Saturday, February 5, 2011

Cuban Is Open To Owning The Mets

The New York Mets are in a bit of financial turmoil due to their dealings with the well known schemer Bernie Madoff. More specifically the Wilpon family, that owns the Mets may be forced to fork over $300 million from the money they made with Madoff, even though they say they were victims in his Ponzi scheme.

They're looking for a savior and that man might be Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Cuban has stated he's willing to listen to buying part of the Mets franchise if the price is right. The Wilpons are looking to sell 20 to 25 percent of the team. Cuban has said he won't bid on a Major League Baseball team because of the process he went through trying to purchase the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers. Forbes estimates that Cuban is worth $2.3 billion. So you know he has the money to buy in.

I think Cuban would be a good baseball owner and maybe good for the game. Look what he did for the Mavericks. They were toiling with the dregs of the NBA before he took over and made it into a competitive franchise, and competed for a championship. I think he possibly could've made either the Cubs or Rangers a yearly World Series contender if he was given the shot to own either one of them. He goes all out to make his team relevant and I have no doubt he would do the same in baseball. I feel the old blood owners didn't want to approve any ownership bids by Cuban because they simply don't like him. Maybee he's too brash and too open to the public (remeber the Dairy Queen stunt). Some of the long time baseball guys don't like that kind of person. Also I think he had enough in the bank to become another George Steinbrenner. That might be a stretch, but think about every big name star that's on the trade block or going to free agency and the Mavericks always show up on the list. He wouldn't be afraid to throw his money around.

"If they want to sit down and sell me on it, I can be a willing buyer and a willing customer," Cuban said before his Mavericks crushed the Knicks, 113-97 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. "But I'm not going to be a bidder on anything."


"For any baseball team, I'm not going to chase after it," Cuban said. "If someone sees me as a potential owner, I'll take their call and discuss a deal. I'm not going to get into a bidding situation ever again. I'm not going to be in a situation where I make the proposal and they just go through with it.



"Obviously, I feel like I'd be a good team owner in baseball, but I'm not going to go through the same process I did with the Rangers and the Cubs."

"We had a limit on what we could spend. You take a small part of something that makes a ton of money, if the price is right, no matter who you are. But I don't know the specifics of it, so I couldn't say."


The desire to run a baseball team is still there. He just doesn't want to jump through hoops of bull to do it. I don't blame him. 

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