Mark Cuban slams the NBA for focusing on tanking and ignoring the real issue for fans: “It should worry more about pricing fans out of games”
they can’t because they’ve concluded they can’t afford the tix at the price they need to make their ROI targets. Simple.
If they need to make X amount in tix/concessions per game, they aren’t going to be giving it away if they can’t meet that target. It never happens. Just as a grocery store would rather throw out ‘old’ food than give it away, the NBA would rather the stadiums be underutilized so to preserve their ability to extract profit.
I forgot the clothing line. But they would burn their leftover clothes as opposed to giving it to people that need it. Shit wild.
At least pro teams send their gear to developing nations
Pretty much any designer brand. They don’t want the “poors” with access to their clothes
Some musical instrument companies do it too with their “B-Stock”. Functional instruments that could have been donated to schools and such. Such waste…
Ain’t capitalism grand?
Gotta keep that demand up by not giving product away for free. Most companies would rather take the loss then to give away their product.
I have a ton of designer clothes from companies like Etro, Armani, Ferragamo, Burberry, Prada, etc. because I buy them at outlet malls in Italy for 50-80% off when my wife and I go there for vacation. They’re all branded stores, so idk what brand he’s talking about but it sure as hell isn’t the norm.
Be wary though, many of those products aren’t leftover stock. Some of these brands design “for outlet” specific items. Cheaper quality items sold to be on “sale”.
It’s really only a few brands that do this, most of them will do private sale or employee sale before it comes to that point.
It’s Louis Vuitton that does it. It’s absolutely not the norm. Almost every other brand goes through outlets, wholesalers, or sample sales to try and offload old stock.
Makes sense, never seen a Louis outlet, not that I’ve ever looked tbf
While thats true its the opposite of your point. Creating scarcity to drive hype is a thing in clothing but the basketball equivalent would be something like building smaller stadiums.
Its pretty much the opposite for attendance When an Arena is packed it looks like a hot ticket and when its empty the opposite it looks less appealing. So that + concessions would drive them to prioritize filling it over even the highest gate income.
Yeah and then probably write it off as a charitable deduction vs a loss
Grocery stores throw out perishables due to a combination of it intentionally being a loss leader to get folks in the door and failed understanding of liability and Good Samaritan laws around donation. Also just pure laziness in setting up better practices to move short dated items.
Plenty of variance exists in ticket prices around the league between the good and bad teams, which tend to rotate over time. Which suggests there’s elasticity in prices if they need to get butts in seats.
ELASTICITY. Jesus, thank you for taking actual economics while everybody else is making a false equivalence.
Imagine comparing starving for food to bottle-necking availability to watch some overpaid people throw a ball into a hoop for 48 minutes.
Not to mention, attendance has been up in the NBA. In 2023-2024, 71% of NBA games were sold out (a new record). As much as it might suck, it looks like most tickets are appropriately priced.
I wish the NBA tracked attendance like the NFL. They track it as a percentage of available seating inventory across games. The wild thing is the NFL generally distributes around 97.5 %–98.3 % of available seating inventory every season.
At least at my grocery store they give all the leftover outdated produce to earl, the pig farmer. His piggies eat good
Atlanta Hawks tickets were given away for free during the morning announcements at a TON of metro Atlanta schools in the early 2000’s. It was like a weekly or monthly thing.
Nuggets regularly had 2 for 1 deals on their tickets in the 00’s, even after we got Melo and were competitive too. They wanted fans there.
Creating scarcity, which is the fatal flaw in the capitalist system
We (taxpayers) are already subsidizing their house (arena construction and maintenance)
And that’s the only reason they care about tanking. Fans don’t want to pay to see a team intentionally lose, so that hurts the bottom line.
I’m in favor of them fixing tanking, but it’s more important to keep games affordable for all fans. It’s more important for them to sever their relationships with the gambling companies. It’s more important for them to shorten the season to prioritize player health and provide a better chance of star players playing a higher proportion of games.
They would still be making money hand over fist, but it wouldn’t be as much money as possible. And that’s the death cycle we’re in where we pump so much money into something that it actually ends up getting worse.
thanks to you and the other commenters to reminding me just how fundamentally awful humanity is.
this place sucks.
How about how hard it is just to watch streaming or on tv? Multiple channels for an hour of gambling ads every game? It’s not just ticket prices that have gotten absurd.
