I have never met Mark Cuban, but based on everything I have heard, he is very much in the trenches making decisions for his team. He's a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy who prefers sitting next to the bench on the floor rather than in a suite, removed from the action. Before this season started he had huge new four-sided HD screens erected above the middle of the court, and there are also boards on the walls at both ends of the court that have team statistics updated throughout a game.
I was at the Maverick's game played against the L.A. Lakers on Wednesday night of this past week with my dad, and when looking up to see the points and fouls of the different players, I noticed that everything for the Maverick's was in a blue font, and everything for the Laker's was in white. In past experience, even earlier this season, the scoreboard font was all white. The white was fine to read but the blue I found impossible. It made me cross-eyed and squinty, which I'm not accustomed to experiencing unless I'm not wearing my corrective lenses. In fact, if you ever see me doing anything without glasses or contacts on, it should only be because I am sleeping because otherwise I am a total hazard.
So I mentioned my difficulty in reading the blue on the scoreboard to my dad, who was also finding issues with it, and he suggested I email Mark Cuban and give him feedback. He claimed that Mark had his email address on the team's website for the purpose of being accessible and that he likes to respond to each one.
I found the email address easily and emailed Mark the next day and informed him of my issue, to which he responded in seven minutes and let me know that the feedback he has received actually says the contrary, that people prefer the blue font. He also said that he actually agreed with me though.
He thanked me for my email, there was nothing to indicate a change being made, but I had mentioned that I would also be at the game the Friday following (two nights ago) and upon arrival I quickly noticed a difference.
This photo was taken at the game Wednesday night. Notice the blue font on the right and the white font on the left at the top of the scoreboard:
This photo was taken at the game Friday night. Notice the white- the score itself is in blue, but the names of the players and their point and foul numbers have all changed to white from the Wednesday picture:
See the difference? It's so much easier to read, and that was because of me! Little ol' me!
To be honest, I actually have no confirmation of my influence over the scoreboard change, but I'd like to think I had something to do with it. Apologies to all of my friends who are reading this and were with me upon making this discovery Friday night, or one of the other seven times I told this story this weekend.
I just like thinking my voice was heard; my email was read. And somewhere out there, someone listened to a small sports-related opinion from a woman.
It's about time.
Victory is won not in miles but in inches.
-Louis L'Amour
1 comment:
that is realllllly awesome!
especially the owner putting himself out there so publicly. and yea, it does look really hard to read with the blue.
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