Mark Cuban (Almost) Takes Advantage Of Peter King

Earlier tonight while perusing twitter for updates on the US Men’s Soccer Team’s quest at a World Cup berth, I happened across a rather strange feud. It seems that Mark Cuban decided to pick a fight with Sports Illustrated writer and NBC NFL analyst Peter King. 

Now, I follow my fair share of sports celebrities on twitter and, other than Chad Ochocinco picking a fight with Shawne Merriman, I can’t remember such a high profile skirmish being started (and probably ended) right there in front of me on the powerful social network website. It all started with this tweet, which basically is Mark Cuban accusing Peter King of being a neanderthal for not knowing what HDNet is.

HDNet, for those who don’t know, is a  high definition television network that “provides viewers with some of the most exciting and topical news, sports, music and entertainment programming in the industry” (As taken right off their website). More relevant to this discussion, though, it is also the channel that televises the games for the newly formed UFL professional football league. If you weren’t aware of that don’t worry, you’re not alone. Apparently neither did Peter King. Although technically this is a retweet, meaning that @Golf Logsdon was the one who actually didn’t know where to find the UFL. Fortunately for him and everyone here, we all know where to find it now.

That’s the point of all of this after all. Mark Cuban basically used Peter King to promote his network. You see, Mark Cuban is the Chairman and President of HDNet, and therefore a strong advocate for the success of the UFL. Peter King is a football writer who has shown passing interest in the UFL. When Cuban saw that King was tweeting about the UFL, he waited for some sort of negativity on the part of King and jumped at his chance to rope the 20-year SI veteran into a war of, um, tweets.

After that initial provocation, though, King never really took the bait. Maintaining his composure, King responded by re-tweeting what Cuban was saying to him a couple of times, adding a “Nice to meet you” to the end of the first one. King also came right out and explained his position further, that he had never heard of HDNet. 

Cuban, for what it’s worth, didn’t take matters too far. He had what he wanted, which was a response or two from King and his 85,000 twitter followers. Although I did find it funny that when Cuban saw this tweet from someone explaining to King that he was being baited, Cuban had the response of “ding, ding, ding “ An overtly condescending reaction from Cuban,you might say.

I take two things from this whole episode: 1) Peter King is, if nothing else, an intelligent person for not retaliating in this situation; 2) Mark Cuban likes to use smileys in his tweets.

Oh, and 3) Go USA! They beat Honduras and are headed to the World Cup. USA! USA! USA!