Every dime the NBA and the player’s make comes directly out of NBA fan’s pockets. They (and when I say they, I mean the NBA owners *and* the NBA players) could opt to take less money to make the games more available, but they have specifically chosen not to.
This is why I care about player contracts being too high.
It’s our money
I agree so much with this. I long for the day these sports leagues start to get corrected.
Where do you think that money would go, if not to the players?
This includes non fans that pay for cable or streaming but don’t watch any sports
I dont think NBA players like fans. Gambling and social media hasnt helped. theyre not playing for the people in the seats theyre playing for their team or themselves
I’m convinced this is by far the biggest problem. How do you get a casual fan invested in a team if they can’t afford to watch half the team’s games.
Or even know where to watch them
The NBA needs to have 90% of the teams games on local broadcast for their market, 10% on nationally televised and streaming options for out of market fans on whatever streaming platform of their choosing
It’s not that complicated of a formula
I assume a VPN + League Pass is the best way to watch games? Does anyone do that or have any tips? Not even a money issue as League Pass is about the same as FanDuel streaming ($20/mo for 6 months), but on FanDuel, I have to watch ads instead of in-arena content, and I can only watch my teams games instead of any team.
Yes, VPN and league pass is a dream.
Local broadcast exclusivity is outdated and archaic. Location has nothing to do with what team you like anymore. There’s Bucks fans in Florida and California now.
All of the games should be on league pass, no exceptions.
And most of the local broadcast rights have died because the broadcasters went bankrupt
It’s not about exclusivity - just local teams should be on a local broadcast in local markets
Then if anyone wants access to all the games, buy league pass
It was so easy to get invested as a fan when I was kid because the Spurs had a local broadcast at least once a week
Why should anyone invest in a team? Teams are irrelevant to the conversation, anyway.
The problem is that if you want to watch any team, you have to sit through an hour of ads because they force play stoppage every two seconds. Took me 45 minutes to watch 60 seconds of basketball when the Cavs played the Celtics last year.
It’s not just homers who have a terrible experience. Everyone who likes basketball is screwed
There are more games on National tv (NBC and ABC) than we had for the last two decades.
Yeah this shits annoying. Even with league pass, you still need to sub for you home team if they are dicks like the bulls, and you also need peacock and espn for national games.
Yeah. Our local channel’s price went into a premium package a year or two ago, which everyone accepted because we got all our games. Then, this year comes and many games get preempted and you need other services?!?! Talk about gouging an audience that was loyal for decades.
This is true but as for me I’m pirating no matter what
If you have a basic cable subscription you will get almost all of your local games. It’s not actually any harder to watch games than it was 20 years ago.
🏴☠️
If they’re really worried about the integrity of the game, maybe they should rethink their embrace of gambling.
And endorsements….
Why does it feel like everyone is pushing gambling when there’s full blown actual cheating we just uncovered and is probably rampant in this league and materially impacting it?
Yea but have you considered Draft Kings will straight up hand me \(50 if I just deposit \)5? Why would I pass that deal up? Reminds me of my first drug dealer. Free sample because he was a nice guy.
Just going to state for those who may be lured by this despite your sarcasm, it’s not even \(50…it’s a \)50 free bet and if you win you do not get the \(50 you wagered plus your winnings, you get the winnings alone. So it’s actually worth \)25 or less.
I’d totally take advantage of those kinds of promos.
But all around I have a lot less of a problem with it than I do with cap circumvention…
The entrance of gambling is definitely a new(ish) issue in sports, and there’s a lot of controversy surrounding it. Recently, the governor of Ohio said he “absolutely” regrets legalizing sports gambling in the state. If you’re interested, you can read our story about it here: https://fortune.com/2025/11/24/ohio-republican-governor-mike-dewine-regrets-sports-gambling-law/
NBA is worth billions of dollars. I would hope they could tackle a few problems at once.
They clearly focus on revenue first, fan experience seems like a distant second.
This is Mark Cuban. He’s tanked before and been fined for it. He wants to create an either/or situation to distract from the fact that he supports tanking.
“Tanking” 2 games, the same season the Spurs tanked the whole season, in an obvious attempt to get Wemby.
Idk, im honestly with him that tanking in and of itself isnt terrible. Real fans want their teams to have hope, and I know id prefer the heat to tank this year. But i do think its gotta be cus your team sucks cus you traded good players for future assets. Not just sitting your best players, thats actually throwing the games
Why is he trying to divert attention from this so hard?
