Cuban: Quieter and moving closer to Cubs

Estimates are that the Cubs could end up being the most expensive U.S. sports team purchase in history, possibly worth as much as $1 billion.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- How do you get famous NBA bad-boy owner Mark Cuban to shut up and play nice? Simple: Dangle in front of him the chance to buy one of the most attractive franchises in sports.

Two sources familiar with the sales process of the Chicago Cubs confirmed to CNNMoney.com that Cuban is one of a handful of bidders who have been cleared by Major League Baseball to look at the Cubs' books.

Cuban has been identified as one of the bidders for the Chicago Cubs for many months. Now, as he moves closer to the endgame, the Dallas Mavericks owner has become the model of decorum that NBA Commissioner David Stern probably never thought he'd live to see.

Cuban and the other bidders who have been approved to see the financials - including J. Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade (AMTD), and John Canning, chairman of private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners - are still waiting to see the books from the Cubs' current owners, the media conglomerate Tribune Co. (TRB, Fortune 500)

Estimates are that the Cubs could bring between $750 million to $1 billion, and the price would go even higher if the deal includes the company's interest in cable networks that carry the teams' games. Wrigley Field could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars more. It thus is poised to be the richest sale in U.S. sports franchise history, dwarfing the bargain-basement price of the $280 million Cuban paid for the Mavericks in 2000.

The Tribune Co., which is selling assets as part of its own sale to Chicago real estate developer Sam Zell, announced Wednesday that it expected to complete the sale of the team in the first half of 2008. A successful bidder might not be identified even by the start of spring training.

The outspoken Cuban once said the head of officiating in the NBA was not qualified to run a Dairy Queen. He also has been hit with a series of fines by the league for his comments.

But he hasn't been fined since June 2006, when his comments about officiating in the NBA finals that his Dallas Mavericks lost cost him $250,000. And his other public comments are far milder than you would expect from him.

When he stopped by CNN the other day, he wouldn't say word one about his interest in the Cubs or baseball, or even comment on the general economics of the sport compared to the salary-capped NBA. And he had almost nothing but good things to say about the NBA leadership.

He said if he had to give a letter grade to the way the business side of the league is being run, he'd give it a B-plus. When I suggested that was a better grade than you'd give someone unable to manage a Dairy Queen, he grimaced and said he wasn't grading the quality of officiating. But he also clearly wasn't about to go down that road again.

"That was six years ago," he said about the Dairy Queen comment.

And while he'd like to see the NBA step up domestic marketing, particularly in the offseason, he raved about the league's overseas growth and online offerings.

"I think internationally, we're perfect," he said.

Even his famously noisy blog has quieted down, at least as it relates to the NBA. The former dot-com billionaire might criticize Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), YouTube and peer-to-peer technology. But the only criticism of the NBA on blogmaverick.com in the last month questions why Maverick player Devin Harris isn't on the All Star ballot, not the type of thing that will get folks in NBA offices upset.

Cuban was at CNN to talk about Seats for Soldiers, a charity he's involved with that gives court-side seats to U.S. servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That night he showed up at the Mavericks-Knicks game at Madison Square Garden and even passed up an opportunity to take a shot at the Knicks' troubled management when asked by local sportswriters.

All of this is likely the result of the realization that unlike his 2000 purchase of the Mavs, when his dollars did all the talking that matters, his effort to buy the Cubs will at least partly depend on whether he is deemed acceptable by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the other baseball owners.

Rival bidder Canning is a minority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, the club that Selig used to own. And Canning has been described in other reports as a longtime friend and business partner.

Cuban probably has the dollars he'll need to buy the Cubs. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.6 billion. What he also has to show is that he has the temperament that MLB will want to see.

He's never going to be confused with some low-profile team owners. He does blog and e-mail with fans. He appeared on "Dancing with the Stars" this fall. He still gets excited when watching a game at courtside.

Just don't expect to see him live up to the more outrageous parts of his reputation, at least for the next few months.