Cuban and Irvin: Billionaire Buddies - By Mike Fisher

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Cuban and Irvin: Billionaire Buddies
By Mike Fisher
DallasBasketball.com

The exclusive story of how Mark Cuban set up Michael Irvin to be a billionaire – before the money “flew out of (Irvin’s) hand, like a butterfly’’ – and other vignettes from my weekend in LA with the flamboyant Cowboys legend:

MICHAEL’S LOST BILLION
A decade ago, Irvin headed up a small company that was looking for projects and investments. He sat down with another young businessman who has a project and needed investors. A perfect match – especially because the two Dallas-based fellas, with their shared love of sports and adventure and money and risk – immediately hit it off.
But by the time the meeting was over, they hadn’t come to an agreement on how much dough Irvin’s company would have to surrender in order to own 20 percent of the other man’s company. So they parted ways.
The other man’s company? Something called AudioNet.com, which became Broadcast.com. Which was eventually sold to Yahoo.com for $5.7 billion by the other man: Mark Cuban.
“We walked out of that meeting,’’ Irvin recalls, and Mark said, “It’s OK. We all walked in here happy and rich and even though we don’t have a deal, we’ll all walk out of here happy and rich.’
“Except,’’ Irvin continues, “I coulda be a whole lot happier and richer. I would’ve owned 20 percent of $5 billion. A billion dollars! It just flew out of my hand, like a butterfly. And now, everytime Mark and I see each other, he pulls out a calculator and rubs it in my face.’’
Says Cuban, confirming the tale to DallasBasketball.com: "I knew we'd be friends back then. And we're still friends now. But I'd bet we'd be better friends if Michael had agreed to take that deal.''

MEATBALLS WITH MICHAEL
Michael Irvin is hungry, but there are problems. We’re in Los Angeles, so we don’t have our bearings. It’s late, so restaurants are shutting down. And we’ve spent the weekend in a trendy part of town – West Hollywood -- so the Hall-of-Fame Cowboy has gone two days without his favorite snack.
"Why don’t these people serve wings?’’ he has moaned at virtually every meal. “All they eat around here is Smoothies.’’
We pull over and essentially park in the valet line of Dan Tana’s, the legendarily old-school restaurant, the pricey hangout of DiCaprio and Clooney. Irvin gets out of the car and marches into the restaurant – leaving the rest of his party in the car, wondering. …
Are we getting reservations? Should we get out of the car? Are we about to get arrested?
Ten minutes later, Irvin exits Dan Tana’s, bringing with him:
1) That cockily electric ear-to-ear grin, and
2) A massive while bowl and a couple of forks.
So we drive down Santa Monica Boulevard eating from a pyramid of Dan Tana’s meatballs that Michael had pilfered from the kitchen.

PLAYA-HATIN’
“When I first met a lot of the Hall-of-Famers, I really did look around and wonder if I’d ever get it. They’re not like I am. They’re straight. They’re classy. They’re elite. And I. … well, I was humbled to meet them.
“But then, once I was voted in, I went to a luncheon with a bunch of them. Old guys. And one by one, they came by and welcomed me to the club. A bunch of them told me that they admired the way I played, which meant the world to me, it really did.
At one point, Bruce Mathews (inducted along with Irvin) came up to me and said, “Michael, I really hated you. But I didn’t know you. You’re not so bad!’’ And then Thurman Thomas (in reality a long-time friend of Irvin’s) stood up and said, “Yeah, I really hated you, too.’’
“And I said back to Thurman, ‘You should still hate me. Of course you hate me. We kept kicking your ass in Super Bowls. Go ahead and hate me.’’

