in Unikrn, an esports gambling platform based in Seattle, run by Microsoft Ventures founder Rahul Sood, that operates an online sportsbook in other countries where gambling is legal. Cuban was a part of two rounds of funding for that business, which raised $35 million for its gambling platform and its cryptocurrency initial coin offering throughout 2016-17.
"Unikrn is going to benefit significantly," Cuban said. "I don't think people realize that gambling is legal in 118 countries already, and Unikrn already has a foundation there and the technology in place, and so now, it's just about leveraging up depending on what each state decides here in the United States."