In the New York Times’ “What’s Online” column, Dan Mitchell takes aim at Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and blows a hole in his own foot:
[W]hen [Cuban]’s not talking about himself the pervasive theme is money, and why it is good. In a recent entry about a proposal to sell ad space on N.B.A. players’ uniforms, he makes a decent financial case for the idea, but he does so as if finances were the only consideration.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for the N.B.A. to monetize the lead we have built in making the N.B.A. an international game and brand,” Mr. Cuban writes. “The time for the N.B.A. to seize this opportunity is now – for the right price, of course.”
It is as if it had never occurred to him that many fans might object. Baseball fans already have to try to enjoy the national pastime at places with names like Cellular One Field. Now they may see their basketball heroes turned into sweaty, panting human billboards. Mr. Cuban’s readers are left to comment.
“I am sick and tired of advertising,” Peter Wallroth writes. “It is creeping into everything, and it is driving me insane. If my sports teams start becoming advertisements I am going to have to really consider not watching them anymore.”
News flash, Dan. Every owner of every major league sports team is thinking about money all the time, and how to make more of it. If other NBA owners are thinking of putting together a plan to sell advertising on player jerseys, we’ll never know about it unless one of them decides to leak the story to a reporter. By the time the plan is implemented, it will certainly be too late for fans to object.
By contrast, Cuban puts his ideas out there in public on blogmaverick.com, for fans to read and react to. He allows reader comments. So if it hadn’t yet occurred to him that fans might object, he’ll get a chance to hear directly from the fans. Wow. Communication! Imagine that!
Ironically, Dan’s newspaper doesn’t allow readers to comment directly on an article Dan posts. It is as if it had never occurred to Dan that readers of his newspaper might object to his opinions about Cuban. So the only way I can tell Dan he’s full of crap is to post this note.
“What’s online,” indeed.
Update: Tim O’Reilly noticed Dan’s column also and comments, “These ‘blogs’ must be quite threatening, for the Times to devote a whole column to slamming them!“
Ed Bott 
Perhaps you didn’t notice the email address affixed to the column.
whatsonline@nytimes.com
I noticed. But sending an e-mail is not the same as having a public conversation with your readers. Which is what Cuban is doing. Which is what I’m doing here.
but, but…
“So the only way I can tell Dan he’s full of crap is to post this note.”
You might also want to search the Web for previous columns, several of which have been quite blog-positive. I think last week’s was the one about Clear Channel. Take a look.
Well, sure. I could also call Dan’s office and leave a profanity-laced voicemail, or send a postcard or fax or telegram. In all of those cases, I would be the only one who knew about my comments, he would be free to ignore it, and in fact I would have no way of knowing that my e-mail was ever received (much less read), spam filters being what they are.
My point is that Dan’s column criticized Mark Cuban for not having a clue about what the fans want and then quoting a fan comment that was left in public, on Mark’s blog, using a comment mechanism that Mark set up to capture direct feedback instantly. It’s really hard to see what point Dan was trying to make, except maybe that he thinks the wealthy owner of a professional sports team has a big ego. Duh.
Dan may have had good columns in the past, but this one was relentlessly focused on the theme that blogs and bloggers are dumb, egotistical, and self-obsessed, and that companies doing blogs are simply falling victim to a fad.