Mark Cuban isn’t happy with the officiating in the NBA this year and for the good of competition he’s saying something about it. Cuban lashed out at officials today saying that the reffing in the NBA in 2012 has been “off the charts bad.”

The LA Times reports that Cuban has been upset about the officiating all year. On ESPNDallas.com, Cuban singled out the ejection of Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle and a series of no calls during the final minutes of the Mavs – Thunder game.

“These were officials that have been part of the league for years, and it was just off-the-charts bad. And, if no one ever says anything, nothing ever happens…”

Cuban said that the officials are going through the same fatigue as the players due to the jam-packed season but that the bad officiating is having on impact on games.

Cuban added:

“Some of these guys are having really bad nights, and it’s having an impact. The league’s got to come out and say, ‘OK, look, we understand they’re going through some tough travel or whatever. It’s just the way it is.’ Otherwise, if that’s not an impact, you have to wonder how some of these crews are still on the court.”

Cuban has been fined $75,000 for his comments.

Do you think the officiating in the NBA this year has been bad?

Mark Cuban Slams NBA Officiating, Fined $75,000 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, is slated to be a series regular on ABC’s Shark Tank when the critically-acclaimed show returns for its third season this fall.

Cuban, 52, stole the spotlight during a trio of guest appearances on the business-based reality series last season, prompting the show’s executive producer Mark Burnett to sign the outspoken Mav’s owner to a deal in which he will appear in 10 of the upcoming season’s 13 episodes.

In the show budding entrepreneurs are given the chance to pitch their inventions and business ideas to a group of tough, self-made, multimillionaire tycoons (the “sharks”). While the budding businessmen and women are looking for startup capital to take their ideas to the next level, the sharks are looking to get a return on their investment awn a piece of the next big business idea.

With his hard-nosed and hilarious nature, Cuban, who joins the ranks of FUBU clothing founder Daymond John and Infomercial “King” Kevin Harrington, is certainly going to make the upcoming season much more exciting.

Season 3 of Shark Tank – which is based on the Japanese series “Dragons’ Den,” created by Nippon Television Network Corporation – will begin this fall at its regularly scheduled day and time – Fridays at 9pm EST.

Check out the following clip showing Cuban in season 2 of Shark Tank:

Shark Tank starring Mark Cuban from Wiredset on Vimeo.

Mark Cuban Joins ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is no question that Mark Cuban is a loud mouth, can be a jerk, and a lot of time acts in a way that makes the crusty, mostly old baseball owners of America very nervous. However, he is also a guy with very deep pockets, a huge sports fan, a guy with a lot of passion, and one of four professional team owners whose organization is the reigning champions of their sport. With all of that it seems weird the baseball (IE Bud Selig) seem so hell bent on not allowing Cuban into the sport of baseball. Let us not forget he has tried to purchase several team already.

Right now baseball is full of bad owners, not like hockey where many owners mismanage their teams or sign bad deals that do not allow them to make money, but bad owners who have a ton of personal debt. To be fair some of these owners have mismanaged their clubs and the list is pretty extensive. Thanks to guys like Fred Wilpon (New York Mets), Frank McCourt (Los Angeles Dodgers), guys like Jeff Loria (Florida Marlins) and Robert Nutting (Pittsburgh Pirates) are not continually run over the coals for their actions with their teams.

I found an interesting article by Jayson Stark of that four-letter network. He goes on to list bad owners of the past. People like Marge Shot who used Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati as a dog run for her St. Bernard’s, and Charlie Finley who paraded a mule around the outfield, and the most infamous of all Bill Veck who dreamed up the big winner Disco Demolition night.

Given all that, it makes no sense why Bud has decided a rich, passionate guy like Cuban should not be allowed to own a team. While Cuban tends to rub people the wrong way, he is the kind of owner that baseball needs right now.

