Mark Cuban is the boisterous entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He was born July 31, 1958 in Pittsburgh and raised in Mt. Lebanon, which once was the home of many working Jewish class citizens. Cuban has entrepreneurship in his blood. His grandfather Morris Chabenisky emigrated from Russia to Pittsburgh and fed his family by selling whatever he could from the back of a truck. His family’s last name was shorted to Cuban when his grandparents landed on Ellis Island from Russia. His dad, Norton, spent over half of his life working at a car upholstery shop. Cuban got his hustler gene honest from his grandfather and his work ethic from his father. It should be no surprise that he has been successful so far.
Mark started out at the age of 12. He wanted a pair of expensive Chuck Taylor basketball shoes and he was told that he had to earn the money. He did just that. He sold garbage bags to whoever he could and saved his money until he was finally able to get those shoes. After the garbage bags, Cuban’s businesses never stopped.
Instead of attending high school his senior year, he enrolled as a fulltime student at the University of Pittsburgh. After a year at Pitt, he transferred to Indiana University and graduated in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. The transfer, as rumored, was because Indiana University had cheaper tuition at the time and Cuban was paying his own way through school. To help pay his way, he gave dance lessons on the side and became well known for having crazy dance parties in which he charged an admission fee for. After he graduated in 1981, Cuban moved back to Pittsburgh and worked at Mellon Bank. Mellon was making the transition to computers at that time, and Mark soon became interested with them. After a little over a year stint at Mellon he flew off to Dallas in 1982. The rest is history in the making.
1982 - Found a job bartending in Dallas
1983 - Got a second job as a software salesman for Your Business Software
1984 – Fired from Your Business Software
1985 - Formed MicroSolutions
1990 - Sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe (H&R Block) for $6 million
1995 - Teamed up with fellow Indiana alumni Todd Wagner to form AudioNet
1996 - Audionet was renamed Broadcast.com
1998 - Broadcast.com went public and found it’s shares reaching $200 a share
1999 - Sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! For $6 billion
2000 - Buys Dallas Mavericks of NBA for $285 million from Ross Perot, Jr.
**Other notables include owning 2929 Entertainment, Landmark Theaters, cofounded HDNet (the first high-def satellite television network. Also was a partner on Synergy Sports Technology, IceRocket, RedSwoosh, and Weblogs, Inc.
Cuban held Dallas Maverick’s tickets almost from his initial landing in the new city. He was a fan first. Most major owners of sports teams sit comfortably in their box seats enjoying the finer things in life. Cuban likes sitting with the crowd behind the Maverick’s bench, donning a Dallas Maverick’s jersey and eating nachos. And just like a typical fan, he enjoys the game. He yells at his players, the referees, the coaching staff, applauds the halftime show, and fist pumps after a great play by the Mavs. On the other hand, there are 1,665,000 (and counting) reasons he isn’t like any other fan. That 1,665,000 is the amount that Mark Cuban has been fined by the NBA so far. From everything starting with running onto the court, to swearing at players, he has been fined in at least 13 different incidents. He is a bold, outspoken owner and sometimes he is more interesting to watch than the game itself. He is outspoken, and sometimes when you are outspoken there is a price to pay.
Not only does Cuban own the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, he also tried to get into the National Hockey League in 2005 by going in with Dan Marino and some others in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins. He has always expressed interest in owning a Major League Baseball team as well. He tried to buy the Pirates but was shot down. In 2007 he tried to acquire the Chicago Cubs and submitted an offer of 1.6 billion, but was not offered a chance at the second round of bidding. In 2010, he tried again to own a baseball team by bidding on the Texas Rangers. He even outbid Ranger’s hall of fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, but again did not have any luck. He just recently expressed interest in a partial acquisition of the New York Mets when owner Fred Wilpon said he wanted to sell 25% of the team. That deal is still in the works.
Cuban now is enjoying the fruits of his labor. His Mavericks are favored to win the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder and have been on a roll since being given the number 3 seed going into the playoffs. His track record indicates that he has never been happy with mediocrity. This means that he won’t be happy until his employee Dirk Nowitzki is bench pressing the championship trophy in another four weeks. More importantly, he won’t be happy until that trophy is sitting on his desk in Dallas.
His enthusiasm and sports fanatic personality has made him favored by many fans, and hated by many other owners and NBA officials. He is a sports fan first but it just so happens that he is not that shabby at constructing some successful businesses either. One thing is for sure, this Pittsburgh native is living every sports fan’s dream.
written by JC
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