Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur responsible for founding MicroSolutions (a National Systems Integrator/computer consulting firm) and more recently, Broadcast.com. Mark Cuban founded MicroSolutions in 1983 with little computer knowledge. Though he previously hadn’t owned a computer, he constantly worked with a “say yes to anything” philosophy. Anything his clients requested, Mark Cuban taught himself to do, and ultimately finished. By 1990 Mark Cuban was earning $30 million a year. This is when he decided to sell MicroSolutions to CompuServe for millions.
Reminiscing over radio broadcasts of Hoosier games back at Indiana University with a friend sparked the idea of online broadcasting. Thus Broadcast.com was born. Perhaps Cuban’s greatest achievement to date, Broadcast.com introduced radio and T.V. streaming online so that anyone anywhere can enjoy college/professional sports games as well as any other content being broadcasted. In 1999 Yahoo! bought Broadcast.com making Cuban’s employees millionaires and earning himself $2 billion. The $5.7 billion deal with Yahoo! combined Yahoo’s distribution platform with the internet’s largest audio/video multimedia platform.
(http://www.computer-schools.us/Mark-Cuban.htm)(http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/02/business/deal-makes-yahoo-a-multimedia-service.html?src=pm)
Mark Cuban’s ideas contributed a great deal to the evolution of multimedia. Broadcast.com featured many innovative ideas at the time that are now used by many multimedia sources. Some of these ideas include:
Continuous broadcasts of over 370 networks and radio stations, broadcasts of over 420 college and professional sports teams, 30 T.V. stations and networks, live music performances, music streaming with over 2200 CDs to choose from, special webcasts, and coverage of important events.
Multimedia that was available to anyone with an internet connection was something that had never previously been seen before. Giving people the option to watch their favorite college team online, when it wasn’t being aired on T.V. is something Mark Cuban especially wanted. Aside from sports, there were many continuous programs as well, such as BBC World Service, CNN Audioselect, Court TV and NASA TV. Giving any consumer with an internet connection access to multimedia for free has carried over to more recent multimedia websites such as Hulu.com and Youtube.com, where money is made from advertisements instead of subscription fees.
Aside from MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com, Mark Cuban has made many other innovative contributions to the world. HDNet is a television channel founded by Mark Cuban and Philip Garvin that broadcasts exclusively in HD format (1080i) and is also the first high-definition satellite network. HDNet airs music, documentaries, T.V. shows, and sports such as the NHL, NCAA college football, and NCAA college basketball. In 2009, many television networks did not renew their deals with HDNet due to increased cost.
Mark Cuban is known widely for owning the Dallas Mavericks franchise. On January 4, 2000, Cuban purchased NBA’s Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. Statistically, before Cuban owned the Mavericks they won 40% of their games. 10 years after Cuban’s management, the Mavericks have a 69% win percentage, made it to the finals in 2006 and 2011, and won their first NBA title in the 2011 finals.
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