Related Links:

• The Business of Major League Baseball
• Joshua Lobdell.com

Should Mark Cuban be allowed to buy a MLB team? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It has been pretty ugly for the United Football League lately. The Florida Tuskers have been contracted, Jay Gruden jumped ship to the NFL, and Mark Cuban is suing the league for five million bucks. Since they want to move their third season up to an August start time with a finale around Halloween they now have to give up on adding a sixth team for year three. That means they will struggle on as a five team league, and worse than that they need to find a new Television partner.

Right now the UFL has nothing going for it. Versus and Cuban’s HD Net station look to be out as broadcast partners, and they do not have a lot of teams in markets that will attract new TV partners. The New England Sports Network did broadcast a few Hartford Colonials games last year, but people not living in the market have virtually no way to see these contests. Let us but a point on this if the UFL is not on TV the party is over.

The only reason this league has managed to survive this long is by being on TV. Even then the exposure they get is minimal at best. A perfect place for them to be would be on the NFL Network, but that seems unlikely to happen. With a gluttony of cable networks out there it seems likely that the UFL should find a partner, but that may not happen.

With just five teams in somewhat odd markets this league does not offer a TV partner much, much beyond the few die hard UFL fans that will tune in to watch this league. The problem with that is we are a definite minority. Year three is a make or break year for an upstart league, and they have already held one vote to disband.

Related Links:

• The Business of the UFL
• Joshua Lobdell.com

No UFL expansion set for 2011 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Why won’t Microsoft be buying Facebook Mr. Cuban?

Because as it marches forward in a Borg like fashion to dominate all aspects of the Web and as a result become awash in McDuck amounts of money it sees no reason to sell. The simple fact is that Facebook has no competitors regardless of the hype around Twitter and Buzz. They are in a class all of their own and yesterday’s announcements only serve to set them even further apart.

So to suggest that Facebook would think that they would be benefited by selling to Microsoft for any other reason than the gobs of money it would get is ridiculous. As for the money part, I don’t think I honestly don’t think that Facebook is concerned about money.

Their potential to make money could possibly put Google, and quite possibly Apple, to shame and really there is nothing that being bought by Microsoft that would bring anything to the table that Facebook needs. As it is companies are lining up to form partnerships with Facebook that can be far more lucrative in the long run for the company that the $10 or $20 billion lump sum.

So Mr. Cuban, you might have written a great pageview grabbing headline but seriously I would be highly surprised if Microsoft moved beyond a partner or investor status.

Facebook is a monolith in the making and has grown being something to buy regardless of who is carrying the chequebook.

No Mr. Cuban Microsoft will not be buying Facebook is a post from: The Inquisitr

To tweet or not to tweet, today that is really the question. While professional sports league can use sites like Twitter to reach a new generation of fans, and offer a new level of interaction between sports figures and their fans, there is  great potential for this interaction to go sideways and teams and leagues may find themselves fighting things in a court of law.

For example lets say I get the chance to host a radio a sports radio show and to more connect with my fans I tweet while I am live on the air. Let us say I get into it with a caller and then Tweet that I though that guy was an _______. Now since I am under the employ of some corporation they are now liable for a slander suit.

When we look at this like that is hardly seems worth it. However many sports leagues are looking at it in a different way, Dallas Mavericks owners was recently fined by the NBA for tweeting about the officials of a game. The NBA does not subscribe to the theory that all press is good press. More to the point the NBA does not want its owners or players criticising its officials live during one of their games.

That is why sooner of later all the major American sports leagues are going to invoke rules against players/owners tweeting while at live games, or maybe even while on any team owned property. What one does at home is their business, but sports leagues will not allow such unrestricted press about their contests.

Should sports personalities tweet during games? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The NY Times quotes a person close to Cuban saying that an S.E.C. employee had sent Cuban e-mails several times over the last year or so, accusing him of being unpatriotic. “The bone of contention was Mr. Cuban’s involvement with “Loose Change,” a documentary that accuses the Bush administration of engineering the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a pretext for the Iraq war.” Cuban accused the S.E.C. of “prosecutorial misconduct” in his press release responding to the Insider Trading allegations…and the suggestion it that this is what he was referring to.

