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The Dallas Mavericks and the NBA, in a joint venture with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, will announce Thursday that the league's 2010 All-Star Game will be played at the new stadium soon to be opened by the Cowboys in Arlington, Texas.
Sources told ESPN.com that a formal announcement has been scheduled at American Airlines Center before the Mavericks' season opener Thursday night against the Houston Rockets.
The league office declined comment Tuesday.
Said Mavericks owner Mark Cuban when reached by e-mail: "You will just have to show up and find out."
Word emerged during last season's NBA playoffs that the two Dallas franchises were interested in co-staging the event at the Cowboys' new $1.1 billion facility in Arlington, which is scheduled to open in time for the 2009 NFL season.
Cuban had maintained for years that he had no interest in the Mavericks serving as All-Star Game hosts because so many of his season-ticket holders would lose their seats to league control, as the NBA has historically used All-Star Weekend to entertain various sponsors. But in a football-sized stadium, those reservations wouldn't apply.
"It's important to me to find a venue that can support all of our season ticket-holders and all of the visitors who would come to Dallas for the game," Cuban told The Dallas Morning News in May. "We are exploring all of our options."
The Phoenix Suns will host the NBA All-Star Game this season. The league has not chosen a host city for any other games beyond 2010 and NBA commissioner David Stern recently backed off on the league's interest in staging an All-Star Game overseas.
"It would be neat from a player perspective, really neat, to play in either Paris or London or Berlin," Stern said last week of an All-Star Game in Europe. "But the logistics of it ... is at the moment causing us not to rush out and make plans.
"I'm not saying never, but we have sort of a domestic agenda to burn off for the moment in a positive way. So I didn't want to sort of suggest that something was in the offing that wasn't.
Dallas last hosted the All-Star Game at the soon-to-be demolished Reunion Arena in 1986. The last NBA All-Star Game to be played in a football-sized venue was in 1996 at San Antonio's Alamodome.
Sources told ESPN.com that a formal announcement has been scheduled at American Airlines Center before the Mavericks' season opener Thursday night against the Houston Rockets.
The league office declined comment Tuesday.
Said Mavericks owner Mark Cuban when reached by e-mail: "You will just have to show up and find out."
Word emerged during last season's NBA playoffs that the two Dallas franchises were interested in co-staging the event at the Cowboys' new $1.1 billion facility in Arlington, which is scheduled to open in time for the 2009 NFL season.
Cuban had maintained for years that he had no interest in the Mavericks serving as All-Star Game hosts because so many of his season-ticket holders would lose their seats to league control, as the NBA has historically used All-Star Weekend to entertain various sponsors. But in a football-sized stadium, those reservations wouldn't apply.
"It's important to me to find a venue that can support all of our season ticket-holders and all of the visitors who would come to Dallas for the game," Cuban told The Dallas Morning News in May. "We are exploring all of our options."
The Phoenix Suns will host the NBA All-Star Game this season. The league has not chosen a host city for any other games beyond 2010 and NBA commissioner David Stern recently backed off on the league's interest in staging an All-Star Game overseas.
"It would be neat from a player perspective, really neat, to play in either Paris or London or Berlin," Stern said last week of an All-Star Game in Europe. "But the logistics of it ... is at the moment causing us not to rush out and make plans.
"I'm not saying never, but we have sort of a domestic agenda to burn off for the moment in a positive way. So I didn't want to sort of suggest that something was in the offing that wasn't.
Dallas last hosted the All-Star Game at the soon-to-be demolished Reunion Arena in 1986. The last NBA All-Star Game to be played in a football-sized venue was in 1996 at San Antonio's Alamodome.
