Maverick billionaire NBA owner is a superfan

The 50-year-old Internet billionaire, who denies himself the luxury box view of his team in favor of the same seats he had before he owned the club, was charged Monday with insider trading. He denied the charges in a blog posting.

Cuban is accused of selling 600,000 shares of stock from an Internet search engine company, Mamma.com Incorporated, based on non-public information about an impending stock offer, saving himself 750,000 dollars in losses.

While Cuban is a rich businessman whose holdings include HDNet, a network of high-definition programming, he is best known to U.S. sports fans as the outspoken owner of the Mavericks who is a passionate fan of his NBA team.

Cuban co-founded MicroSolutions, a systems integration firm, in 1983 and later sold the business to CompuServe. In 1995, he co-founded Broadcast.com, a top Internet multimedia streaming site that was sold to Yahoo in 1999.

Cuban purchased the Mavericks in January of 2000 as the club was in the middle of a 10th consecutive losing season.

The Mavericks, powered by German star Dirk Nowitzki, have enjoyed eight consecutive winning seasons since then, including a trip to the 2006 NBA Finals where they lost to Miami.

Although they have struggled to a 3-7 start this season, the Mavericks have sparked excitement under Cuban, whose team media guide profile mentions his “whatever-it-takes attitude” at the start of the third paragraph on him.

Cuban has been an outspoken critic of the league and league referees in particular, incurring more than US$1.5 million in fines over the years for criticisms that fans often make but cost money when coming from NBA players, coaches and executives. “Change never comes cheap,” Cuban says.

Often wearing a Mavericks T-shirt at games, Cuban encourages fans to send him e-mails for feedback on the club and writes a blog on the team web site where he gives his own take on how things are going.

Among suggestions from supporters have come innovations like a three-sided shot clock in the team’s home arena, which opened before the start of the 2001-02 season, that allows it to be viewed from anywhere in the seating area.

In Dallas’ 2006 run to the finals, Cuban ripped NBA referees and was handed US$200,000 in fines, half from his blog posting rebukes.

“Giving less qualified officials an opportunity to officiate playoff games as a reward is a nice ‘Attaboy,’ but it risks the quality of our product,” Cuban wrote.

“It makes absolutely no sense to do it the way it is currently done. If the league wants the best officiating in every game, only use the best officials. Anything less cheats us all.”

Last year, in the wake of English former NBA player John Amaechi revealing that he is a homosexual, Cuban said any active NBA player who admits he is gay would become a wealthy role model.

“You would be an absolute hero to more Americans than you can ever possibly be as an athlete, and that’ll put money in your pocket,” Cuban said.

“On the flip side, if you’re the idiot who condemns somebody because they’re gay, then you’re going to be ostracized, you’re going to be picketed and you’re going to ruin whatever marketing endorsements you have.”

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