Why Won't Baseball Let Mark Cuban in?

JonDMiller

JonDMiller

Publisher/Founder
I was really hoping he'd get to buy the Cubs.

Baseball has seemingly blackballed this guy.

Was listening to some ESPN radio today and Cowherd brought up some good points.

This guy basically took over the LA Clippers when he bought the Mavericks. He has invested his own money, made it one of the best 'players choice' destinations in the league, he treats his players like royalty more than just their huge paychecks, and his team has been to the NBA finals twice in the last five years and is now the NBA champion.

Kurt Schilling said players would trip over themselves to play for a guy like this.

Is he a bit of a rogue at times? Sure. No more than was George Steinbrenner.
 
The short of it is Bud Selig. Baseball is as much of a "good old boys" network as there ever has been. Until that clown gets off the thrown expect it to continue to be.
 
Owners don't like to spend money. Cuban does. In a league with no salary cap, Cuban comes in, runs a team with $175-$200 M payroll and now other owners have to spend money to keep up. Plus, it's a good ol' boys club and they don't want to let in the young loud mouthed guy.

It would have been very interesting to see what would have happened if he won the bankruptcy auction for the Rangers last year. The rumor was Selig was prepared to go to some extreme steps to stop him from owning them.
 
Bud Selig has been the worst thing for baseball since adding the DH.

I don't hate many people, but I HATE Bud Selig.
 
Selig is terrible and afraid of change. Look how bad he handled the the steroid era. Selig is afriad of Cuban and so are the other owners. It's a shame baseball cant get rid of it's "good ole boy" tactics.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
Why? Selig has been a terrific commissioner, by far the best of any of the current commisioners.
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False. I'd take any of the comissioners over Bud. The sport is as poorly marketed a business as there is in America. They have dwindling TV numbers, waning appeal with young people, and are increasingly irrelevent in today's world.

I love baseball, and consider myself a fan, but I couldn't pick BJ Upton out of a lineup unless it consisted of four white dudes and him.

Under Bud baseball has become a closed entity that features as many under the table and backroom deals as any political process in America.
 
Selig and Reinsdorf. And I agree with Mike that Selig has done some great things. The Wild Card format being the best.
 
DuffMan said:
False. I'd take any of the comissioners over Bud. The sport is as poorly marketed a business as there is in America. They have dwindling TV numbers, waning appeal with young people, and are increasingly irrelevent in today's world.

I love baseball, and consider myself a fan, but I couldn't pick BJ Upton out of a lineup unless it consisted of four white dudes and him.

Under Bud baseball has become a closed entity that features as many under the table and backroom deals as any political process in America.
Click to expand...

David Stern is going to lead the NBA into its second lockout in less than 15 years. The NBA lost $300M last year, over half of the NBA franchises lost money last season. Attendence is down in almost every small market city in the NBA, and all this while the NBA is offering a better on the court product than it has in 20 years.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
Owners don't like to spend money. Cuban does. In a league with no salary cap, Cuban comes in, runs a team with $175-$200 M payroll and now other owners have to spend money to keep up. Plus, it's a good ol' boys club and they don't want to let in the young loud mouthed guy.

It would have been very interesting to see what would have happened if he won the bankruptcy auction for the Rangers last year. The rumor was Selig was prepared to go to some extreme steps to stop him from owning them.
Click to expand...

So how would spending $175-$200 million on payroll be any different than the Yankees, Phillies, or Red Sox?

It has nothing to do with how much he would spend on a payroll but everything to do with your second sentence of it being a good ol' boys club.
 
HawkeyeMike23 said:
David Stern is going to lead the NBA into its second lockout in less than 15 years. The NBA lost $300M last year, over half of the NBA franchises lost money last season. Attendence is down in almost every small market city in the NBA, and all this while the NBA is offering a better on the court product than it has in 20 years.
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Stern has made some terrible mistakes too. However, right now, I know the NBA is way more relevent than Baseball.

The NFL is really the only league that knows what it's doing, but they look like they are on the verge of screwing that up too.
 
I've always wondered about this. Reports last year were that Cuban actually out bid Nolan Ryan's group to own the Rangers, but Baseball chose Ryan's bid because he was better for Baseball. Selig is a very weird commissioner. The only things he has really done as commissioner are to move Milwaukee to the NL, make the All-Star Game "count," and start the World Baseball Classic. Wild Card play was in place starting in 1994, before Selig held power. All of those things are more or less rejected by about half of baseball fans. Selig is too resistant to large-scale changes, and he consistently blames the Players Union when things don't go right. I blame Selig for Cuban not owning a baseball team.
 
