All sports need a bit of Cuban

Everyone knows that guy. He’s the parent getting thrown out of his kid’s Little League game… Everyone knows that guy. He’s the parent getting thrown out of his kid’s Little League game for arguing with the umpire. He’s the man painted head-to-toe with his team’s colors, heckling opposing fans in the stands. You may know this man as father, brother or best friend – but to the NBA world, this man is simply known as “Mark.”

Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, certainly differs from the average guy in that he is a billionaire. But money aside, Cuban is your typical everyday sports fan. In fact, his money is the only thing he has in common with other team owners throughout the NBA and professional sports. Unlike many of those owners, who play passive roles and watch games from luxury boxes, Cuban huddles with his team, pats players on the butt for a job well done, high fives fans and relentlessly heckles referees to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Yet, Cuban is no dummy. When his team is not playing, Cuban is a savvy businessman whose prudence has earned him billions of dollars. It is very possible that there has never been an owner that has so captivated the attention of fans around the globe as much as Cuban.

Cuban’s efforts at personalizing the NBA “business” have resulted in a period of unprecedented success for the Mavericks. Since taking over as owner in 2000, Dallas’ most vocal fan has put his money where his mouth is, and in the process, has made his team an annual playoff contender.

In the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons, the Dallas Mavericks were the worst team in basketball, compiling 11 wins one year and 13 the next. Ten years later, the Mavericks have held the best record in the league since the 2003-04 season opened, and last season, made it to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. How? Apparently, the NBA’s “problem child” knows a thing or two about producing a winner.

Born in 1958 in good old Pittsburgh, Cuban always dreamed of becoming a pro basketball or baseball player growing up. Cuban attended Pitt for a year, but transferred to the University of Indiana because at that point, Pitt did not have an undergraduate business school. After graduating from Indiana in 1981, Cuban moved to Dallas and, without formal computer training, started a computer-consulting firm in 1983 known as Micro Solutions.

In only seven years, Cuban had turned his start-up company into a multi-million dollar firm. In 1994, the new millionaire Cuban and his friend Todd Wagner were sitting around Cuban’s house, brainstorming how they could listen to Indiana Hoosiers basketball game broadcasts without leaving Dallas.

Using Cuban’s knack for business and a $3,000 investment, the two went to work on AudioNet, a service which enabled people to listen to radio broadcasts from across the country over the Internet. As the service grew in popularity, it was later re-named Broadcast.com, to which Yahoo.com acquired the rights in 1999 in exchange for $6 billion worth of stock.

The billionaire Cuban then decided to use his newly acquired wealth to invest in something he was most passionate about – a sports team of his own.

In 2000, Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks franchise, considered one of the NBA’s worst, for $285 million. His goal was to make attending games a total entertainment experience for fans. He became the first owner to encourage fan interaction through e-mail, to which he still personally responds. Based on their suggestions, Cuban has already made several changes at Mavericks games, such as a new three-sided shot clock that allows line-of-sight from anywhere in the arena.

Cuban may be one of sports’ most recognized owners, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is a fan of his. For one, Cuban’s passion for the game has resulted in 13 fines from the NBA since he took over as Mavs’ owner, totaling more than $1.665 million.

“He’s got to learn how to control himself as well as the players do,” Mavericks MVP Dirk Nowitzki said on espn.com. “We can’t lose our temper all the time on the court or off the court, and I think he’s got to learn that, too. But we all told him this before. The game starts, and he’s already yelling at [referees]. I don’t think that helps us.”

Nowitzki’s comments mirror those of the NBA’s front office which, just weeks ago, agreed in principle to enacting a rule to further curb the behavior of outspoken owners – in other words, the Mark Cuban Restraint Rule. The new rules come at least partially in response to the actions of Cuban, whose latest referee-bashing incident, which occurred during last season’s NBA Finals, cost him $250,000.

Acknowledging that he sometimes goes overboard, Cuban has tried to turn the negative incidents, like when he managed a Dairy Queen for a day in response to a flip-out, into positive press for the Mavericks. Since he has been their owner, Cuban has matched his NBA fines with charitable donations of equal amounts. For example, following the Dairy Queen incident, he donated an additional $500,000 to cancer research in the name of Joy Nelson, the wife of then Mavericks’ coach Don Nelson. Cuban is also a frequent giver to his own “Fallen Patriot Fund,” which he created to help families of U.S. military persons killed or injured in the war in Iraq.

Cuban had recently expressed interest in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, his investment group, which included Dan Marino, failed in its bid to buy the Penguins, and Pirates CEO Kevin McClatchy refuses to sell the team. That is more than unfortunate. Can you imagine the life that Cuban would pump into the pitiful Pirates? Not to mention the fact that he has proven to be someone willing to empty his pockets to buy a winner.

That is why sports fans have to love this guy; he’s just a lucky commoner who is living out a childhood dream. Cuban may be a little much at times, but anyone who argues that he is bad for the NBA, or any other sport for that matter, is downright misguided. In fact, it is Cuban’s passion for his team and athletic competition that is the envy of all his colleagues.