An S.E.C. spokesman told the paper that the insider-trading investigation was run out of the commission’s Washington headquarters and that the person writing the emails worked out of a regional office and had no role in or knowledge of the investigation.

Here’s one of the emails sent to Cuban:

From: Norris, Jeffrey B.
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 2:27 PM
To: Mark Cuban
Cc: Cox, Christopher

Subject: RE: “Lose Change”

I AM SHARING THIS WITH CHAIRMAN COX. NEITHER HE NOR THE COMMISSION ENDORSE MY OPINIONS, BUT IN LIGHT OF YOUR THREAT, I THOUGHT SHOULD SEND THIS TO HIM.

Mark:

If this upsets you, I wonder how George Bush feels. I assume that Mr. Cox would view your involvement with “Loose Change” much as I do. After all, he served his country as a Republican Congressman from Orange County for nearly 20 years and was appointed by President Bush. If you feel like sharing my thoughts with Chairman Cox, be my guest.

Previously, I thought you were merely foolish and naïve. Now, however, I see that you are also a hypocrite. I guess your belief in free speech has severe limitations. If someone else is the victim of an absurd conspiracy theory, you defend your right to participate in smearing the good name of of a patriot like President Bush. But, when you are the subject of a parody of the attack you have endorsed, you suddenly issue threats.

I think I will e-mail this to Chairman Cox myself. I think he will enjoy it. I’m sure he is also a Laker fan.

Since Chairman Cox may not know the background, I will explain. Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and has participated in distributing the vicious and absurd documentary, “Loose Change,” which posits that President Bush planned the demolition of the World Trade Center as a pretext for going to war against Iraq. We have had some past exchanges about my opinion the Mr. Cuban’s support for this project is irresponsible and immoral. Below, I parodied his position that every opinion, no matter how absurd and vicious, deserves to be broadly disseminated.

For another interesting take on the Mark Cuban Insider Trading story, visit MakeYouGoMmm.com, who have dug through Cuban’s old posts relating to mamma.com

(via SAI)

Mark Cuban targeted because he’s a 9/11 Truther? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dot com billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been charged with Insider Trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to a statement from the SEC, the complaint alleges that in June 2004, Mamma.com Inc. invited Cuban to participate in the stock offering after he agreed to keep the information confidential. The complaint further alleges that Cuban knew that the offering would be conducted at a discount to the prevailing market price and that it would be dilutive to existing shareholders.

Cuban has responded on his blog with a set statement from his lawyer, nothing that he can’t say more at this stage:

I wish I could say more, but I will have to leave it to this, and let the judicial process do its job.
November 17, 2008
RE: SEC Civil Action in the United States District

for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division

Mark Cuban today responded to a civil complaint filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States District for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division. In its complaint, the Commission charges that Mr. Cuban engaged in violations of the federal securities laws in connection with transactions in the securities of Mamma.com Inc.

This matter, which has been pending before the Commission for nearly two years, has no merit and is a product of gross abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Mr. Cuban intends to contest the allegations and to demonstrate that the Commission’s claims are infected by the misconduct of the staff of its Enforcement Division.

Mr. Cuban stated, “I am disappointed that the Commission chose to bring this case based upon its Enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.”

The SEC investigation has been ongoing for 2 years, and on the surface they would appear to have been thorough in getting to this point. Here’s the statement of facts released by the SEC

STATEMENT OF FACTS

10. In March 2004, Cuban acquired 600,000 shares of Mamma.com, a 6.3% stake in the company. After his acquisition, the company’s chief executive officer and president (“the CEO”) was Cuban’s primary point of contact at Mamma.com.

11. During Spring 2004, Merriman Curhan Ford & Co. (“Merriman”), an investment
bank, suggested that Mamma.com should consider raising capital through a private placement
known as a PIPE (“private investment in public equity”) offering. After consideration, the
company decided to proceed with the PIPE and engaged Merriman to serve as the placement
agent.

