Mark Cuban Bashes NFL Over Expanded TV Schedule, Says 'Greedy' League Is '10 Years Away From An Implosion'

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes that the NFL’s “greedy” attitude toward TV deals will ultimately lead to its “implosion.”

Cuban spoke to a group of reporters before the Mavericks game on Sunday night, the Dallas Morning News reports. During the press conference, the billionaire shared his belief that the NFL’s latest TV deal with CBS, which will allow the league to air games on both Thursday and Saturday nights, will lead to overexposure.

“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion,” Cuban said, via ESPN. “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.”

“I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you,” Cuban added. “That’s rule No. 1 of business.”

In February, the NFL confirmed that it would partner with CBS to broadcast its football games in 2014. The deal’s exact financial parameters are unknown, but sources told Sports Business Daily that initial bidding began at well over $200 million for a single season.

In the new deal, CBS gained the right to broadcast eight of the season’s 16 Thursday-night games, as well as at least two games on Saturday night, Deadspin notes. This means that NFL games will air on four of the seven nights in a week for at least part of next season—a figure that Cuban believes will cause a decrease in the NFL’s ever-growing popularity.

“They’re trying to take over every night of TV,” Cuban told reporters. “Initially, it’ll be like ‘Yeah, they’re the biggest-rating thing that there is.’ OK, Thursday, that’s great, regardless of whether it impacts [the NBA] during that period when we cross over. Then if it gets Saturday, now you’re impacting colleges. Now it’s on four days a week. … It’s all football. At some point, people get sick of it.”

Cuban went on to compare the NFL’s new schedule to that of the reality show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” the popularity of which waned after it moved to a five-day-a-week format, ESPN reports. “They put it on every night,” he said. “Not 100 percent analogous, but they handled it the same. I’m just telling you, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”