The Luka Doncic trade crushed the Dallas Mavericks and their fans. That, we knew. Now, months later, sales data shows us just how badly the Mavs’ disastrous deal is also hurting bars and restaurants in Victory Park, the neighborhood around the American Airlines Center.
Victory Park revolves around two sports franchises, and when one of those two makes a catastrophically bad business decision, its neighbors suffer, too. Preliminary analysis suggests that the Luka trade alone may have caused a 15 to 18 percent drop in alcohol sales in the neighborhood.
What the Data Tells Us
Let’s walk through alcohol sales data reported by businesses to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. I first looked at the AAC’s sports season, October through April, during which the Mavs and Stars play about 80 home games combined every year.
This February, immediately following the Doncic trade, nearby bar Happiest Hour had its worst in-season month since November 2020. Restaurants Billy Can Can and Mesero Victory Park both had their worst in-season month since spring 2021. The Harwood Arms pub had its worst in-season month since February 2022. Finally, the AAC itself reported selling its lowest in-season volume of booze since spring 2018, when both local teams missed the playoffs. (That year, the Mavs were so bad that they scored the draft rights to… sorry, no, let’s not go there.)
But a skeptic could, possibly, argue that those record lows are coincidental to the trade. I sought out more evidence, building a spreadsheet containing monthly alcohol sales figures for 17 Dallas-area bars and restaurants. Nine of these are within a 10-minute walk of the AAC. The other eight are popular sports bars in other neighborhoods around Dallas and its suburbs. Once I built my sample, I started looking at year-on-year sales figures: how one month’s sales compare to that same month in the previous year. The sports calendar is so variable that you cannot set one calendar month against the next. For instance, comparing February to March is unfair because only one of those months features the NCAA Tournament. But line this March up against last March, and we can learn something.
January’s sales figures gave no sign of impending crisis; the 17 businesses in my sample reported an average sales increase of 6 percent compared to January 2024. This figure was better for Victory Park (a 9 percent increase) than for farther-flung Dallas sports bars (a small decline).
The Doncic trade was executed just before midnight on February 1, and the crash began immediately. That month, the eight surveyed sports bars around Dallas did 10 percent worse than they had the previous February—but Victory Park bars and restaurants fared 15.4 percent worse and the AAC itself saw its year-on-year sales fall 18.4 percent. The damage wasn’t limited exclusively to the AAC and its neighbors, either. Christies had its second-worst month in three years, and Stan’s Blue Note suffered its second-worst month in four years.
Conversely, some businesses showed growth in February, notably Over Under at The Village, which posted an alcohol sales figure 43 percent higher than it did the previous February. But there is an explanation: Over Under tells me that between seasons, they completed an extensive remodel that included doubling the number of TVs, improving sightlines to them, adding a billiards table and brick pizza oven, launching new programming like game day DJs, and offering no-cover fight night watch parties.
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Hey, look, a literal bar graph. Brian Reinhart
But the data’s most damning evidence from February wasn’t any single business’s figure. It was the fact that Victory Park performed significantly worse than sports bars elsewhere. That divide worsened the following month, when Dallas’ non-AAC-adjacent sports bars had rosy March Madness sales figures. Across town, year-on-year sales grew by 3 percent, spurred on by Frankie’s, Over Under (again), and Stan’s.
But sales continued to drop in Victory Park, down 15.5 percent against the previous March. Hero, Happiest Hour, Mesero, and a restaurant called Mio Nonno Trattoria directly across the street from the arena all suffered at least 30 percent year-on-year drops.
Given that other Dallas neighborhoods saw growth, rather than decline, in March, it seems clear that proximity to the AAC is the variable that controlled these businesses’ fates. The difference between 3 percent growth and 15 percent shrinkage is apparently whether your bar is located near the stink emanating from the Mavs’ front office.
What Bar Owners Tell Us
The Dallas Observer first reported on the effect Luka’s trade had on Victory Park in March, talking to a general manager at Billy Can Can named Herman (no last name given), who said “business is definitely down 15 to 20 percent for the Mavs games.” With the benefit of additional months of data, we can see that the problem has persisted: Billy Can Can posted year-on-year alcohol sales declines of 7 percent, 22 percent, and 20 percent in February, March, and April. At the Harwood Arms, which saw 12 percent year-on-year drops in February and March, a manager told the Observer that more customers were watching Lakers games instead. (April data is not yet available for every business.)
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Will more people please go have dinner at Billy Can Can? Jill Broussard
Hero, where this March’s booze tally was 34.8 percent worse than last March’s, hung up on Observer editor Lauren Drewes Daniels when she asked about the trade. Black Tap (three months straight of 20 percent year-on-year declines) put her on hold until she gave up.
I had similar luck with Victory Park businesses ignoring my requests for comment. But I did talk to Connie Cheng Powell, whose bar Sportsbook opened about a year ago in the Bishop Arts District. TABC data shows Sportsbook sold 28 percent less alcohol in February than January, but those numbers rebounded strongly for March Madness, and the bar has been full for Dallas Stars playoff games.
“It’s been an interesting year to open a sports bar,” Cheng Powell says, recounting how Sportsbook debuted in time for the Mavs’ NBA Finals run, but then had to deal with the Rangers’ disappointing summer.
Of the Luka trade specifically, she says, “We definitely felt it. Attendance wasn’t what it was for basketball nights. Once he was with the Lakers, we were slammed, but everybody was there to watch him.” Sportsbook has enough TVs to show any and all games taking place at a given time—and, for the last few months, staff made sure that the Lakers were included.
The Exception That Proves the Rule
Victory Park’s alcohol sales figures would have been even bleaker in February and March if it weren’t for the extraordinary growth at the bar Chop Sports. Since the Luka trade, Chop Sports has done extraordinary numbers: it more than doubled its alcohol sales compared to the month before the deal, and posted a 56 percent year-on-year sales increase in March.
The reason is simple: Chop Sports marketed itself as a pro-Luka bar. The menu’s former “Mavs shot” became the “Long Live Luka” shot, its price dropped from $11 to $7.77. Danielle McGarrh, Chop Sports Victory Park’s general manager, calls the shot “a conversation starter” and says it has drawn in new customers via outdoor signage, social media posts, and news articles. The bar has sold more than two thousand Long Live Luka shots since the trade. (By the way, it’s coconut rum, blue Curacao, and pineapple and lime juice.)
On April 9, to commemorate Doncic’s return to Dallas, Chop Sports ran $7.77 food and drink specials, with 77 percent of the proceeds going to the Luka Doncic Foundation.
“I think that our show of support for Luka has made a positive impact on our business,” says bar owner Joshua Babb. “However, I’d much rather have kept Luka here than make more money.”
What the Future Holds
What’s next for Victory Park? The answer is twofold: the glittering Dallas Stars, and Duke basketball prodigy Cooper Flagg, whom the Mavericks will almost certainly select first overall in the 2025 NBA Draft after miraculously winning the lottery. Flagg will be tasked with reviving not just a listless basketball franchise, but also the fortunes of all the bars near his office. The funny thing about this, of course, is that Flagg, 18, can’t legally buy a drink until December 2027. Here’s hoping he’ll have plenty of thriving bars to choose from in two and a half years’ time.
Author
Brian Reinhart
Brian Reinhart
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Brian Reinhart became D Magazine’s dining critic in early 2022 after six years of reviewing restaurants for the Dallas Observer and the Dallas Morning News.