The Mavs were not "The Clippers" before Cuban bought them. They had plenty of success in the 80's (Detlef Schrempf was the original German star in Dallas!), and Jason Kidd lead them to the playoffs a few times in the 90's.

Also, the person who built the Mavs was not Cuban, but rather Don Nelson, who traded Robert Traylor and Pat Garrity for Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash on draft day 1998, before Cuban became owner.

Sorry, that didn't quite register with me the first time...The Mavericks traded Tractor Traylor and Pat Garrity for Dirk Nowitski and Steve Nash? Damn.
 
Also, Kidd never led the Mavs to the playoffs in the '90's. He was drafted in 1994 and traded to Phoenix during the 96-97 season. The Mavs missed the playoffs every year from 1990-2001. More comparable to a team like Golden State than to the Clippers (who are really in a league of their own as far as futility is concerned), but still not a very good run. And Cuban bought the team in the middle of the 99-00 season. They missed the playoffs twelve years in a row and have made the playoffs every full season that Cuban has been the owner, so the case can be made that he was the catalyst in the reformation there.
 
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JonDMiller said:
I was really hoping he'd get to buy the Cubs.

Baseball has seemingly blackballed this guy.

Was listening to some ESPN radio today and Cowherd brought up some good points.

This guy basically took over the LA Clippers when he bought the Mavericks. He has invested his own money, made it one of the best 'players choice' destinations in the league, he treats his players like royalty more than just their huge paychecks, and his team has been to the NBA finals twice in the last five years and is now the NBA champion.

Kurt Schilling said players would trip over themselves to play for a guy like this.

Is he a bit of a rogue at times? Sure. No more than was George Steinbrenner.
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Ughh, I just threw a little in my mouth. Jon I thought better of you than listening to this shock jock.
 
Selling offered KC the chance to switch leagues first, and the Royals stupidly rejected the offer. Bud made a logical offer to the Brewers, a former NL city.

Cuban is no where near as classy as Steinbrenner, who turned around THE PREMIER franchise, and made the game more interesting in the process. Ever think that maybe Cuban just didn't have the cash behind him to make it work(line de he have enough to make it work owning the Mavs too?)?
 
thejumper5 said:
I've always wondered about this. Reports last year were that Cuban actually out bid Nolan Ryan's group to own the Rangers, but Baseball chose Ryan's bid because he was better for Baseball. Selig is a very weird commissioner. The only things he has really done as commissioner are to move Milwaukee to the NL, make the All-Star Game "count," and start the World Baseball Classic. Wild Card play was in place starting in 1994, before Selig held power. All of those things are more or less rejected by about half of baseball fans. Selig is too resistant to large-scale changes, and he consistently blames the Players Union when things don't go right. I blame Selig for Cuban not owning a baseball team.
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He did, but a bankruptcy court overturned this and forced it to go to an auction, where Ryan's group did outbid Cuban's group for the team.
 
HeneryHawk said:
Selling offered KC the chance to switch leagues first, and the Royals stupidly rejected the offer. Bud made a logical offer to the Brewers, a former NL city.

Cuban is no where near as classy as Steinbrenner, who turned around THE PREMIER franchise, and made the game more interesting in the process. Ever think that maybe Cuban just didn't have the cash behind him to make it work(line de he have enough to make it work owning the Mavs too?)?
Click to expand...

I really hope this is sarcasm.
 
thejumper5 said:
Also, Kidd never led the Mavs to the playoffs in the '90's. He was drafted in 1994 and traded to Phoenix during the 96-97 season. The Mavs missed the playoffs every year from 1990-2001. More comparable to a team like Golden State than to the Clippers (who are really in a league of their own as far as futility is concerned), but still not a very good run. And Cuban bought the team in the middle of the 99-00 season. They missed the playoffs twelve years in a row and have made the playoffs every full season that Cuban has been the owner, so the case can be made that he was the catalyst in the reformation there.
Click to expand...

I guess you're right about the 90's...I guess it pays to look things up before you say them! Still, maybe they didn't win, but the Jason Kidd-Jim Jackson Mavs were a pretty good team (until they fell apart because both players were banging Toni Braxton).

To the larger point however, the foundation was laid before Cuban bought the team. He has undoubtedly been a huge factor in keeping a good team in Dallas, but the team had two future MVPs on the roster before he bought it. Don Nelson brought the Mavs back, Mark Cuban kept them up.

/Wait, Don Nelson went to Iowa?
 
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