Mark Cuban was in Bakery Square on Tuesday, eating lunch with his friends and filming a segment for “CBS Sunday Morning.” So why Pittsburgh?
“I asked if we could do it with my Pittsburgh friends, so I am here,” Cuban explained by email.
Todd Reidbord, Jerry Katz, Steve Rosen and Stu Chaban have been friends with Cuban since his days growing up in Mt. Lebanon. The four friends were part of a segment focusing on what the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and star of the TV show “Shark Tank” was like as a kid.
“We all went to grade school and high school with him,” explained Reidbord after lunch. “I am really not sure what the other segments were about, but ours was about what kind of person he was growing up.
“He is pretty much the same guy he has always been and this was a good excuse to come back,” Reidbord said.
Joining the group for lunch and an informal interview was Jim Axelrod, chief investigative and senior national correspondent for CBS News.
The interview appears to be part of a segment about Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Co., a prescription drug company focused on making the most needed prescription medicines. Its manufacturing facility is in Dallas.
“He has been trying to, you know, disrupt the whole pharmaceutical delivery and buying drugs,” Reidbord said.
“He wanted it to come up here and do it instead of a normal interview in Dallas. He wanted to come up here and see his buddies.”
During lunch, the group talked about what it is like to be lifelong friends. Reidbord said Cuban feels he can be himself with his Pittsburgh friends.
“I think he likes the fact that we are grounded and we don’t expect anything out of him,” he added.
Cuban flew back to Dallas after the segment was filmed.
Patricia Sheridan: psheridan@post-gazette.com.
First Published: December 20, 2022, 8:14 p.m.
Updated: December 21, 2022, 12:49 p.m.