CAN I TELL YOU WHO I AM?
Many celebrities complain because strangers recognize them and approach them. Irvin has no complaints. … but by his own making, double the problems.
You see, not only do people stop Michael Irvin when he is, say, walking through an airport; Michael Irvin also stops THEM while he’s walking through an airport.
Old ladies. Kids. The janitor. The shoeshine guy. People in non-Cowboys football jerseys. And of course, women.
“I’m trying to stay incognito,’’ Irvin says with a knowing smile, and indeed, he has on sunglasses. But he also has on a massive ring (it looks like a carton of eggs, only with diamonds) and he also is wearing a beige jumpsuit and he’s also wearing beige matching sandals and a fancy beige cap.
So yeah, there’s NO WAY he’d ever stand out in a crowd. …

LOSING MY RELIGION?
Hardly. For all the heady surroundings – the first-class seats on the plane and the limo waiting at the airport and the fancy boutique hotel in Hollywood – Irvin seems to spend many of his waking moments listening to CDs. What’s in his ear? Sermons from his “daddy,’’ Bishop T.D. Jakes. Irvin doesn’t know I can hear him, but as he listens, he speaks along with the tape, mouthing Jakes’ words and inserting some of his own prayer.
Michael Jerome Irvin may be a flawed man, like all of us. But let there be no doubt: He’s is TRYING, and harder than most of us.

‘I HAVE A DREAM. …’
A few things about Michael’s now-famous Hall-of-Fame speech: 1) EVERYONE brings it up. Constantly. The impact of his words that day in Canton cannot be overstated. 2) He not only didn’t read from a script; he didn’t even have notes with him on the dais. His powerful remarks were prepared, of course. But they were prepared in his head, not on paper, truly an amazing accomplishment. 3) In preparation for his speech, Irvin studied almost 100 of the most famous speeches of all time. “I found a common thread, which is that there was a certain rhythm to them, like poetry. I wanted my speech to be like that.’’
Actually, he wanted something more specific than that.
“I wanted,’’ Michael says, “to sound Martin Luther King-like. Do you think I came close?’’

MICHAEL MEETS TIGER
Irvin isn’t much of a golf-watcher. But on this weekend, he is motivated to watch as Tiger Woods was winning the US Open.
“We have something in common,’’ Irvin says as he stares at the TV screen. “We have double confidence.’’
What does that mean?
“Tiger has confidence, because he knows he can beat you. But there’s something more: The guy he’s going to beat also knows Tiger is going to beat him. So it’s like, “I know I’m going to beat you. And YOU know I’m going to beat you. See? Double confidence.’’

IRVIN ON ESPN
Michael dishes a little bit on his former employer. He loves him some Tom Jackson (“one of the finest men I’ve ever known’’). He hates the habit of “teasing’’ a story throughout a SportsCenter and then waiting an hour before getting to it. And most of all, he’s troubled by what he perceives to be a bias in coverage.
“Vince Young got suspended from playing in a preseason game because he missed curfew, right?’’ Michael says. “It’s a quick story, it gets mentioned, it comes and it goes. Now, imagine if Terrell Owens misses a preseason curfew. Man, they’d have to open up a new network – ESPN-Ten – to make room for all the coverage they’d give that so-called story.’’

‘HELLO, THIS IS MICHAEL’
The cell phone never – I mean, NEVER – stops ringing. He speaks often to his wife, Sandy. He’s got countless business opportunities at his feet. But most of all, he’s got the love of the sporting world. At various times over the course of the weekend, for reasons related to his radio appearance or reasons related to his social life, I believe he speaks to: Jerry Jones, Deion Sanders, John Salley, Michael Strahan, Emmitt Smith, Butch Davis, Norv Turner, Sean Payton, Mark Cuban, Reggie Miller and (maybe) Barry Bonds. If he needs it, he’s got the use of Rush Limbaugh’s plane and if he needs it, he’s got the use of Hugh Hefner’s house.
So all the bigshots have his phone number. And I’m fine with that. Because I got half of Michael Irvin’s meatballs.

Link

[MavsX]

holy jesus

[sike]

talk about blowing it...

[Jack.Kerr]

Irvin with a billion dollars....that's a whole lot of hos, drugs and sartorial mishaps.