CHICAGO – Add Internet billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to the list of potential Chicago Cubs buyers.

“I submitted an app,” Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Interested parties must submit an application to Major League Baseball to examine the team’s finances. Cuban told the Chicago Tribune he sent in the application last week, although he wasn’t sure of the date.

Tribune Co., which owns the team, announced in April it was selling itself for $8.2 billion to Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell, who made the deal contingent on shedding noncore assets. That means the Cubs will go on the auction block at the end of the season _ a decision Tribune chairman and CEO Dennis FitzSimons has conceded was difficult but one that “really makes sense for our shareholders.”

Several potential deep-pocketed bidders are expected to vie for the Cubs and possibly for Wrigley Field, including Cuban and Chicago native Jerry Colangelo, the Phoenix Suns CEO who once ran the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Tribune, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday the family of Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.’s founder Joe Ricketts also was considering a bid. Ricketts family representatives declined to comment on the report when contacted by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Forbes magazine recently valued the National League Cubs at $592 million, fifth-highest in baseball, although experts speculate the bidding could start at $600 million.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella seemed impressed with Cuban’s credentials.

“I don’t know him, but the guy basically, he’s a winner. He’s a character. He has obviously got the resources,” Piniella said Friday.

“I do know that he’s got a lot of charisma. He likes the competition and he likes to win. So he’s certainly a very viable candidate to buy the club. But there are going to be a lot of people that want the club.”

Piniella said he didn’t think he’d have any problems working with a hands-on boss like Cuban, if that should ever happen.

“I can work for anybody. I’ve done this for 20 years, all I do is my job on the field. Let me tell you this, there are going to be a lot of people that have interest, and Mark is one of them,” Piniella said.