Mark Cuban had a major gripe throughout his 23 years of owning the Mavericks — and it was a reason he wound up selling his majority stake.
Cuban isn’t a fan of the NBA’s top players participating in the Olympics.
Cuban mentioned that he often pitched to NBA commissioner Adam Silver a similar formula to what soccer does with the Olympics, with the younger athletes participating, while the FIFA World Cup plays as the marquee event with the world’s best all competing.
“We could be almost as big as the soccer World Cup … in soccer it’s bigger than the Olympics, so we could do the exact same thing,” Cuban described his ideas to Sirius XM. “But Adam [Silver] wouldn’t go for it, so that’s why I sold my team.”
While Cuban addressed his sale of the team in a joking manner, his ideas were very legitimate.
“Give [the Olympics] our young kids. Do the same thing as soccer. Let the 21-and-under play for the Olympics, and then create our own international World Cup.”
Cuban cited injury risk as a driving factor in what set him off each time his players took their talents to the Olympics.
“I hated it,” Cuban told Sirius XM. “I complained about it every single year. Because, in my attitude, guys going to play for the Olympics, Comcast/NBC is making billions. The IOC, making billions. Even FIBA, making a lot. And we’re giving all these guys for free and taking all the injury risk.”
Cuban has a point, as the NBA is home to some unbelievably expensive players.
For example, Suns star Devin Booker just signed a two-year, $145 million extension, meaning that if he played the full 82 games in a season that he’d be making nearly $1 million per game with his $72.5 million annual salary.
So as an NBA owner, Cuban wasn’t fond of these nine-figure-contract players being shelled out to the Olympics while he watches from the sidelines, hoping that none of his players go down with any injuries.
Cuban just hoped for some protection for players and owners in the worst-case scenario that a superstar gets hurt outside of the NBA.