12. At the end of June 2004, as the PIPE progressed toward closing, Mamma.com, at
Merriman’s suggestion, decided to invite Cuban, the company’s then-largest known shareholder,
to participate in the PIPE. The CEO was instructed to contact Cuban and to preface the
conversation by informing Cuban that he had confidential information to convey to him in order
to make sure that Cuban understood -before the information was conveyed to him -that he
would have to keep the information confidential.

13. On June 28,2004, the CEO sent an email message to Cuban titled “Call me pls,”
in which he asked Cuban to call him “ASAP” and provided both his cellular and office telephone numbers. Cuban called four minutes later from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, home of
the NBAs Dallas Mavericks, and spoke to the CEO for eight minutes and thirty-five seconds.

14. The CEO prefaced the call by informing Cuban that he had confidential
information to convey to him, and Cuban agreed that he would keep whatever information the
CEO intended to share with him confidential. The CEO, in reliance on Cuban’s agreement to
keep the information confidential, proceeded to tell Cuban about the PIPE offering. Cuban
became very upset and angry during the conversation, and said, among other things, that he did
not like PIPES because they dilute the existing shareholders. At the end of the call, Cuban told
the CEO “Well, now I’m screwed. I can’t sell.”

15. After speaking to Cuban, the CEO told the company’s then-executive chairman
about his conversation with Cuban, including the fact that Cuban was very upset and angry about
the PIPE. Shortly thereafter, the executive chairman sent an email to the other Mamma.com
board members updating them on various PIPE-related items, including the fact that the CEO had
spoken to Cuban:

Today, after much discussion, [the CEO] spoke to Mark Cuban about this equity
raise and whether or not he would be interested in participating. As anticipated he
initially ‘flew off the handle’ and said he would sell his shares (recognizing that
he was not able to do anything until we announce the equity) but then asked to see
the terms and conditions which we have arranged for him to receive from one of the participating investor groups with which he has dealt in the past.

16. In reliance on Cuban’s acceptance of a duty of confidentiality and his
acknowledgement that he could not sell until after the public announcement, the CEO, several ,
hours after their conversation, sent Cuban a follow-up email in which he wrote: “If you want
more details about the private placement please contact .. . [Merriman].” In his email, the CEO
provided the Merriman sales representative’s telephone number.

17. Using that telephone number, Cuban called the Merriman sales representative
later that afternoon and spoke to him for eight minutes about the PIPE. During that call, the
salesman supplied Cuban with additional confidential details about the PIPE. In response to
Cuban’s questions, the salesman told him that the PIPE was being sold at a discount to the
market price and that the offering included other incentives for the PIPE investors. Cuban was
very upset and angry about the PIPE during the call.

18. One minute after hanging up with the Merriman sales representative, Cuban called
his broker in Dallas and told the broker to sell his entire 600,000 share Mamma.com position.
He told the broker “sell what you can tonight and just get me out the next day.”

19. During afier-hours trading on June 28,2004, Cuban sold 10,000 of his 600,000
Mamma.com shares at an average cost per share of $13.499

20. The following morning, June 29,2004, Mamma.com’s executive chairman sent another email to the board. He wrote that “we did speak to Mark Cuban ([the CEO] and, subsequently, our investment banker) to find out if he had any interest in participating to the extent of maintaining his interest. His answers were: he would not invest, he does not want the company to make acquisitions, he will sell his shares which he can not do until after we announce.”

21. On June 23,2004, Cuban sold his remaining 590,000 Marnma.com shares during
regular trading at an average cost per share of $13.2937.

22. On June 29,2004, at 6:00 p.m. after the markets had closed, Marnma.com
publicly announced the PIPE offering.

23. On June 30,2004, the first trading day following the public announcement,
trading in Mamma.com opened at $1 1.89 -down $1.215, or 9.3%, from the June 29,2004
closing price of $13.105. The stock price on June 30,2004 ultimately closed at $1 1.99, down
$1.1 15, or 8.5%, from the June 29,2004 closing price. Mamma.com continued to decline over
the next week, closing at $8.00 on July 8,2004 (down 39% from the June 29,2004 closing
price).