Because years ago he essentially gave up a spot in the playoffs (play-in) for the 10th overall pick.
And the Mavs essentially did the same thing last year and ended up getting rewarded Cooper Flagg lol.
its worse than that because it wasnt intentional.
they failed miserably and got lucky afterwards which is the saddest part.
Nicos vision was mavs going for the title both last year and this year too lmfao
Difference was Nico thought he cooked
ding ding ding. And he got a slap on the wrist for it.
Pricing fans out of being able to watch their teams on TV due to spreading games across so many different streaming platforms some of which are expensive and don’t offer anything else that’s beneficial is probably even bigger than this.
I remember visiting family in LA some years ago and nobody could get the Dodger game on lmao. There’s a dispute? The fuck does that mean
Thank god the blazers changed to local tv you can watch with a basic box. Or $15 a month if you’re out of market.
Went from being able to watch hardly any games to all of them. More teams need to go this route.
its easier to watch your favorite team if you dont live in the market that team plays in. its crazy how anybody thinks that makes any sense. hell its even easier if you dont live in the US at all. a league pass subscription in New Zealand gets you access to every game from the preseason to the nba finals.
Another factor that might come into play when it comes to pricing fans out of the games are junk fees associated with the time it takes to cancel subscriptions or deal with customer service! One of our editors was just writing about it the other day (if you’re interested, you can see more here: https://fortune.com/2026/02/19/americans-paying-over-165-billion-annually-vibes-based-taxes-annoyance-economy/)
Getting mad for focusing on an issue because many issues exist is always a dumb take. They all need to obviously be addressed
Tanking isn’t an important issue, or shouldnt even be an issue. It’s the smart thing to do when your team sucks
Teams resting their stars in the 4th quarter in order to purposefully lose is definitely an issue
Draft is so good this year I don’t think fans are even upset their starters are sitting. If there was any year to tank it’s this one and I think this is what we are seeing.
If my team was terrible I’d want them to do the same
I’m not sure how this is any different than teams sitting their star players for entire half of seasons and just putting G-League rosters out there to lose games that no one seemed to care about.
What is with this revisionist history that teams resting their star players isn’t something people complain about? Tanking has been a problem in the NBA for years and it’s getting worse every season.
Joel Embiid sat his first 2 seasons during the Process 76ers. OKC sat SGA for 2 seasons to tank for picks. Portland sat Dame in 2022 after they were eliminated which was discussed. The Mavs sat Luka & Kyrie in 2023, openly admitted draft positioning influenced decisions, and the NBA fined them $750,000. The Wizards this season resting AD and Trae Young is getting discussed. Lauri Markkanen in Utah has been a discussion on tanking for 4 seasons now.
The fact that’s it’s the smart thing to do is the issue
For me rather, that drafting is almost the only way for a bad to middling team to really improve.
Tanking would be less of an issue anyway if FA, trading and finding unsigned talent would offer a real way to improve for all teams but they don’t.
You need a top talent and almost no team can actually get those via FA or trading. And that’s what is making tanking a necessity.
It being the smart thing to do IS the problem numbnuts.
Then using the draft to try to create parity is the problem.
Watch in a few years there’s ten generational prospects in the draft. So 15 teams tank the season. We’ll all say it’s throwing games is the best way to improve. Being a mediocre team is the worst the thing to be in the NBA?
Rip chronically online far leftists and rightys. This is their whole existence
I was in debate in highschool, my favorite/ dumbest argument to hear is that we shouldn’t do something (universally good and agreed on) because it shouldn’t be a priority compared to X
They trying to deflect from Aspiration and Gambling
And you’re just trying to distract from the Epstein files!
Sometimes there can be several problems at once. Bringing up more than one problem isn’t deflecting. They’re all issues.
Trump has that covered
Now he cares about the prices how funny
Cuban has always cared about the prices
His whole thing, from day 1, was getting the seats full and making the mavericks part of Dallas people’s lives…
Aren’t the seats full at exorbitant prices?
They’re there now.
When mark took over the mavs they couldn’t give away tickets. I think he’s worried about moving back in that direction.
He is just trying to change the subject and dilute the seriousness of the situation. He did the same shit in the summer for a while when Pablo Torre was breaking news about the Aspiration scandal.
