Controversial Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban seems to think that the National Football League is about to implode. In case you are wondering, dictionary.com defines implode as: ‘to collapse inwards in a violent manner as a result of external pressure’.
Just how that ‘implosion’ would appear on our TV screens is hard to imagine. Just what ‘external pressures’ could actually be exerted on a $9 billion a year business like the NFL does not easily come to mind.
But Cuban has gone on record predicting the pending doom of America’s favorite sport. He told reporters last week, “I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion. I’m just telling you, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy. Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way.
Cuban’s main concern is the aggressive reaching for more and more television time by the NFL commissioner’s office, especially the attempt to schedule professional football games on days other than the traditional Sunday and Monday Night. We already have Thursday Night Football and there are some folks, not football fans who are upset about that still. Further expansion? marginal at best.
Cuban went on, “I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule number one of business”.
What Mark Cuban is alluding to here is basically a supply and demand issue. How much NFL is too much football? Where is that saturation point where they reach the point of diminishing returns? Mr. Cuban thinks that people will get tired of it.
Remember now that Mark Cuban owns a professional basketball team, so his thinking on this subject might just be a bit suspect. It’s just possible that a little professional jealousy might enter into the equation at some point considering that the NBA does not enjoy nearly the degree of popularity or the revenues that the football guys have established.
Cuban added, “They’re trying to take over every night of TV. They’re the biggest-rating thing that there is. It’s all football. At some point, the people get sick of it.”
Incoming NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has stated publicly that his goal is to see the NBA eventually rival the NFL and while basketball is steadily gaining popularity and revenues across the country… football is still number one.
