When Mark Cuban purchased the Dallas Mavericks on January 14, 2000, the face and tenor of the organization changed immediately. With a whatever-it-takes attitude and commitment to winning, Cuban has helped transform the Mavericks into one of the NBA's elite franchises.

From his first introduction to the team to the end of his first season as owner, the players responded with a 31-19 record, including a 9-1 mark in April 2000. Then the Mavs recorded back-to-back 50+ win seasons (53-29 in 2000-01, 57-25 in 2001-02) and advanced to the NBA Playoffs after not making the post-season for ten consecutive years. This season, the Mavs are considered solid contenders for the Western Conference championship.

Cuban was not only successful at instilling a sense of pride and passion into Mavericks fans, he also became the first owner in team sports to encourage fan interaction through e-mail on his personal computer. Under Cuban's aggressive leadership, Mavericks home games have become a total entertainment experience. The party atmosphere he helped instill with the return of the "Reunion Rowdies" carried over into the creation of the "Mavericks ManiAACs" at the new American Airlines Center.

Prior to his purchase of the Mavericks, Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, the leading provider of multimedia and streaming on the Internet. Broadcast.com was sold to Yahoo! Inc. in July of 1999.

Today, in addition to his ownership of the Mavericks, Cuban is the owner and chairman of HDNet, the world's only all-high definition national television network.