In Cuban’s last year owning the team they were top 10 in average price but also had one of the highest number of cheap tickets, except for the teams at bottom where like all their tickets are cheap.
“Needs to be more affordable” is definitely true.
Need to be able to watch it without wondering if every shot I am seeing, even what I am not seeing like a player faking an injury, is motivated in some way by a bet.
Since they legalized this shit nationally, and it’s on your phone and on the screen every 5 minutes, I’ve watched a lot less. Silver says it drives certain fans’ engagement up. It has driven mine into the floor.
I miss when watching a game with people had people celebrating a play because it was amazing to watch. Now, it’s cheers or curses depending on who won or lost what. Fucking stupid.
I haven’t checked the secondary market recently, but I know some of these teams have very cheap seats online.
I don’t know why Cuban would even propose this as a problem. He isn’t stupid. If your team is good and you charge $60/ticket, bots will buy them all up and sell them online for double that. Why would the NBA transfer their profits to third party companies? They are going to charge what the market is willing to absorb.
If he wants cheaper tickets, they have to build bigger arenas. But all that means is less affluent fans will be watching ants run around from 50 stories up. I suppose you could bring more supply with expansion, but a team in Seattle does nothing for ticket prices in Dallas.
Oh NOW he cares about ticket prices…..
the mavs give away tons of tickets every game under Cuban and had a sold out streak for 24 years.
Cuban had a lot of issues but fan experience is not one of them
Yea idk what this kid is on about. Mavs have historically always been below the NBA average in ticket prices.
I lived in Dallas for almost two years and attended two games. One on Halloween. I got almost floor seats (four rows off) for like 100$ when I went. That’s a steal.
Bro wants his team to tank with no repercussions
He certainly has a lot of ideas for other people’s money now that he’s cashed out and got his.
I’m sure other stadiums are different but I can get upper bowl tix for <\(20. Or mid level for like \)50.
The BIG issue is the expensive food and $15 beers.
The BIG issue is the expensive food and $15 beers
More perfect union did a piece on this https://youtu.be/w7LPPTLDXu4?si=Y-zDsAqKS5szKONy
Thanks that’s a good watch. The amount of work that guy did over a $0.05 increase in hot dogs vs the government simply just not enforcing existing laws made me die inside a little bit.
How much could one banana cost?
Ticket prices is one thing the euros got right. They don’t really price their core fans out. Which is why their atmosphere is so much better.
“Billionaire who already cashed out thinks cartel should care less about money.”
Yeah but gambling companies are more important.
I agree. People acting like tanking is some big scandal is ridiculous. We all know why its really such a big deal now.
fans won’t be at games if tanking becomes the norm, they will have less incentive to buy tickets, season passes, streaming passes, etc. tanking is priority because if you abandon it to pursue nationwide ticket price gouging that isn’t even exclusive to the nba and win, the fans now have fair priced tickets to a bad product anyway.
cuban is a billionaire who can influence prices without taking attention away from an issue only owners wouldnt benefit from
Hard to believe a billionaire sincerely thinks a multi billion dollar institution can only do one thing at a time. Almost feels like he’s distracting and not being sincere
Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of the Midlanta Hawks but this has never been an issue for me lol
Hell I’m 2.5 hours from my closest NBA team (Cleveland) but when I was on vacation this past November in Phoenix I caught 2 Suns games (vs the Pels and Pacers tbf) for like $30 total? For that price I really don’t care who’s out there lol
Wolves price increases have been absurd. Concessions are all bistro esque fusion shit for a mediocre tiny ass plate, for \(17-18. Upper deck seats now are rarely below \)50 unless you sit behind the backboards. Tons of bullshit fees and tacky salesmen integrated into the ticketing process
Right? It’s fucking ridiculous and they increased Ramp A parking to \(25. I went to the Pelicans game a couple weeks ago and it was like \)16 for just a hot dog and a Coke too.
People keep saying “Fans won’t like it if teams are tanking/bad.” But I loved how affordable the games were back then and went to a lot more even though I was a broke college kid then.
Plus it made this teams rise to contender status much more special and rewarding after being shitty for so long.
