Mark Cuban has been affiliated with the NBA for almost two decades now, and he's seen a lot of great things about the league during that span. The Dallas Mavericks owner firmly believes that the NBA is better than more popular National Football League.
In an interview with Michael Kaskey-Blomain of CBS Sports, Cuban said the NBA will always be ahead of the football league in his eyes because the former cares more about its players.
“The NFL sells the NFL. The NBA sells its players. The NFL markets the NFL. The NBA markets its players, and players drive who we are in the NBA. You couldn't identify 90 percent of NFL players if they were standing right in front of you. That's a big part of their core problem. If you look at the social media following of NFL players, it's not that big … So, that's an issue for NFL players, and I'm thinking it's by design from the NFL because that's what gives them more leverage. NFL players don't make nearly as much off the field, other than the quarterback and maybe one skill position player, maybe two per team, as NBA players do, because they just don't have the brand or visibility. That gives the NFL a lot more negotiating power, and I think that's something that the NFL should be helping their players with more.”
Cuban does have a point. A lot of people are familiar with NBA players even though they don't really follow the league. The same thing can't be said about football players, as people wouldn't really recognize most of them unless they're a fan of football. Even though the National Football League remains as the more popular sports league in the US, NBA players are more prominent because the league has always relied on them to carry its brand.
Back in 2014, Cuban made headlines when he called football league owners greedy, and although he has been relatively quiet about the matter since, his perception of that league and how it is being run hasn't changed much.
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