Dallas Morning News staffers speak at a sports business panel held by The News on SMU’s campus on Monday, June 29, 2026. The sports business panel was part of the newsroom’s trust initiative and touched on news related to the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Stars and the World Cup.
Katie Guenthner
Dallas Morning News sports columnist Kevin Sherrington (right) speaks with Chip Mahaney, who teaches sports journalism at Southern Methodist University, at a sports business panel held by The News on SMU’s campus on Monday.
Katie Guenthner
The Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks make plans to flee downtown for the suburbs. Nine World Cup matches take place in Dallas’ backyard. Reporters with The Dallas Morning News shared their takes on these developments and more at a panel on sports business Monday.
It’s been “one heck of a month” for sports, said sports business reporter Eric Prisbell. All the changes, from the planned abandonment of the American Airlines Center to FIFA, point back to business.
“Every good sports story touches on sports business in some way,” Prisbell said. “The sweet spot for me is trying to cover something at the intersection of sports, business and culture.”
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The panel came at the end of the first day of a pop-up newsroom hosted by The News at Southern Methodist University as part of the newspaper’s trust initiative. The project includes putting journalists out in the community to hear feedback and story ideas.
“People don’t trust what they don’t understand. People don’t trust what they don’t know,” Managing Editor Amy Hollyfield said. “We’re trying to change both of those things by helping people know us.”
Monday’s panel, moderated by sports columnist Kevin Sherrington, touched on the impact of changes at all levels of sports on area residents. It featured Prisbell and Dallas Stars, and college sports reporter Lia Assimakopoulos.
A month of change
Assimakopoulos dove into the history of the Mavs and Stars’ planned exodus from American Airlines Center: The teams’ legal dispute with each other and eventual decision by both sides to look to relocate to the suburbs.
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Assimakopoulos said the legal battle between the teams pushed the Stars to look away from American Airlines Center. But the idea of building an entertainment district is what drew them to Plano.
“The legal battle was a big driver for the Stars leaving Dallas, but the opportunity to build on 90 acres of land where they controlled that entire land, that just does not exist in Dallas,” Assimakopoulos said.
Prisbell said Stars President and CEO Brad Alberts sees an inspiration in the Battery, an entertainment complex anchored by MLB’s Atlanta Braves. This led reporters to look into examples of teams that built entertainment infrastructure around their stadiums.
“Lia and I are looking into not only which do well, but which missed the mark,” Prisbell said.
The World Cup also received attention from the panel.
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Everything about the World Cup from transportation to the cultural interactions has gone smoother than Prisbell expected, save for the ticketing process.
Prisbell shared one story he wrote about a fan reporting FIFA for scamming him, resulting in his bank giving him a refund. Readers resonated with the story.
“It struck a chord nationwide, if not internationally,” Prisbell said. “They thought there’s no recourse, there’s no way to get your money back, and then there was.”
Readers respond
Hollyfield said discussions about the impact of sports on the economy are already happening. The panel allows The News’ reporters to be part of building the community around it.
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“We’ve got some really great reporters who are steeped in these stories,” Hollyfield said. “If we can bring those people in a place and invite the public in, it’s just a great place for a conversation.”
Panel attendees came with questions about the future of American Airlines Center and Dallas’ teams, and feedback for The News.
Longtime subscriber Pam Karlos calls getting a print edition her “Starbucks cup of coffee” — her indulgence. She follows several college and national teams, and she is interested in the developments around American Airlines Center.
“The rate of how things have changed in stadiums is like it has with so many other things,” Karlos said.
Chip Mahaney, who teaches sports journalism at SMU, said the teams’ planned move is sad for downtown, but the bigger story is the growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth sports market.
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“Dallas, we’re not sentimental at all,” Mahaney said. “If the teams are going to move, let the teams move.”
He suggested there could be the introduction of second teams to meet D-FW’s growing population, like the Mets and the Yankees in New York.
Learn more
Staffers will be at SMU’s Hughes-Trigg Student Center, located at 3140 Dyer St., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sign up to attend here: dallasnews.com/smupopup.
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The News is hosting another panel on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. This one will feature a discussion on the future of higher education between higher education reporter Milla Surjadi and Michael Harris, dean of SMU’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. Residents can sign up to attend at dallasnews.com/educationpanel.
To learn more about the newspaper’s trust initiative, go to https://www.dallasnews.com/trust/.