Mark Cuban serves it up at Dairy Queen

What is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA basketball team, doing serving Blizzards at Dairy Queen? He is making a point to the NBA and its officiating department. On Tuesday, January 8, 2002, the NBA assessed a league-record $500,000 fine against Mark Cuban for his recent remarks regarding referees. In a story published in The Dallas Morning News, Cuban was quoted, “Ed Rush (head of officiating) might have been a great ref, but I wouldn’t hire him to manage a Dairy Queen. His interest is not in the integrity of the game or improving the officiating.”

This fine is the latest in a string of incidents between Cuban and the NBA. Last year, he was fined seven times for a total of $505,000. Most of the violations that prompted these fines were also related to comments about officials.

Cuban summarizes his view, “The fact of the matter is the NBA is more about power than it is about getting the best possible product or even protecting its players.” In an email to ESPN, he states, “There is definitely a premium on playing politics over smart business. Call it the Enron way. It’s far easier to fine me than address the problems and, unfortunately, whether I ask the questions publicly or privately, the NBA doesn’t care enough about its players or customers to do something.”

Cuban has taken it upon himself to do something about the lack of consistency (i.e. quality) among NBA officials. In December, he hired a “statistics expert” to track referees during every Mavericks game. Cuban believes that referees are calling fewer fouls. “The players and coaches know it, so they are more aggressive. My guess is that someone is going to get hurt as a result. If we just enforced the rules as they are… we would have a much better game. Refs miss calls. It’s not one call that was the issue. It’s when there are inconsistencies throughout the game that creates problems.

Basketball as a Business

After arriving at the Coppell, TX store at 6:00AM, Mark spent the next two hours learning how to make the trademark swirl on the soft-serves cones and the thickest Blizzards around. Over 1000 people lined up, some waiting over two hours, to get served by Mark. The rush on the store was so big that it ran out of ice.

When asked about his experience, Cuban stated that this event reinforced his belief that the customer is most important. He praised Dairy Queen and the manager of the Coppell, TX store Parrish Chapman, “You have to understand your customers and learn to get better as a business. This is part of the point I was trying to make with the NBA.” He added, “I’d love to send Parrish up to the NBA to have him give them a lesson in exactly how to communicate. When anybody needed to interact with Parrish, he was right there to answer the questions. That’s the way you run a business. If Parrish just went up there and just took a look, we’d be a lot better off.”

Also, he believes in giving back to society. Cuban said that he will match the $500,000 fine with contributions of $375,000 to cancer research in the names of Joy Nelson (the wife of Mavericks’ coach, Don Nelson) and Norris Curtis, and $125,000 to MPS in the name of $125,000.

Some of you may ask who Mark Cuban is? Mark grew up in Dallas and went to Indiana University. After graduating, he started a technology-consulting firm without knowing even how to use a computer. After seven years, he sold the firm to CompuServe for $30 million. One day while he was enjoying his new fortune with his buddy from college, he wished that he could watch and/or listen to every Indiana basketball game from his home in Dallas. From this idea, he founded Broadcast.com. He later sold this to Yahoo!, and pocketed a nice $2 billion. With his second fortune made, he started to live the lifestyle of his dreams. He bought a Gulf Stream 5, the fastest corporate jet available, for $41 million on the Internet, the largest single purchase ever using the Internet. Also, he bought the Dallas Mavericks for $280 million.

When asked what makes him successful, he replied, “Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t – is usually an indicator that I’m doing something right.”