Q: Who’s Right in the Mark Cuban/ David Stern NBA Feud?
Time once again for our non-investment Friday blog. For those not familiar with my Friday blog, every Friday, I essentially blog about non-investment related topics, often business related in some sense, but sometimes not at all.
Recently, David Stern fined NBA franchise Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban U.S. $100,000 for criticizing NBA referees on his blog, blogmaverick-dot-com. For those unfamiliar with this feuding duo, David Stern is the reigning commissioner of the National Basketball Association and Mark Cuban is the outspoken billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks who made his fortune during the dot.com boom by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo. I like Cuban for a lot of reasons. (1) He’s probably the only billionaire that the I could hang out with and feel at ease with; (2) He’s got a big mouth; and (3) He’s bitingly sarcastic.
The big mouth and sarcasm, I favor, due to my upbringing in Philly. Now I don’t just like people with big mouths because some people with big mouths are just plain annoying, but Cuban more often that not, has something very intelligent and insightful to say. As for Stern, who is appropriately living up to his surname, fining Cuban for voicing his opinion on his blog is just plain ridiculous. When David Stern feels it’s his business to try to suppress freedom of speech, he is overstepping his boundaries as commisioner by leaps and bounds. In fact, I would think that Cuban would be able to challenge the imposition of such fines under Fair Labor laws, as fining an employee for voicing an opinion seems to be just a tad totalitarian and un-democratic.
Stern is a fool for not realizing that he needs Cuban a lot more than Cuban needs the NBA. Sure, I know that a lot of other NBA owners wanted Stern to “muzzle” Cuban. Even one of Cuban’s star players, Dirk Nowitski, hinted that Cuban’s antics, at times, was a distraction and maybe even detrimental to the Mav’s chances of success on the hardwood floor. Still, as the marketing maxim goes, any publicity, even bad publicity, is good publicity.
Nothing I’ve heard Cuban say in regard to the NBA has come close to offensive in my mind, but his comments are often controversial. But just because they are controversial doesn’t mean that Mr. Cuban doesn’t have valid points. Cuban’s controversial comments often originate from truthful observations of the game that other NBA owners are too scared to say. In the past, Cuban has been harshly critical of the NBA having separate rules for officiating star players — accusations which I’m sure have irked David Stern. Yet this year, LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson revealed that NBA officials actually approached him and asked him if he wanted them to call certain rule violations on Laker star Kobe Bryant or if he wanted them to give Kobe a free pass. To Jackson’s credit, he told the refs to call the game the same for Kobe as any other player.
The reason Cuban is more valuable to the NBA that Stern realizes is that Cuban is often the lone dissenting voice among all owners. Or at least the only one courageous enough to raise his voice. When I was earning my double Master in Business and Public Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, I remember taking a public policy course in which there were approximately 10 enrolled students. Nine of the students more or less would agree on the topics discussed every week but one student would always disagree with a view point 180 degrees to the opposite side of all other students.
Whenever this grad student voiced his opinion, because his opinions were so grating and at times even offensive to other students, many of the other students would jump down his throat. However, our professor, Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, would always remind us that as the lone dissenting voice, his was the most valuable in the class. Professor de Uriarte said if we did not have the benefit of this dissenting opinion, that no one would ever be challenged to critically examine his or her views. This is exactly what Mark Cuban does for the NBA.
In terms of sage business decisions and even marketing growth, Cuban is great for the NBA. From what I’ve been able to discern about Mr. Cuban from his blog and various TV appearances, interviews, etc., he is a person that will only walk away while he is on top. With the Mavericks having a serious chance of winning it all this year, I would not be surprised to see Mark do just that if his Mavs should come up victorious this June. After all, Stern has removed a lot of the things that Cuban loves about owning the Mavs, and a lot of the fun. It’s never been in Cuban’s personality to let another person dictate how he must behave, to the point of what he can or cannot say, even in a forum as personal as his own blog. So if the Mavs win it all this year and Cuban, out of disgust with David Stern, walks away from the NBA, it will be the NBA’s just reward.
