Don Carter was born into a poor family in Arkansas in 1933. However, by 1957, his mother, Mary Crowley made a fortune in a direct marketing interior decoration business, known as Home Interiors & Gifts. The business was sold to Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst and is estimated to have netted Carter $470 million. The son of a Texas radio station owner, Thomas Hicks became interested in leveraged buyouts as a member of First National Banks venture capital group. ...

Carter, along with Norm Sonju, founded an NBA expansion team, the Dallas Mavericks, in 1980. His $12 million investment in the team eventually earned him $125 million when he sold the team in 1996 to an investment group led by Ross Perot Jr.. The National Basketball Association of the United States and Canada, commonly known as the NBA, is the premier professional basketball league in North America. ... The Dallas Mavericks are a professional basketball team based in Dallas, Texas. ...

Over the years, Carter has owned many different types of businesses, including a Rolls-Royce dealership. Other businesses include banks, trucking firms, hotels, rodeo arenas, and cattle ranches. Always seen wearing a cowboy hat, Carter looks the part of a Texas billionaire. The Rolls Royce logo Rolls-Royce is a set of several companies, all deriving from the British automobile and aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Henry Royce and C.S. Rolls in 1906. ...

Don Carter in trademark cowboy hat at a Dallas Mavericks game, April 4, 2006.