The issue is also gambling
The actual issue isn’t the tanking itself; it’s the fact that the tanking is too easy to do and done so carelessly. It ruins the fan experience and teams do it for too long and try to make their rosters perfect before they try to win games
I honestly think Sam vecenie by far had the best solution; tie wins and losses to a portion of the revenue/salaries
Before you freak out, not one dollar is leaving the players and ownership, it’s simply being redistributed
So the way it would work is each year 10% of revenue and salaries from each team and player goes into escrow, at the end of the year if you’re top 10 in wins you get your 10% back and then some, say another 10% for example
Middle 10 teams in terms of wins basically break even, make what they would’ve made anyways with slight bumps if you’re upper middle vs slight losses if you’re lower middle
Bottom 10 teams you straight up lose that 10% or get close to it, worst record in the league loses it completely. You can lose games and tank for a good pick, but financially it is not gonna be easy to stomach long term for your players and fans. There’s real financial penalties here that would motivate players and ownership to actually not go out there and be cool with losing games long term, one year you could probably stomach but after that you’re trying to get out
None of this counts against the cap either, and I don’t personally think rookie contracts or vet minimums should count either. Vet mins are too small and rookies didn’t choose where they play
Idk I think it’s pretty foolproof
Would be very unfair to a player who plays hard but is on a team where management is not playing the best players and is making lose now trades.
It sure would, and they would leave the team which incentivizes management to not do that
Maybe it shouldn’t be as much as 10%, but maybe 5%? Slight bonus, slight loss, enough to feel it
Unfortunately, a lot of professional sports is shifting more toward a rich person experience, and only want people in their arenas / stadiums who can afford to purchase gear / food / expensive seats all in one visit.
The middle class and lower class audience, they drive them toward relentlessly gambling on their events.
They only care about the profit, not making it more accessible to everyone, more access means less margins
Are we talking about in-person games or watching at home. I literally can’t even afford to watch all my team’s games at home. They’re spread out across 4 different streaming platforms. WTF
Why not both?
It’s ok. We can just watch the highlights.
They’re no mutually exclusive—do both
Can’t it be both? Pricing fans out of horrible tanking games is quite the business model.
How about both??? Tanking is also terrible.
Mark was commenting on tanking just like yesterday, then fan experience, now it’s prices..
He wants back in so bad
I spent 250 to see the Knicks phone it in at the garden in December. He’s not wrong. Yankees are the biggest name in their sport and you can still go for 15 dollars most days. Knicks could be playing the bobcats and you’re probably paying 200 minimum just to get in. It’s because all of the seats at MSG go to the corporate accounts who just give them away like hot cakes.
Idk, I think if I pay full price for a ticket and half the team sits or purposefully sucks I should get a refund. So they’re both issues.
Insert ‘why not both’ gif
Same guy defending Ballmer no?
He’s right! And wrong! ticket prices are ridiculous and should be lowered, but that doesn’t have anything to do with tanking or the fact that their are about five different streaming services that one needs to subscribe to if they want to watch all NBA games. Let’s talk about the gambling! A good portion of the public doesn’t have faith that the games are being played honestly and fairly. Salaries are out of control and they now want to make rookies free agents? How will that reduce the cost of anything?
The thing is, fans of bad teams want their teams to tank since it’s the only way to get better. The only people who care about tanking are those in charge of the league and fans of other bad teams who want a better pick than the teams they are accusing of tanking (when they are also tanking)
This has nothing to do with fans this is about catering to the gamblers
Maybe you shouldn’t have sold your ownership stake Mark, the new owners jacked the prices up for Mavs fans by a lot even after getting out of having to pay Luka the super max
No fans would care about tanking if nba teams just dropped their ticket prices considerably. Shoot I’m sure more families would welcome it.
The only reason tanking is a hot button issue is because the gambling markets are being affected.
I don’t care about ticket prices lol, i want to see a balanced sports league without flopping.
Cubes is right. Make ticket prices cheaper. There - fixed that. Now address tanking.
Capitalist focusing on the bottom line but not the quality of the product? Where have I heard that before?
Just want a competitive product night in and night out. Stars have to play when they can.
Adam Silver is the worst person in the world, I’m not shocked
It’s basically $350 to take my wife and kid to a Wizard’s game this season.
The rules are crazy, the staff are rude, and half the experience is some sort of line. God help them if they are actually a good team next year with all the 3d chess this season. Maybe the current worst team in the NBA shouldn’t be charging more than the local strip club for beer and snacks. Just thinking out loud.
