Calling Cuban to Pittsburgh

Yesterday I completed reading through my first issue of Sports Illustrated, and I'm glad I was resolved to go through it from cover to cover, because the very last article caught my attention: A Changeup for Bud's Boys. In it, SI's Chris Ballard outlines his case for why the famous (even infamous, in some ways) owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban,, is the right choice as the next owner of the Chicago Cubs. Ballard is very much on point with his argument from my perspective. I think he's absolutely right, that having Cuban in Chicago would be great for baseball. However, I think there's a place where he would be better for baseball - Pittsburgh. That's right, I want Mark Cuban to buy the Pirates.

This is not a random whim, as Cuban has ties to the Pittsburgh area and has been linked to possible purchases of city sport teams in the past. And the reality of this case seems to be that, despite his interest, he won't be buying the Cubs, for the reasons that Ballard cites, which are basically about MLB owners not being comfortable bringing a pot-stirrer like Cuban in when they have another viable option. The Cubs are an attractive purchase, and so MLB is in a position of strength. For the small market Pirates, who haven't had a winning season in 15 years, the market would likely be much smaller, and so the other owners might not be left with much of a choice if Cuban wanted in.

To be fair to the current MLB owners, I understand their hesitations, to a point. I am not a big fan of Mark Cuban, the guy. The NBA certainly could do without his loud-mouth, attention-grabbing, referee berating antics. He's constantly in the news, usually for the wrong reasons, most often getting fined. What the NBA can't do without, however, is Mark Cuban, the intelligent and fan savvy team owner. During Cuban's tenure as owner, the Mavs have gone from one of the NBA's bottom feeders, to one of the marquee franchises, consistently being among the top handful of teams. Whether the NBA brass would admit it or not, Cuban has clearly brought more positive to the league than negative. And, for a number of reasons, it's quite likely that Cuban would not be as ever-present with a baseball team as he has been with the Mavs, so MLB shouldn't expect to deal with those issues as often as the NBA does.

Ballard's article makes a very solid case for why Cuban would be a great owner of the Cubs, and most of those points would translate to any team, so I'm not going to spend much time restating why I think he would be a great owner in Pittsburgh. What I seek to bring to this discussion is a case as to why having Cuban as a great owner in Pittsburgh is better for baseball than having him as a great owner in Pittsburgh. First of all, the Cubs don't need Mark Cuban. The team is a big time revenue generator as is, with a die-hard following that goes well beyond the city of Chicago. Any ownership group that isn't totally incompetent should be able to come in and find success in Chicago. In Chicago, Cuban is just another big market, cash cow owner, like the ones we already have in Boston and New York, among other places. Hardly noteworthy, and not really having any grand significance outside of Chicago.

Pittsburgh, however, is a different animal. It's a pretty small market in baseball terms, and one that has been downtrodden for the better part of the last 20 years. It does, however, have a strong baseball tradition. And the current ownership group has bought into the standard small market "party line" of bemoaning baseball's economic disparities and saying they just don't have enough money to compete with the big boys. Meanwhile, they turn some of the biggest year to year profits as that economic system that they decry takes money from the big boys and lines their pockets, with no formal expectation that they actually invest it in the team.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I think baseball's economic structure provides a perfectly level playing field. However, it is markedly improved from the pre-revenue sharing days, even if the small market teams refuse to acknowledge that fact. As long as these teams continued to be owned by groups who are concerned solely about the present day bottom line, they will continue as a group to rack up nice profit margins, while putting a poor product on the field. And, as long as no one "breaks ranks", they can continue to point the finger at the MLB system when their fans complain. However, my opinion is that, at present, there is at most 1 (and that's an extraordinary situation in Florida) team that doesn't have the resources to be consistently competitive, assuming they use those resources well.

This is where Cuban comes in. I understand that baseball is a business. I don't expect owners, who are obviously skilled businessmen, to come in and just lose money year in and year out to put a winner on the field. However, his tenure in Dallas demonstrates that Cuban understands the concept of spending money to make money. Cuban has also demonstrated a strong ability and willingness to invest in and build a fan base and a market. Listening to the fans to the extent that he does is a great way to start that process. In his 7+ years in Dallas, Cuban has almost tripled the value of the franchise (based on Forbes' yearly valuations), and has taken the team from the bottom 1/3 of the league in yearly revenues to the top 1/3 (also according to Forbes). Now, Forbes also shows that the Mavericks consistently lose money annually from the basketball operations, but given their high revenues, the Mavs could clearly be profitable if they chose to do so. Cuban seems to be willing to pour extra money into the Mavs in the name of his competitive spirit.

Now, it generally takes a little longer to turn a baseball team around, for a variety of reasons, so I wouldn't necessarily expect Cuban to be so quickly successful in Pittsburgh. However, I believe within 5 years he could have Pittsburgh in a very competitive position once again, and could keep them profitable, if that was his objective. Whether he was necessarily raking in money on a yearly basis, he would clearly be making out in terms of what would happen to the value of the team.

Instead of just another big market villain, Cuban would be someone that other small market fans can point to when their ownership groups cry poverty. He would blow away the lie that a lot of ownership groups are trying to sell: "We're doing the best we can under the current system." With Cuban putting the model on display in Pittsburgh, these owners would basically be faced with a choice of either putting forth a real effort to compete, or selling to someone who will.

From my perspective, those are better options than the present day, where they cry poverty and try to convince their fellow owners to vote them a bigger share of the big market revenues in the next CBA.