After the American audience saw the “Dream Team” storm their way to a gold medal during the 1992 Olympic Games, there was no going back. Professional basketball players were in the Olympics to stay.

That’s been great for fans of international basketball. Every four years, the best players in the world represent their country on a global stage. But for NBA owners, who risk star players to injury during international competition, it’s not so great.

Appearing on SiriusXM NBA Radio this weekend, former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban joked that these competitions were why he sold the team.

“I hated it”

Mark Cuban tells @termineradio, @Jumpshot8, and Ryan McDonough his thoughts on NBA players participating in the Olympics. pic.twitter.com/rK57vnMF3e

— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) July 12, 2025

“I hated it,” Cuban said of NBA players participating in the Olympics. “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.”

When NBA players are signed to nine-figure contracts, it makes sense that owners would want to wrap them in proverbial bubble wrap when they aren’t on the court for their team. But Cuban doesn’t want to end best-on-best international basketball competition. He simply wants to make sure the owners have some level of protection, and that more of the financial rewards end up in the players’ pockets.

“What I would tell [commissioner] David Stern and then Adam [Silver] … you know how in soccer, for the Olympics it’s 21-and-under, 22-and-under, whatever it is? And then [FIFA] own the World Cup? And the World Cup’s a bigger event? I’m like, ‘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.’ … And they were like, ‘Well, FIBA. We got this contract with FIBA.’ Well that contract will expire. And them immediately — like, they wouldn’t tell me anything — but they were like, ‘Okay, we signed an extension with FIBA,’” Cuban explained, giving a dramatic eye-roll.

“Just think of how much money is involved,” he continued. “The players, right, literally, I mean, we could be almost as big as the soccer World Cup, which is one of the biggest sporting events in the world. And in soccer it’s bigger than the Olympics, so we could do the exact same thing, and I think we should. And I think the players would make a lot more money from it. You could support a lot of the global teams, all the different countries. But Adam [Silver] wouldn’t go for it, so that’s why I sold my team,” Cuban joked.

I don’t think Mark Cuban sold his team because Jason Kidd represented USA Basketball during the 2008 Olympics. But he’s right about the current international schedule perhaps serving the wrong stakeholders. NBC and the IOC are the major beneficiaries of NBA players participating in the Olympics. Owners and players are taking on all the risk, and receiving little of the monetary reward.

Emulating international soccer would potentially allow basketball to create an important quadrennial tournament with more prestige than FIBA’s current competitions, reducing injury risk to once every four years, and allowing players to earn more money in the process. That’s Cuban’s ideal, but it seems there is little appetite from the sport’s power brokers to change the status quo.