Cuban vehemently pro tanking and even more vehemently pro cap circumvention lmao
For a few years, my wife and I had 10 game season package with the Mavs. After they sold the team, our same seats for the following year went up 26%. They justify raising the prices cus that’s what the 2nd market was charging. Maybe when the lakers or warriors are in town but definitely not for 2⁄3 of the league. We decline to renew.
If the game was free and featured the last five guys on the bench and G leaguers with all the stars sitting out. I am still not going, Mark Cuban thinks my time has no value and I will show up to shell out concessions money to him because he deserves it
It’s the #GamblingAndCorruption
Theres also the gambling issue and aspirations too
As someone who’s family had season tickets to Maverick games for around 12 years I can assure you Mark doesn’t give a shit. They went up basically every year on us, even if they sucked.
I’m so tired of Mark Cuban
I don’t know how he doesn’t see these things as intertwined. Think of the family that’s able to afford to go to one game a year, and it turns out that one or both teams are deliberately not putting on the show they paid for.
That’s all of sports BTW. I’m very much an advocate for athletes making less and teams making less for things to be more affordable. Sorry but it’s gross how much players make for what they do. But that also goes for all rich people IMO.
That and the fact that there is a reasonable affordable way to watch most of the games that are out of market on league pass and to watch just the in market games it is more expensive and more difficult
Tanking might actually lower ticket prices…but only to watch bench players
So many problems with the league, it’s pretty insane.
Tanking, Pricing out fans, Foul baiting, Gambling, Players with twitter fingers, All star game being trash, Resting players during prime time games, Clippers backdooring for Kawhi, Heat getting fucked in that Rozier trade
Anything I’m forgetting?
Ticket prices and streaming prices are crazy. And then you get bombarded with commercials for a game you’ve paid to watch. Insane
Are fans getting priced out? Maybe he’s talking about LA and New York? Because here in Denver you can get resale tickets the day of the game (except for Lakers games) for like \(30-\)100 most of the time. I get $100 may be on the high end for some people but that would only be bigger match ups.
That PR team working extra hard lol
Pricing fans out of the game is not a problem at all for the nba. Like all other events they’re being targeted at being explicitly for the ultra rich and if you’re not ultra rich fuck off and die for all they care
Hell people can’t even afford to watch their local team on tv
Now we’re talkin.
I thought Adam silver said if it’s too expensive the fans can just watch highlights
I am formally introducing the Emile Washington plan to fix everything wrong with the NBA - including access and competitiveness:
Expand to 40 teams. All still in North America. More teams = more access and more affordable tickets. The franchise fees would be a huge boon to the current NBA owners.
We are going to have a two-stage season. In the first stage, all teams play every other team once. That’s 39 games, balanced schedules. Every team can theoretically compete for a championship. After game 39, we have a cut line. The top 24 are in the championship division and the bottom 16 are in the draft lottery division. This cut line would also be an ideal time to have the all star game and the trade deadline.
In the championship division, every team plays every other team once. That’s 23 more games. The best 16 records from those 23 games each makes the playoffs and determines playoff seeding. This means games are competitive all the way to the end.
In the draft division, every team plays every other team twice. The best record gets the most balls in the lottery. Or just gets the top pick - idk, haven’t fully flushed out how this works. Maybe total record matters some too. But regardless, we are going to incentivize winning the draft division to get a higher pick. So now teams aren’t tanking at the end of the year.
The Emile Washington plan kills the tanking strategy almost completely (maybe right ahead of the cut line, some borderline teams might tank a couple games if they think they could win the draft division, but that’s still far less tanking than now). Or there could be good teams who got off to a bad shot that really want to make the championship division and so games leading up to the cut-line are really important. The EW plan also leads to less player fatigue with 66-69 regular season games, there will be no back-to-back games. This plan rewards consistency as now early season and late season are important. And late season games are more against teams of similar goals and level.
The solution to tanking is easy. Get rid of the draft. The NBA draft is stupid at best, evil at worst.
You need mid to high level critical thinking skills to understand the implications of getting rid of the draft in the NBA.
Another Mark Cuban grift.
I’m convinced that having too much money warps your brain and forms a parallel bizarro reality.
