| Mark Cuban |
Article Index for Mark |
Website Links For Mark |
Information AboutMark Cuban |
|
Mark Cuban (born July 31 , 1958 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ) is an outspoken Billionaire who is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA Basketball team. EARLY YEARS Cuban's first foray in the business world was as a garbage bag and powdered milk salesman, when he sold garbage bags around his neighborhood in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh . Cuban earned his way to college by giving after getting a bachelor's degree. BUSINESS SUCCESS Shortly after college, in 1982 , Cuban moved to Dallas, Texas and found work with a new IBM PC software dealer. He was fired for choosing to make a sales call to close a $10,000 software deal instead of opening the store on time. Cuban founded a new company, MicroSolutions , and was able to convince some of his previous customers to come along. The Microsolutions became a System Integrator and Reseller for companies like Novell , 3Com , IBM , Banyan , Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems and an early adopter of technologies such as Carbon Copy , Lotus Notes , and CompuServe . One of the company's biggest clients was Perot Systems . In July of 1990 , Cuban sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe, Inc , then a subsidiary of H&R Block , for $6 million. Cuban and fellow Indiana alum Todd Wagner still eagerly followed their college Basketball team, and conceived the idea of broadcasting live games and events through the Internet . They began Audionet in 1995 with a single Packard Bell server and ISDN line, which became Broadcast.com in 1998. They achieved success by broadcasting sporting and corporate events much less expensively than with existing leased lines. By 1999 , Broadcast.com had grown to 330 employees and annual revenues close to $100 million. With the stock market now in the midst of the Dot-com Boom , Cuban was able to sell the company to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock. SPORTS With the Yahoo! transaction complete, Cuban decided to pursue his love of basketball, and bought the Dallas Mavericks for $285 million from a group led by H. Ross Perot, Jr. . The sale was finalized on February 14 , 2000 . Cuban has become one of the most controversial NBA team owners in history, piling up a total of more than $1 million in fines, mostly for controversial statements against the league and its referees. In one incident, he asserted that the league's director of officials, Ed Rush , wouldn't be able to manage a Dairy Queen . When Dairy Queen management took offense, Cuban worked for a day at a Dairy Queen in Coppell, Texas , where eager fans lined up in the street to get a Blizzard from the owner of the Mavericks. Cuban has played an important role in restoring the Mavericks to championship contender status. He presided over the resurgence of the franchise. Unlike most owners who watch games from skyboxes, Cuban sits alongside fans in the crowd. However, Cuban has received criticism for his erratic trade-in/trade-out policy each postseason and for providing big contracts for underperforming players, such as Shawn Bradley , and Erick Dampier . He also allowed Steve Nash to leave as a free agent following the 2004 season. Nash was named the league's MVP for the Phoenix Suns the next year. Cuban is a dedicated Mavericks fan, known for flying his $41 million private Airplane , a Gulfstream Aerospace Gulfstream V N718MC , to attend away games, and his tendency for wearing Mavericks t-shirts and jerseys at games both at home and on the road. Because of this, magazines and newspapers have dubbed him "the fans' dream (come true)." In 2005 , Cuban had expressed an interest in buying the NHL 's St. Louis Blues and Major League Baseball 's Pittsburgh Pirates . MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT Cuban continues to work with former Broadcast.com partner Todd Wagner in another venture, 2929 Entertainment , which provides Vertically Integrated production and distribution of films and video. On September 24, 2003 , the firm purchased Landmark Theatre Corporation , a chain of 185 Art House Movie Theater s. The company is also responsible for the updated version of the TV show '' Star Search '', currently being broadcast on CBS . Cuban was featured on the cover of the November 2003 premiere issue of ''Best'' Magazine , announcing the arrival of High Definition Television . Through 2929 Entertainment, Cuban also purchased HDNet , the first high-definition Satellite television network. Cuban once appeared on ESPN 's talk TV show Around The Horn . In February 2004 , Cuban announced that he would be working with ABC television to produce a Reality Television series called '' The Benefactor ''. The premise of the six-episode series involved 16 contestants vying to win US $1 million by participating in various games and contests, with their performances being judged by Cuban. It premiered on September 13 2004 but was cancelled before the full season aired. Cuban financially supported Grokster in the MGM V. Grokster Supreme Court case. As of August, 9, 2005, Cuban had begun spearheading ventures in both the --a company which uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver rich media, including video and software to a user's PC. Mark Cuban was also the seed investor in Weblogs, Inc. which was acquired by AOL 12 months after his investment. George Clooney persuaded Cuban to co-finance '' Good Night, And Good Luck '', earning him executive producer status. In April 2006 , Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Cuban would host his own weekly radio talk show, which is tentatively titled Mark Cuban's ''Radio Maverick''; the show is set to debut this summer. {Link without Title} PERSONAL Cuban married Tiffany Stewart in Barbados in a private ceremony on September 30, 2002. They had a daughter in late 2003. Cuban is an admirer of the novel '' The Fountainhead '' by Ayn Rand and its Objectivist Philosophy . He was quoted in ''Slate'' as saying, "''The Fountainhead'' was incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals, and responsibility for my successes and failures. I loved it. I don't know how many times I have read it, but it got to a point where I had to stop because I would get too fired up." He considers himself Libertarian , and treats his relationships to the major political parties pragmatically, but not choosing to become directly involved with them. He has not yet established a major philanthropic effort, but after 9/11 founded the Fallen Patriot Fund . Cuban communicates almost exclusively by email, avoiding the telephone and visiting his corporate office only occasionally. He cultivates a casual lifestyle, rarely wearing a suit and pointedly never wears a wristwatch. SPEAKING APPEARANCES Cuban also spends time as a guest speaker at conferences. For instance, he was the keynote speaker at the annual "High School Entrepreneurship Conference" organized by the Young Entrepreneurs Clubs of the Horace Mann School and Dalton School . TRIVIA
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|