The Showdown: Mark Cuban vs ESPN

 

 

It was reported yesterday that Mark Cuban revoked the season media passes for Tim MacMahon and Marc Stein, two ESPN writers. While not was much mentioned in regards to the full story yesterday, it’s become a little more clear now that Cuban has given his thoughts on the matter.

 

Tim MacMahon has covered the Dallas Mavericks for many years, but recently has spent time on a more national level. Marc Stein has been a national writer for ESPN since 2000, and has offered a lot of coverage for the Mavericks. While both of them are based out of the Dallas area, it appears that their focus on the Mavericks organization has definitely wavered as of late, which has clearly irked Mark Cuban.

 

“Maybe I will be wrong but I see a direct path from the trends in coverage of games we are seeing over the last couple years to the automation of reporting on games and the curation of related content,” Cuban wrote in an email to the Associated Press. “This isn’t a knock on wire services or their reporters. They are valued and valuable in sports coverage.”

 

It’s pretty clear that while Mark Cuban would love more national attention of his franchise, he also understands that their will be focus on other teams around the league and that those teams will get priority over his. With that being said, what clearly has him upset is the way they will be covered moving forward, which has to do with ESPN relying on “wire coverage” for the Mavericks and 18 other teams.

 

Essentially, what “wire coverage” consists of is automated recaps and very little coverage of games throughout the season. It’s Mark Cuban’s battle against the NBA “media robots”, but one has to wonder if banning two humans is a good way of going about it.

 

“While it may seem counterintuitive to ban someone from covering us as a way of stopping automation, it really was my only option,” Cuban said. “As is evident by the AP partnership with Automated Insights, it’s not if but when.”

 

ESPN spokesperson Josh Krulewitz said, “We’re committed to thoroughly covering the Mavs and the NBA.”