FERD LEWIS
Serving as a good example
Associated Press
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban dishes out ice cream at a Dairy Queen.
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
The name tag that said "Tony" did not fool anybody, of course. The man in blue denim manager's garb working behind the counter at a suburban Dallas Dairy Queen yesterday was Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
Which was why there were satellite TV trucks in the parking lot and a line of customers 100 yards long just to get in the door.
Free ice cream probably didn't hurt, either. Especially when patrons got to watch a billionaire struggle to keep the trademark swirl on top the soft ice cream cone from resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa, take hamburger orders and make change.
The concept of a modern sports franchise owner mixing with the public, much less taking their orders, has to be the biggest upset of the three month-old National Basketball Association season.
It might have been the first time in years anybody has handed over anything less than a $50 bill to an NBA owner and actually gotten change. Not to mention a "thank you."
Never mind that the whole three-ring exercise grew out of a crack — "I wouldn't hire him to manage a Dairy Queen" — the shoot-from-the-lip Cuban made about Ed Rush, the NBA's head of officiating.
Or, that the line cost Cuban a $500,000 fine from the NBA, the equivalent of a hefty down payment on a DQ franchise, and brought a challenge from the company to come work behind the counter for a day.
Maybe if more owners made like Cuban and stepped out into the real world for even an afternoon publicity stunt they'd gain a better feel for their constituencies.
Perhaps if more of them — and we're not just talking the NBA here — actually mixed with the fans in something other than the post-game traffic there would be some appreciation for those whose dollars are paying the bloated bill on pro sports these days.
Players who demand huge contracts are often castigated for having lost touch with the people who buy tickets. Sometimes, justifiably so. But what about the owners who routinely pay out by the armored-car load for mediocre talent and then plead poverty? Or, worse, demand taxpayer-financed stadiums that fewer of the tax payers can afford to visit?
There is a growing feeling that some sort of a baseball shutdown is lurking around the corner. Perhaps there wouldn't be if more owners took turns working a day behind Cuban's counter.
