Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban should not be looking to run for president now
Mark Cuban is either woke, or just another do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do leader.
There is a push for the owner of the Dallas Mavericks to run for president in November. He would make for a compelling candidate, but he needs to pass on 2020.
If he’s serious about going for it in 2024 or beyond, he needs to be sure he is OK with the avalanche that comes with a candidacy, and that he practices what he is currently preaching.
Much of his non-NBA rhetoric these days focuses on what American businesses should do during, and after, the coronavirus shutdown.
“I think that this is a time ... where we really have to reevaluate how we treat workers, how people are paid, how can we get them into a role where they receive an equity as part of their compensation,” Cuban said in an interview with NPR in early April.
Agreed.
And this magnanimous, generous, humane platform applies to Cuban, too.
Because, a Cuban for the White House candidacy is going to reveal that his previous actions have not always met the standard he now professes. This is not Sharknado 3.
When it comes to treating employees right, his players and coaches never have complained. He’s always been charitable, and made treating the fans with respect and reverence a priority.
Then there is the matter of the rest.
In 2004, 60 Minutes profiled Cuban with a piece titled, “Self-Made Maverick.”
In his interview with Steve Kroft, Cuban admitted to running what was essentially a harmless Ponzi scheme in college at Indiana University to help pay for tuition. The story is charming.
What followed is less so.
When it came to the work place, Kroft described it as “100 people jammed into cubicles,” all of whom were taking less pay for more work.
That is a common reality for people who want to work in sports.
Kroft told Cuban, “You are exploiting young people.”
Cuban responded, “Yes, we are. It’s a sweatshop here, and we’re proud of it.”
Don’t take this literally. This is typical Cuban tongue-in-cheek, with a hint of sincerity.
He finished this part of the interview saying, “The reality is there is so much competition for these jobs.”
The implication being that you don’t have to pay them as much. There is competition for a lot of jobs now, and that will likely be with us for months to come. But that fact does not mean it’s OK to treat people as disposable.
However, this is not a Mark Cuban problem. This is an American workforce problem.
Employers and owners don’t care, or don’t have a clue, just how close to the Terrified Line the average American worker lives to cover the costs of their lives. While a business owner earning seven or eight figures sweats the mortgage to his second house, his employees are too often worried about covering a car payment — assuming they can even afford a car in the first place.
Is he treating, and compensating, those “sweatshop,” workers any better today than he was when he bought the Dallas Mavericks in 1999?
It should be noted that also featured in this 60 Minutes piece was then Mavs president Terdema Ussery.
Ussery is the former Mavericks’ CEO whose unprofessional behavior was at the center of a 2018 Sports Illustrated report about the team’s workplace environment for women. The description of the conditions ranged from uncomfortable to hostile.
Cuban owned the blind spot. He donated millions to women’s causes, and hired a woman to be the team’s CEO.
If Cuban has any desire to run for the White House, all of these details, and much worse, will come out again.
In October of 2017, I asked the owner of the Dallas Mavericks if he would consider running to be the president of the United States.
“If I was single I would do it,” was his response. Cuban is married with three children. He also said, “I haven’t decided yet.”
We are about six months away from the 2020 presidential election. He’s not running. The window on ‘20 is closed.
Why anyone deliberately puts themselves through the hell of a presidential candidacy is beyond rational thought.
At 61, he’s certainly at the right stage of his life to give it a shot. He gives good, reasonable answers on a wide range of topics that concern our economy and Americans.
And he has a lot of money. And he is famous. And he’s media savvy. And he is famous. And he is on a successful reality TV show. And he is famous.
If he is brave — or crazy? — enough to run, and try to convert his ideas and concepts into legislation, one hopes that he has re-evaluated, and changed, how he treats, and compensates, his workers.
If he hasn’t, that will come out, too.
We really don’t need another do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do elected leader.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 5:45 PM.
