A Maverick Makes a Business of the Mavericks

摘要

The last time most businesspeople outside Dallas paid any attention to Mark Cuban was July 20, 1999, the day he sold his streaming-audio company, Broad-cast.com, to Yahoo. The deal made Cuban a billionaire twice over at age 40 and, for a moment, seemed to prove one of the new economy's fondest myths―that success comes easily to those who are brash enough, entrepreneurial enough, Then Cuban took $280 million of his Internet winnings and, in January 2000, bought a controlling interest in the Dallas Mavericks. In many ways, Cuban hasn't done badly: Since he took over, attendance is up 35 percent, even as it has flatlined for the NBA as a whole, and revenues have doubled. But if you measure success by profits―and Cuban says that's how he judges this business adventure―he hasn't yet crossed half-court. Cuban hoped to teach doubters that enthusiasm, showmanship, new-economy management, and sparkling new technology could make professional sports more profitable. Instead, it was cuban who got the lesson. "In the Internet, you make the rules," he groused to Sports Illustrated after his first season. "Here you spend your days and nights learning them."