Cuban living the life of an ultimate sports fan
High-profile Mavericks owner riding success of team, business ventures
 | Mark Cuban smiles after a news conference in Dallas on Wednesday. |
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DALLAS - Everyone dreams about what they’d do with a billion dollars. For a 40-something sports fan, the vision could easily go like this:
Buy your favorite team, even if it’s an epic loser that’s not for sale. Do wacky stunts that bring attention to your club and to you, but also hire the right people to build the team into a big winner.
Once that’s done, start branching out. Try buying a team in another sport that you grew up rooting for. Better yet, bid on two.
When one of baseball’s landmark franchises goes for sale, make an offer.
When folks are looking to start a pro football league to rival the NFL, grab a piece of the action. Say the Las Vegas franchise.
Along the way, you’ll discover new diversions, such as mixed martial arts. Go ahead and add that to your sports empire — which, by now, is part of a bigger portfolio that includes a cutting-edge television network, a respected movie company and a national chain of theaters.
But that’s still not all. With so much going on, you’ll become more famous than most of your players. GQ will make you a “Man of the Year” even though your wardrobe is mostly jeans and T-shirts. ABC will put you on “Dancing With The Stars” even though you bombed the first time the network put you in prime time.
Sound like fun?
Welcome to the world of Mark Cuban.
The history of pro sports in the United States is filled with maverick owners. Since parlaying a dot-com idea into a 10-digit bank account, Cuban not only has had the financial ability to do what he wants, when he wants — he’s done it.
And loved every minute.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said this week after announcing his latest venture, HDNet Fights, a marriage between his high-definition satellite TV network and the growing world of mixed martial arts.
“I like to do things that are unique and different and once-in-a-lifetime chances. And when I get to tie them all together, that’s the ultimate solution.”
Just his luck, plenty of those “ultimate solutions” have come along lately.
Starting a week from Monday, Cuban will be part of the new season of “Dancing With The Stars.” He’s doing it even though he had hip replacement surgery earlier this summer. (Dang rugby injuries.)
Cuban says dance practice is his version of rehab.
“It was either work with Bruno or work with Kym Johnson. That was an easy decision,” Cuban said, smiling.
Executive producer Conrad Green was hesitant about what he was getting into with Cuban because he only knew him as the guy who went berserk on the sidelines.
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“But every time I’m around him, he’s been charm personified,” Green said. “He’s such an advertisement for positive thinking. All he ever talks about is, ’I’m doing this to have so much fun. I’m at the stage in life that I’ve got to embrace every opportunity that life gives me.’ It’s inspiring.”
Cuban is taking on this contest just as he has basketball and business: To win. Sometimes, that even means wearing “things that make him cringe,” Green said.
“He’s a leap-in-with-two-feet kind of guy,” Green said. “He told us, ’If you want me to wear the frilly shirt, I’ll wear the frilly shirt.”’
Put Cuban’s over-under at six episodes. That’s how long his 2004 reality-game show “The Benefactor” lasted. It was supposed to go eight, but ABC pulled the plug because of horrendous ratings.
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