Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban's first real job as a businessman was selling garbage bags and powdered milk in his neighborhood of south Pittsburgh. By giving disco dancing lessons Cuban paid his way through

the college of his choice, Indiana University. Mark chose Indiana because of the low cost but, it was one of the top business schools in the U.S.

Shortly after college in 1982, Cuban founded Microsolutions. The company was a system integrator in Dallas. It resold items for bigger companies like IBM, Apple Computer, and 3Com. One of Microsolutions biggest clients was Perot systems. In July 1990, just 7 years after Cuban founded Microsolutions; he sold the company to

CompuServe Inc. for 6 million dollars. CompuServe Inc. waqs a subsidiary of H & R Block.

Soon after selling Microsolutions, Cuban and fellow Indiana alum Todd Wagner had the idea of broadcasting live T.V. through the internet. This led to the founding of Broadcast.com. In 1999, just 4 years after founding Broadcast.com he sold it to Yahoo! for a reported 5.7 billion dollars.

After completing the deal with Yahoo!, Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks basketball team for 285 million dollars in February of 2000. Following the purchase of the Mavericks Cuban had become one of the most controversial team owners in the NBA history. In one year Cuban amassed over 1 million dollars in fines. Cuban then paid the over 1 million dollars in fines back to the NBA in pennies.

Cuban still works with alum Todd Wagner running 2929 Entertainment. The company is responsible for the updated version of the Star Search television show on CBS. Through 2929 Entertainment Cuban also purchased HDnet which is the first high-definition