It has been over twenty years since Mark Cuban had a life-changing epiphany at an NBA recreation.
It was November 1999, at first of the NBA’s 1999-2000 season, when the tech billionaire was sitting just a few rows again from the courtroom at a Dallas Mavericks recreation, that he realized his wealth might transport him from the stands to the proprietor’s field.
That is what Cuban not too long ago advised Chris Paul throughout an interview for the NBA All-Star’s Bloomberg collection “How I Received Right here,” by which the 2 males mentioned how the billionaire got here to purchase the Mavericks in 2000.
Cuban moved to Dallas in 1982 and launched his tech profession there, changing into each a billionaire and a die-hard Mavericks fan within the course of. Cuban really determined to purchase the Mavs whereas sitting within the stands, watching a staff that had did not make the playoffs for practically a decade and was struggling to attract followers, he tells Paul.
“My seats are proper by the Mavs bench… two rows again,” Cuban says. “I used to be into it and there was no person there. And, I keep in mind [thinking] ‘I can do a greater job than this.’ After which it hit me: ‘Ding, ding, ding! Now, I can afford these things!’”
That is really an understatement. On the time, Cuban was a newly-minted billionaire who’d offered his web radio firm, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion simply months earlier, in April 1999. In comparison with the staff’s eventual sale worth — $285 million for a majority stake — Cuban had greater than sufficient cash to afford the Mavericks.
Cuban felt the Mavericks wanted to do a greater job not simply on the courtroom, however when it comes to advertising and marketing the gamers to excite and develop the staff’s fan base. He started placing out feelers to purchase the staff, going by means of mutual acquaintances to get in contact with then-owner, actual property billionaire Ross Perot Jr. Negotiations moved rapidly, and Cuban was introduced as the brand new proprietor of the staff in January 2000, just some months into the season.
The deal has confirmed to be a monetary success for Cuban and the staff. The Mavericks are at the moment valued at $2.7 billion — ninth-highest within the NBA — based on Forbes.
Nonetheless, Cuban is adamant that the acquisition was all about his love of the sport. Shopping for the staff “by no means crossed my thoughts as an funding,” he advised CNBC Make It in 2019. “I did it as a result of I like basketball.”
Cuban additionally believed he might assist flip across the staff’s fortunes — and he was proper. Cuban stated in a 2000 interview that he was “keen to commit as a lot cash because it takes” to show the staff right into a constant winner.
From prioritizing advertising and marketing the staff’s greatest gamers to recruiting stars and at all times being an outspoken advocate and courtside cheerleader for the Mavericks, Cuban helped flip the staff into one of many NBA’s prime franchises. Since taking up, Cuban’s Mavericks have solely missed the playoffs 5 instances in 23 seasons, and gained the 2011 NBA championship.
Nonetheless, Cuban’s whirlwind courtship of the staff again in 1999 was nearly an excessive amount of for Chris Paul to imagine.
“What? No, rewind. You do not simply sit at a recreation after which, six weeks later, personal the [team],” Paul stated of their latest Bloomberg interview.
Cuban’s response: “Yeah, just about!”
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