The Owner's Box
The Miami Heat won the NBA championship last night, beating the Dallas Mavericks in 6 games. Here's why you should have been paying attention:
....(crickets)....
Okay, there is one reason:
Marc Cuban would be interested in buying the Pittsburgh Pirates, if they were for sale.
Marc Cuban owns the Mavericks. He is a mad genius. He sees things and doesn't ask why, or even why not. He just kicks your ass.
You have to understand, at the height of the NBA's popularity in the late 80's and early 90's, the Mavericks sucked. Their best known player wasn't known for basketball, he was known for repeated cocaine arrests. Watching professional basketball in Dallas became a punishment used by old-school Texas judges looking for creative sentencing. Until Marc Cuban.
He turned the stadium in Dallas into one of the best in the league. He attracted free agents by lavishing creative perks on his players. He made the people of Dallas believe that more than being the owner, he was the biggest Maverick fan on the planet, one who wanted to win every bit as much as they did.
More than anything, though, what Marc Cuban did was be accessible to his customers. He blogs every day. He's got an e-mail address posted--write him with a serious concern and you'll more likely than not get a personal response. Run into him at the stadium or on the street and he'll love talking basketball with you. Basically, he's like you or me, but smarter and with a shitload of money. (Oh, one more difference--he likes professional basketball.)
The commissioner of basketball hates Cuban, because he runs his mouth off like a fan. He's been fined millions of dollars for complaining about the same things that real basketball fans complain about. The commissioner of baseball should be watching all of this--and he should make sure Cuban gets the Pirates.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are the baseball equivalent of the Mavericks. Even better--they're Cuban's hometown team, the one he grew up rooting for. I guarantee you, if you give him this team, they'll win again. More than that. They'll win fun. You'll enjoy watching them.
Baseball, like football and unlike basketball, is known for its colorful owners. Unfortunately, those owners are colorful in a "look at my money" kind of way. You get douchebag extortionists like Steinbrenner or racists like Marge Schott, who played populist but lived far above her clientele. Cuban would be the real thing--an owner who cared about his fans and cared about baseball.
Sure, the commissioner might have a few headaches as he listens to Cuban tell America exactly what he needs to fix about his sport. It's a small price to pay for someone who gets people excited about baseball again in a non-prosecutorial way. Though that may be the problem.
He won't just get people excited about baseball in Pittsburgh, though God knows they could use it. He'll get them excited in Kansas City. And Colorado. And Baltimore. And every other city with a perennially losing team, where owners make an annual profit by milking their markets and slashing their payrolls. And the fans in those cities will ask--why aren't you doing what Marc Cuban does? Why don't we matter?
The current owner in Pittsburgh has made a lot of money by keeping a tight leash on his baseball operations while enjoying a taxpayer-funded new stadium. It's people like him that SHOULD be afraid of Marc Cuban. He'll never sell.
It's safer to keep him on the sidelines with Mavericks. Let him be David Stern's hassle.
....(crickets)....
Okay, there is one reason:
Marc Cuban would be interested in buying the Pittsburgh Pirates, if they were for sale.
Marc Cuban owns the Mavericks. He is a mad genius. He sees things and doesn't ask why, or even why not. He just kicks your ass.
You have to understand, at the height of the NBA's popularity in the late 80's and early 90's, the Mavericks sucked. Their best known player wasn't known for basketball, he was known for repeated cocaine arrests. Watching professional basketball in Dallas became a punishment used by old-school Texas judges looking for creative sentencing. Until Marc Cuban.
He turned the stadium in Dallas into one of the best in the league. He attracted free agents by lavishing creative perks on his players. He made the people of Dallas believe that more than being the owner, he was the biggest Maverick fan on the planet, one who wanted to win every bit as much as they did.
More than anything, though, what Marc Cuban did was be accessible to his customers. He blogs every day. He's got an e-mail address posted--write him with a serious concern and you'll more likely than not get a personal response. Run into him at the stadium or on the street and he'll love talking basketball with you. Basically, he's like you or me, but smarter and with a shitload of money. (Oh, one more difference--he likes professional basketball.)
The commissioner of basketball hates Cuban, because he runs his mouth off like a fan. He's been fined millions of dollars for complaining about the same things that real basketball fans complain about. The commissioner of baseball should be watching all of this--and he should make sure Cuban gets the Pirates.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are the baseball equivalent of the Mavericks. Even better--they're Cuban's hometown team, the one he grew up rooting for. I guarantee you, if you give him this team, they'll win again. More than that. They'll win fun. You'll enjoy watching them.
Baseball, like football and unlike basketball, is known for its colorful owners. Unfortunately, those owners are colorful in a "look at my money" kind of way. You get douchebag extortionists like Steinbrenner or racists like Marge Schott, who played populist but lived far above her clientele. Cuban would be the real thing--an owner who cared about his fans and cared about baseball.
Sure, the commissioner might have a few headaches as he listens to Cuban tell America exactly what he needs to fix about his sport. It's a small price to pay for someone who gets people excited about baseball again in a non-prosecutorial way. Though that may be the problem.
He won't just get people excited about baseball in Pittsburgh, though God knows they could use it. He'll get them excited in Kansas City. And Colorado. And Baltimore. And every other city with a perennially losing team, where owners make an annual profit by milking their markets and slashing their payrolls. And the fans in those cities will ask--why aren't you doing what Marc Cuban does? Why don't we matter?
The current owner in Pittsburgh has made a lot of money by keeping a tight leash on his baseball operations while enjoying a taxpayer-funded new stadium. It's people like him that SHOULD be afraid of Marc Cuban. He'll never sell.
It's safer to keep him on the sidelines with Mavericks. Let him be David Stern's hassle.
posted by Matthew at 10:44 AM
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