Mark Cuban's Crowdsourcing for a New Jersey Design

Recently, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban posted on his blog a sort of challenge to help redesign the team's jersey. What's the reward? We're not even sure yet. All that Cuban guarantees in his blog post is bragging rights and he "may even throw in some tickets." Who will own the design? The Mavs as soon as you post it on the website.

Many critics are questioning the morality of such an act. You do all that work and you're not even guaranteed a reward and you lose your rights to your work. But this is actually a very smart move on Cuban's part. Why spend so much money to hire a designer to make your jersey when you can have someone do it for free? Sometimes even the public's work can be better than a designer's. No wonder why Cuban is so rich.

For those who aren't really business savvy, there's a term for what Cuban is doing. It's called crowdsourcing. He's using the cheap human capital that he has to try and get new ideas/concepts for his company. It's not an uncommon thing for businesses to do. Doritos has done it before by holding contests to help create their Super Bowl ads and look at how that's worked for them. The crowd responded with some really creative, low-budget commercials.

As to whether or not I will choose to participate in Mark Cuban's little game, I'm not sure yet. For those who are interested, the deadline to submit a jersey design is May 31st. You can read more here:

http://blogmaverick.com/2013/05/13/help-the-mavs-design-our-next-uniform/