Interested in who Mark Cuban will be rooting for at the Super Bowl? Look at his steel roots

Mark Cuban knew he was popular, but never so popular as he is with his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers coming to town for the Super Bowl.

The Mavericks’ owner said he’s gotten requests from people he can’t even remember for tickets to the game on Feb. 6 at Cowboys Stadium that will feature the Steelers against the Green Bay Packers.

But for Cuban, only one request matters.

“It will be really cool for my dad more than anything else,” Cuban said Tuesday evening before the Mavericks played the Los Angeles Clippers. “He’s a huge Steelers fan, has been forever. He’s 84. And I’ve already got him hooked up.”

Cuban plans to take a break from his real life as an NBA owner to enjoy Super Bowl weekend. He has got a huge, invitation-only party planned for Victory Plaza on Saturday night before the game, sponsored by his HDNet cable channel and Direct TV and featuring Usher as the entertainmen t. (Tickets are available via his Twitter account or by watching HDNet .)

But the game will overshadow even that. Apart from the Mavericks and maybe Indiana University, which he attended, Cuban is a bigger fan of the Steelers than anything else in sports.

“I got my Terrible Towel from when I was a kid,” he said. “One of the original ones, blessed by Myron Cope himself. If you have to ask {ellipsis}”

For those uninitiated in Steeler lore, Cope was the legendary voice of the Steelers who is credited with having helped invent the Terrible Towel.

Cuban won’t exactly be alone among Mavericks with a strong rooting interest. Radio analyst and player-development coach Brad Davis also grew up in suburban Pittsburgh and is a huge Steelers fan.

On the other side are president Donnie Nelson and forward Caron Butler, both of whom grew up in Wisconsin.

“I’m going to have my green and gold paint on, no question,” Nelson said. “And I’ve got a big, ol’ cheese-head I’ll be wearing.”

That, Cuban said, probably will cost Nelson a spot in the owner’s suite at the game.

And, sadly, Cuban won’t be able to accommodate a lot of other people, either.

“Everybody that I’ve known since the day I was born has been asking me for tickets,” he said. “So I have to be the bad guy. They say, ‘Hey, I knew your grandmother when she went to visit your mother the day you were born.’”

As for a prediction, Cuban left no doubt: “It’ll be 28-18, good guys.”