Last January, we told you about a tweet from renowned American businessman and billionaire Mark Cuban. In the tweet, Cuban said that his NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, would begin accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “Next season.”
The tweet has since been deleted.
The 2018-2019 Mavericks season kicked off in September, and there’s been no word since about fans being able to purchase tickets using cryptocurrencies of any kind. Granted, the season isn’t yet over, so we could still see some kind of support for cryptocurrencies be rolled out in the coming months.
Cuban hasn’t publicly said anything to contradict the original plan, but deleting the tweet seems an admission that maybe he spoke too soon. The harsh crash of Bitcoin’s price and the cryptocurrency market in general in the months following his tweet in early 2018 may have been a factor - if the Mavericks have indeed cancelled plans for supporting Bitcoin.
After posting the tweet, Cuban said in a statement to Forbes that not only would the Mavericks accept Bitcoin, but also Ethereum, and other tokens “from companies we have business relationships with.”
It’s not clear when Cuban deleted the original tweet, but all other tweets from that time frame are still on his timeline.
Meanwhile, the Sacramento Kings have been accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for tickets since 2014. Other famous adoptions of Bitcoin payments haven’t gone so well — popular PC gaming platform Steam accepted Bitcoin payments for a time before realizing the currency’s volatility led to an unfavorable user experience.