Mark Cuban moved to Dallas three decades ago and took a gig as a bartender to pay the bills. Today, he owns the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, Forbes Magazine estimates his value at $2.3 billion and he has placed a bid on the Los Angeles Dodgers.
If you’re a Cuban supporter, temper your excitement, because it will never happen — not even if Cuban places the highest bid. Not as long as Bud Selig is commissioner of America’s Pastime.
Forget that Cuban is a successful businessman. Forget that he knows how to create excitement. Forget he wins (amidst his controversial style, the Dallas Mavericks have won 50 or more regular season games every year since 2001 which, by no coincidence, is the first full season Cuban owned the franchise). He doesn’t pursue sports franchise ownership as a way to collect assets. He is a fan – and a professional winner in the sports world.
That is Cuban’s professional resume.
So why wouldn’t Major League Baseball embrace a self-made billionaire to join the elite group of owners? Because Cuban’s larger than life personality would fly in the face of MLB commissioner Bud Selig’s tightly run dictatorship, at least that’s what a number of timid baseball execs told ESPN baseball writer Jayson Stark last summer. They spoke — “off the record” — and sent a clear message about the inner workings, the unspoken rules of MLB ownership.
“Bud does not have any interest in an owner who wants to be The Story … also, Bud’s not interested in owners who are going to overtly challenge him publicly.”
Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke wrote, Selig will pick the person. No sports commissioner has a stronger influence over who is allowed entry in his league. Selig will pick this owner like he has picked other owners, but never before has his selection been more important, more mandated, and more tied to his legacy.
Cuban’s DNA makes him a non-qualifier. In fact, one anonymous source summed it up perfectly saying, Cuban is “the exact opposite profile of what would work in a Bud Selig administration.”
Cuban illustrated what Selig fears most on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno last Thursday when leno asked him, “Would you like to buy the Dodgers if it was possible?”
“It could be fun,” Cuban said. “Could you imagine? L.A. would never be the same.”
Not as long as Selig is running the show. Major League Baseball business is not run on an level playing field. Cuban’s money and business acumen mean nothing to Selig. If they did, Cuban would have already won a major league team, maybe in Pittsburgh, or New York, Texas or Los Angeles. It’s not Cuban’s finances, but his persona, that will keep him out of the owner’s box at Chavez Ravine.
