Mark Cuban – billionaire team owner, dancer, and blogger – has instituted a curious policy inside the Dallas Mavericks’ locker room: No stinkin’ bloggers allowed!
Furthermore, if a blog writer is coming to cover a game, the publication must inform the Mavericks PR staff they are sending a blogger. In order to enforce this policy, we must know this information.
Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room to allow any and all bloggers in the locker room. There also are no standards that I have been able to come up with that differentiate between bloggers to the point where I should or should not credential one versus the other. My experience in reading blogs has favored bloggers not affiliated with major media companies, but that could be my unique bias.
This apparently stems from a negative post from Tim MacMahon, a writer for the Dallas Morning News. And according to the paper, he’s the only one affected by this ban since he was the sole blogger with regular access to the Dallas locker room.
Of course this isn’t the first time Cuban has had a beef with a sports blogger who had the audacity to be critical of him or his beloved Mavs. The NBA says they’re looking into the matter, and the newspaper has filed an official protest.
So, um, if we are to take this ban to its (illogical) extreme, does this mean that Cubes the blogger is no longer allowed to walk around the Mavs locker room either?