How is pricing middle class people out of games an issue in any way other than moral lol, if anything it’s probably a goal to them tbh
The decline of the middle class is a huge issue - for affording entertainment and tickets and beyond. The share of gross domestic income going to employees’ wages is getting lower and lower while corporate profits are on the rise. Roughly, the average American is bringing home about $12,000 less as a result of this dynamic. If you want to read our full story about this trend, you can here: https://fortune.com/2026/02/11/middle-class-decline-45-years-12000-a-year-less-money-american-worker/
Both
Wait is this the guy who literally sold most of his teams stake only to decide to want to “buy back in” after the value of it was tanked…? Where have I seen this before?
I mean it’s pretty clearly both. Not many people are interested in paying hundreds of dollars to watch a losing team of G-Leaguers they’ve never heard of.
Also the Mavericks have some of the highest ticket prices in the league - is that the fault of the NBA or is that not something that the ownership team has power over?
Feels like a both/and situation.
Who gives a fuck what this whiny loser thinks.
He wasn’t exactly revolutionizing the fan experience when he owned the mavericks then chose to sell them to one of the most ghoulish families in America.
Thank you, mark. Wife and I have to be in Boston for some medical stuff in late March and figured let’s go to a Celtics game! 2 tickets in a corner mid upper deck for $\(170/ea vs a mediocre team. Want to take the family? \)700. Cmon man
Cuban is delusional. No one wants to see a shit ass tanking team or pay for visiting Laker tickets for them to rest their stars.
He’s not completely wrong tho. The wizards just did like a 15% increase on season ticket prices again, stands are still going to be empty next year 🙄
“Slams.” AGAIN.
I’m not sure what I expected but it would’ve been nice if Cuban faded into the background once he sold off the Mavs. He was a governor for years and a direct contributor to the rising cost of games. Now he’s vocal when his stake in the NBA is much smaller?
I don’t even know how to consistently watch my team tank.
¿Porque no los dos?
Maybe the fact player contracts are so incredible and the effort through the entire season is so terrible.
I noticed the arena last night for the Celtics/Warriors game was about half empty. Couldn’t help but think that if they didn’t maximize price gouging it could’ve been a fun atmosphere. But owners will always care more about taking as much of your hard earned money as they can while everything else is secondary.
I just got Blazers season tickets for $19 a game lol. Tanking made games affordable!!
Aren’t kings tickets $3
and those crappy fouls caused by the shooter bumping the defender while he stands still with his hands up and drawing a foul
fix that too
How about the real issue of people paying to see star players and then those players end up sitting out
Tanking. Gambling. Ticket prices. Streaming. Foul baiting. Flopping.
I doubt they care, but if they did I’m sure they would be able to worry about more than one thing at a time.
why should courtside seats for the WORST teams in the league for regular season games that dont matter cost more than Super Bowl tickets????
Mark Cuban isn’t involved in the NBA anymore, I don’t really understand why we give a shit what he thinks. It’s not like he’s some expert, he’s just a rich dude who likes basketball.
Does it suck that fans can’t enjoy the games IRL due to prohibitive costs? Absolutely, but just a reminder that there are tons of alternatives. Minor league and college teams have just as much to offer. They might not be as good or exciting, obviously the major leagues are where the best of the best play, but there’s no reason to allow yourself to be gouged so executives can afford their 8th mega yacht. These prices do nothing other than line the pockets of the billionaires who couldn’t spend their fortunes in multiple life times.
Support local music.
Support local teams.
Support those who need the money and actually care about giving their supporters something great instead of the bare minimum because they think they’re a monopoly with no competition. Prove them wrong by speaking with your wallets 🤜
This attention starved mfer just throwing shit at a wall hoping something sticks to try to salvage his reputation with fans. Desperate and pathetic.
Love Cuban but he’s wrong. I refuse to watch my bulls because they’re tanking. I don’t watch teams that want to lose. It’s stupid as hell. The draft rules need to change to discourage ranking once and for all. If you get caught tanking even one time you forfeit your first round pick.
You prefer play-in hell Bulls over them trying to improve with tanking? I sure as hell would rather my team tank than stay at 41 wins every season
Didn’t dude buy and sell his stake for many many millions? Sounds like he should’ve given it away
Free tickets for everyone.
Tanking is an issue
-From a NBA fan
Shut the fuck up Mark Cuban
Load management is a bigger issue, pay big money for a game and that night the stars decide to take the night off. Very frustrating for the average fan.