RE: Does Mark Cuban Think The NBA Is Done?
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Some people (or companies) buy professional sports teams for purely financial reasons, especially as it relates to taxes. That's not necessarily wrong, but fans shouldn't expect free agent binges under these sorts of ownerships.
On the other hand Mark Cuban was a superfan. He just happened to have enough money to buy a pro team in one of the planet's top leagues.
Ego is absolutely part of becoming a team owner, especially if one of a league's storied franchises is being sold (New York Yankees, Yomiuri Giants, Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Bears, FC Barcelona, etc.). For a superfan who happens to be owner, ego can override better financial judgment.
Unlike superfans such as Daniel Snyder of the Washington Commanders (formerly the Redskins), Mark Cuban was a successful owner by any measure. He took a sad-sack franchise to the post-season and then to a championship. He made his town THE place to be for free agent players. Television networks wanted to televise games featuring his team. While Snyder turned his team into a punchline for a bad joke, Cuban turned the Dallas Mavericks into a marquee team.
As financially rewarding as it can be to own (and later sell) a pro team, it's even more rewarding from a psychic standpoint. Mark Cuban took his team as far as he could take it, and he sees that the uncertainty of the next few years will drain the team of psychic value he perceives the team has.
The only thing he hadn't done was coach the team, and he may have turned out to be a better coach than some of those he hired to coach his team.
For an example of the opposite type of owner from Mark Cuban, look no further than the New York Knicks. Horror stories abound, so I won't bore you with those sad tales of woe. @taskmaster4450le and @jimmy.adames can explain this aspect of the Knick much better than I can.
Ego is probably the worst part of these team owners who believe they can run a sports franchise like they run the businesses they built their wealth on. The smarter owners like the Rooney's in Pittsburgh as a great example put the right people in place to bring them to the promise land of championships or at the very least consistent winning seasons. Dolan is a horrible owner and why the Knicks organization until now have not had many consecutive winning seasons @magnacarta
What you say in your comment is true, and it's good that you mentioned the Rooney family in Pittsburgh.
Ego alone isn't the worst part of those team owners. It's ego combined with lack of vision or intelligence. We deal with it as Knicks fans every day: we could tolerate an Emperor Palpatine because he had vision; instead, we ended up with Admiral Ozzel, and you know what happened to him.
Even though you're anti-NYY (not that there's anything wrong with that), you can see that Steinbrenner could have ended up like the Dolans had he not put the right people in place to run his team. Now he's remembered more as a Seinfeld character than as the lunatic owner of the Bronx Zoo-era teams and a twice-sanctioned owner.
It goes back to winning. Put the right people in place, get on track to winning or even a championship, and not only does it solve many problems but it also reflects well on ownership. It still surprises me that many owners fail to grasp this basic point. Although he was a train wreck the last 20 years of his life, Al Davis of the Raiders knew this to his bones and it showed between 1960 and 1990.
Yes that's a good point. The tax write off's would be huge for a sporting club. Given its a billion dollar sector. But that is another phenomenon like churches and taxes