Mark Cuban Blogs About Cubs Sale

The Blog Maverick shares -- or overshares? -- on sale's inner workings

By EAMONN BRENNAN

Updated 10:48 AM CST, Tue, Jan 6, 2009

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The last time we talked about Mark Cuban, we were sure the unlikely Cubs bidder and current Dallas Mavericks owner was officially done bidding on Chicago's North Side franchise. Why? A simple reason: The allegations of insider trading levied against him. Already an MLB outsider, it seemed impossible that other owners would allow someone with an ongoing criminal issue to buy one of the league's flagship franchises.

So that was that. Cuban was done. Or was he? In a long blog post published today, Cuban details the inner-workings of the Cubs sale and, just before ending, fails to count himself out of the proceedings. But before that brief cliffhanger, Cuban covers a few highlights:

-- Cuban says he doesn't want to divulge any numbers, or too many details, but says that everyone he worked with at the Cubs and the Tribune were friendly and professional. Aw. Isn't that cute?
-- Cuban believes that fielding a winning team in the future was important to the Tribune for strictly financial reasons (more papers sold, more TV watched, etc.).
-- Some people in baseball believed Cuban's "dedication to winning" meant he would overspend on players, or attempt to inflate payroll the way the Yankees and Red Sox have done. He says he would have bee more than happy keep the Cubs in the second payroll tier and devoting leftover resources to scouting and development. We imagine MLB owners didn't quite take him at his word.
-- Cuban said he was likely going to push for business deal advantages for the Cubs over the Sox, since they are the more popular team in the city. He doesn't know whether Jerry Reinsdorf was active in preventing him from buying the team.
-- Lastly, facing an already difficult financial situation (finding a billion dollars), "the credit crisis hit, and hit hard." Cuban found it difficult to find any banks to back his loan. He tried to turn the negotiations with Tribune friendly to a cash purchase, but that would have likely devalued the franchise and didn't happen. So Cuban asked for an extension.

He concludes: "I knew that if they got the money they wanted for the team, well my bid was not going to be high enough anyway. If they didnt, or the other bidders couldnt come up with their money, they would come back to me. I’m still waiting [sic]."

Dead or alive? That's the question here. Maybe Tribune Company won't come back to Cuban, but if the details in this blog post are entirely truthful, it's hard to argue with Cuban's negotiations or managerial acumen -- and who knows? Maybe the other bidders will fade away, and Cuban will get his second chance. Now about that pesky insider trading stuff ...