Dear Major League Baseball: Let Mark Cuban Buy the Chicago Cubs

If there’s one thing that needs to happen for baseball at this point, it’s letting Mark Cuban (at right), the current owner of the NBA franchise Dallas Mavericks, buy the Chicago Cubs. Mark Cuban purchased the Dallas Mavericks in 2000, and up to that year, the Mavericks had never made it out of the first round of the playoffs, assuming that they even made it there with their abysmal regular season records. However, once Cuban took over, the Mavericks have made it to the playoffs every year, and advanced to the NBA Finals in 2006. He has put enough money in the team over the course of the past couple of years to allow this to happen, something that needs to be done with the Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs are the lovable losers of the National League. They haven’t won a World Series since 1908. They’re like the pre-2004 Boston Red Sox. Except now, they still don’t have a World Series ring. One thing that can be said about the Cubs though, is that they have extremely loyal fans. Tickets to games routinely sell out, even when the team is playing poorly. Fans that aren’t attending games pack bars and clubs throughout the North side of Chicago just to watch the game and cheer on their team. If there’s any team, or fan base alike, that deserves to win a World Series, it’s the Chicago Cubs.

In 2006, the Chicago Tribune announced that they were going to sell the Chicago Cubs. This was big news in the baseball world. Immediately, speculation as to who was going to buy the team became the hot topic of the sports business world. A franchise like the Cubs has a price tag of nearly $700 million to $1 billion, so there were obviously only a few candidates. So far, there are two options: Mark Cuban, and John Canning Jr., a partner in a high-powered law firm based in Chicago. Canning Jr. is a personal friend of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. It seems as if a lot of factors are weighing in against Mark Cuban ever owning the Chicago Cubs. In the end however, Cuban owning the Cubs could be one of the best things to happen for baseball in recent years.

Cuban has said that if he were to purchase the Cubs, whose final sale will be in the Spring of 2008, he would opt out of sitting in lower box seats, the usual area where owners and front office executives sit, and instead take up residence in the bleachers. The Wrigley Field bleachers are notorious for having some of the craziest fans in baseball. They drink beer. They yell at opposing players. They scream and high five whenever anything good happens for their “Cubbies.” It’s like sitting in the student section of a college football game, except all the people sitting around you can be found in a business suite during the day. To have Mark Cuban sitting out there would be something to behold. Saying that he would sit out there is evidence that Cuban is a fan of the game. Sure, he could sit in this posh luxury box and entertain guests, but instead he wants to be out with the die-hard fans, screaming at players, and getting the full Wrigley experience at every game. This would be an awesome sight to watch. Now I don’t know about you, but I just can’t see Canning Jr., a partner in a prestigious equity firm, sitting out with the Bleacher Bums yelling at the other team’s right fielder with his shirt off and the fans taking him seriously.


The only knock on Cuban from current owners is that he is TOO passionate about his teams, and that he comes off in a bad light when seen screaming at officials at Mavericks games and getting in on team huddles during the game. Cuban has been fined at least $1,665,000 for a total of 13 separate incidents. He has criticized officials. He has thrown tirades when his team has lost. He has criticized players. He has done almost everything a regular fan does, but since he’s in the spotlight, he gets fined for it. He’s the bad boy of the NBA owners. He’ll do anything that will help his team win. He’s a self-made man, and has said, “I happen to make the personal choice to reinvest 100 percent of [all revenues] into players and organization,” something the Cubs could truly use.

It looks as if the odds are against him. It looks as if he stands less chance of owning the Cubs than David Spade does of ever being taken seriously as an actor. And this is a sad fact. The Cubs could really use an owner like Mark Cuban. He’d put absurd amounts of money into the team. He’d make them perennial contenders. They might even win a World Series (knock on wood). But instead MLB looks as if they’re too antiquated to let him buy the team. They’ll end up being sold to Canning Jr., who in turn will sit in his posh, luxury box seat, entertain guests, and not know the score of the game by the 5th inning. Well done, Major League Baseball. The opportunity to really bring in a new era of ownership and new ideas is right in front of you and you’re just letting it pass you by.