Mark Cuban continues to drive the NBA crazy

Mark Cuban does not waste too much time. Less than a year after he buys Dallas, he collects three fines over an eight-day period: Nov. 14, 2000: $ 5,000 for reviewing the judges. November 22: $ 15,000 and disqualification following a confrontation with the referees. After continuing to criticize the judges even in interviews he was fined another $ 25,000.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an ambitious and bouncy Jew, is no ordinary sports team owner. Cuban always sits beyond the latitudes of the field and not in the private compartments like other owners, always wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers and traveling with his team for most of the away games. He is eccentric and loud and is not afraid to get into confrontations like the last of the fans.

Cuban is also not afraid to almost happily put his head into a bed of charged issues, and stand up to the American consensus. Last week the owner launched the new revolution whereby Dallas would become the first sports team in America to decide not to play the American national anthem before the games. The storm has already begun.

But first of all, it is worth acknowledging and understanding that the rise of Cuban, who has an estimated fortune of $ 4.3 billion, to the summit of the rich in America is an unusual story. He was born in 1958 in Pittsburgh, gave up twelfth grade and went on to study business administration at Indiana University. He financed himself by studying disco dance for female students for $ 25 an hour. He later bought a bar, dabbled in movie theater chains and first got his hands on niches. Hi-Tech. Cuban is both a business student and a businessman himself. Throughout his career, he has been involved in what he loves and is fully involved in his business.

The fines cast a shadow over the billionaire’s personality, but it should be remembered: Cuban, who made his fortune in high-tech, is one of the owners who took the league to other platforms and ensured its business growth and popularity especially among young demographics: he took it to Facebook and Twitter. . Cuban believes everything he says and is willing to pay a very high price for it. And one more thing: Cuban has so far paid fines worth $ 3,115,000 (at least official fines). For every dollar he pays to the league as a fine, he pays a dollar to charity.

January 4, 2001: “The referees were pathetic and I did not care if they fined me,” Cuban says before being fined $ 250,000, the highest fine in league history at the time. A week later he was fined $ 100,000 after settling on the latitude. A month later he was sent off for two games after breaking into the pitch and interfering in a brawl between the teams.

April 13, 2001: $ 100,000 fine and suspension from one game for Eastern motion against the referees.

January 8, 2002: Cuban claims he would not have let Judge Ed Rosh run even an ice cream branch. He was fined half a million dollars. For the next game he comes with a white T-shirt with a pile of dollar illustrations on it.

Cuban dives into computer studies, also as a door-to-door salesman of software. He moves to Dallas and sets up his own company, Microsolutions. In 1990, the company was sold to CompuSerb for $ 6 million. Cuban concentrates a bit on parties, but realizes that the internet is a treasure with an invisible horizon. It focuses on technologies and how the Internet can make its users accessible to events they are not at.

Cuban put himself again in the center of the picture, as the main target audience. What he misses most is being connected live to the Indiana games of basketball and Pittsburgh in football. Together with a friend from the university, he founded Audient in the mid-1990s, and became a pioneer in the field of Internet streaming. Cuban wins the lottery: he connects his three great loves (technology, sports and business administration), to a great demand for the product and the formation of the high-tech bubble.

The company was issued to the public in 1998. “I sat at the computer and pressed refresh every few seconds. And when the stock reached a certain price I just started jumping and screaming non-stop,” Cuban recalled. The price is set at $ 200 per share. Yahoo bought the company for $ 6 billion.

May 10, 2006: $ 100,000 for entering the field, and another $ 100,000 for a blog called “How to Improve Judgment in the NBA.”

June 20, 2006: $ 250,000 because he screamed at David Stern and his entourage after Dallas lost in overtime of game number five in the NBA Finals against Miami.

January 16, 2009: $ 25,000 after a fight with J.R. Smith.

January 22, 2010: $ 100,000 after trying to recruit LeBron James to the team.

In 2000 Cuban bought Dallas for $ 285 million. The group is a joke. The league is facing a broken trough after the players’ strike and the retirement of Michael Jordan, who drive the spectators away from it. Dallas is becoming an exemplary team under him, with one of the greatest players in league history, Dirk Nowitzki and with one championship in 2011. He brings to the league a series of innovations, ideas and marketing means, which give the league an abundance that has not known like it.

January 7, 2013: $ 50,000 fine following criticism of judges on Twitter.

January 18, 2014: 100,000 for breaking into the field and confronting the referees (“Farewell gift to David Stern,” Cuban jokes).

February 21, 2018: Admits Dallas is losing on purpose. $ 600,000, his highest fine.

March 6, 2020: Half a million dollars in fines after another rebuke tweet on Twitter.

Last week the rebellious billionaire took another step outside the mainstream in the US, when the team he owned announced the decision not to play the American national anthem before the games. : “I do not understand this custom. “There is no other sector in America that needs to hear the anthem before its work day, except for athletes.”

But the noise about his decision is making a lot of waves, especially in a conservative market like Texas. “Wherever I was, I always respected the anthem, I always put my hand on my heart when I heard it played,” Cuban said. “But you also have to understand that there are those who think he does not represent them. You have to want to listen to them as they want us to listen to the anthem.”

The league for its part announced that playing the anthem is still mandatory.

February 15, 2021: To be continued.