Over the course of the past seven months, the Dallas Mavericks have been under investigation after a Sports Illustrated report described their work environment as one with “misogyny and predatory sexual behavior.” This culture inside the organization went back decades and started at the top with CEO and president Terdema Ussery and went all the way down to ticket sales employees Chris Hyde.
Both were accused of constantly harassing women at work (inappropriate touching, kissing, comments, etc), pressing them for sex and workers even detail incidents Hyde watched pornography inside his office and showed videos to others.
The NBA spoke to about 215 current and former Mavs employees and scanned through millions of emails, texts and documents to get to the bottom of what was happening inside the organization and today, they concluded their investigation.
Adam Silver addressed these findings, which found “improper workplace conduct” towards 15 female employees, and said management was ineffective and blamed leadership for letting this type of environment to exist and condoning the behavior.
The NBA commissioner said this about the investigation:
“The findings of the independent investigation are disturbing and heartbreaking and no employee in the NBA, or any workplace for that matter, should be subject to the type of working environment described in the report. We appreciate that Mark Cuban reacted swiftly, thoroughly and transparently to the allegations first set forth in Sports Illustrated — including the immediate hiring of Cynthia Marshall as CEO to effect change.”
Today, ESPN’s Rachel Nichols interviewed Mark Cuban on The Jump and asked him the hard questions about the investigation and the findings by the NBA.
Cuban apologized profusely for not knowing, said he made plenty of mistakes along the way and regrets not doing more when he had the chance. At a point, he even got teary eyed and explained that the stories and pain inside his employees eyes touched him deeply and he has done everything he can to change the culture surrounding this incident.
Rachel definitely did not soft-ball the questions she asked and there were times where Mark had no response but to say sorry and he takes responsibility. He looked so deflated, embarrassed and humiliated by this. A stark contrast to what he portrays on television and courtside at the games.
It’s an interesting watch.