24. By selling his Mamma.com shares prior to the public announcement of the PIPE,
Cuban avoided losses in excess of $750,000.

25. Cuban later publicly stated that he had sold his Mamma.com shares because the
company was conducting a PIPE, which issued shares at a discount to the prevailing market price
and also would have caused his ownership position to be diluted. Cuban never disclosed to
Mamma.com that he was going to sell his shares prior to the public announcement of the PIPE.
26. Cuban sold his Mamma.com securities on the basis of material, non-public
information he received from the CEO, and, subsequently, from the Merriman sales
representative. Cuban knew or was reckless in not knowing that he had received material, non-
public information from Mamma.com and that he breached a duty of trust or confidence that he
owed to Mamma.com when he sold on the basis of that information.

27. As a result of the conduct described herein, Cuban violated Section 17(a) of the
Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule lob-5 thereunder.

Mark Cuban Charged with Insider Trading is a post from: The Inquisitr

The problem with his argument is that he mixes the delivery method with the end result. He makes the presumption that we need broadcast television to obtain the end result of quality programming, but he’s wrong. There’s 105 million reasons today why he’s wrong.

105 million is the number of streamed programs watched on Hulu in July, according to figures released by Nielsen. 105 million times in the United States alone (and Hulu is US only) people watched full television programs on Hulu, a site NewTeeVee notes have only just hired a marketing firm and are said to be about to get $50 million in free promotion from NBC and News Corp. Better still, in terms of online video viewing, Hulu ranks only 8th. The true number of videos watched online is close to 6 billion among the top ten sites in the United States alone. But for the sake of Cuban’s argument, Hulu is the important number, because the site shows primarily television content. Hulu proves in some respect that the platform is the message, but only in demonstrating even further that the switch to online is on.

Then there’s the Olympics, which Cuban uses to prove the sustainability of broadcast television. That NBC’s online coverage is verging on epic fail may be open to argument, but the BitTorrent numbers don’t lie. According to TorrentFreak, the Olympic Opening Ceremony is the highest rating BitTorrent download for the second week in a row, with over 2 million downloads. A small number perhaps in the broader context of Olympic viewer numbers, but a remarkable figure none the less when we consider both the legalities of the download, and the demand for it when there was some legal coverage online. People want content online and are NOT simply using the internet to snack as Cuban suggests. They want the real deal, and as we’ve already covered, the NBA and NFL are both moving to offer live coverage online. If Cuban is right, surely there isn’t demand for live sport to be shown online, and we’d be switching off our computers and turning on our HD widescreen big LCD’s. But the real numbers don’t lie: In the United States, 2.5 million viewers switched off in the spring on 2008, people are spending more time online than watching television, and the average age of a television viewer in the United States is now 50.

The trend is here, and still we sit at the tip of the iceberg in terms of bringing television to the lounge room. There will always be a demand for live sport, in HD, on a big screen television, and yet bringing that content online to the television screen is limited today through cost and technology. And yet it can be done. You can watch television in HD on the internet today. I rented a movie from the iTunes store in HD last week and watched it on my big screen television via an Apple TV. The cost and reach of broadband may cause issues now, but both issues are being addressed, and availability will only improve. Sony is adding Internet access as a feature to its televisions today, and other are sure to follow. We sit at the dawn of internet enabled television boxes, with companies such as Apple and Netflix looking to penetrate into the mainstream.

The switch is clear. The content goes where the viewers are, and increasingly more and more people are switching to the internet. That number will only increase as more content becomes available legally online, and eventually to the point of dominance when that content can be viewed, from a recording or live in the lounge room on a big screen television. Cuban is right that people want to watch live HD sport on the big screen, but he shouldn’t confuse the delivery method with the end product.

105 Million Reasons Why Mark Cuban is Wrong is a post from: The Inquisitr