"During the entire process I thought I had a very strong chance of being able to buy the team," he wrote Tuesday. "I thought I could offer a competitive price."
Cuban's $1.3 billion bid was the highest amongst the other bidders, and several people in the sports industry thought for certain the NBA franchise owner was going to add a Major League Baseball franchise to his portfolio. However, Cuban noted that he had his own reasons for dropping out of the race.
The hardest part was going to be the financial deal. I never thought it conceivable that it would be hard to spend a billion dollars on a sports team. In this case it was. Add me to the list of people who never want to participate in this type of sales process again.
He added that it was not worth it to him to pay that sum in cash.
"If we were going to pay cash, I was not going to bid anywhere near $1 billion for the assets."
Cuban said that he asked Tribune Co. for an extension, but he added that if they got the money they were seeking, his bid was not going to be high enough -- otherwise, they will turn back to him.
Tribune has been gracious throughout the sale process in extending deadlines, considering that the Cubs have been on the block since April 2007 and the auction was only first supposed to take a year. Now it's approaching the two-year mark. Meanwhile, the smaller-market San Diego Padres, which only hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in December, already has a potential bidder in place.
Media reports circulated Tuesday that a final bidder for the Cubs auction could be announced by the end of the week. -
Demitri Diakantonis
See Cubans comment from blog maverick
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who is known for his outspoken antics both at court side and in the media, finally spoke out on his last involvement in the Cubs auction via his Web site 
