Mark Cuban escaped with billions just before the dot-come bubble burst at the dawn of the new millennium so he knows a little something about how markets operate and when the bottom is about to fall out. On Sunday, the Mavericks owner predicted a similar ending for the NFL's boom.
“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion. When pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns against you.”
Sounds like someone believes Christopher Nolan was a true visionary beyond the filmmaking scope.
How would this happen? Cuban expanded the reasoning for his argument in a Facebook post on Monday which addressed factors including brain injury concerns and the changing medium of television. I'm not sure if that was meant to be ironic or not.
Cuban makes some solid observations and there have been signs. A few weeks ago, projections revealed that because of league revenue growth, the salary cap would rapidly rise over the next five offseasons. With any luck, maximum NFL quarterback contract increases have stagnated, but the contracts of players at other skill positions will likely begin rising to match the age of prosperity as well. At some point, the league's other skill positions will begin to revolt if teams don't treat them with near the same reverance they do quarterback contracts. That's especially true for running backs, who some feel deserve their own union.
With all that said, I think implosion was a bit hyperbolic. I've always been curious about untethered balloons that float into the sky with nothing to stop them from bounding into the cosmos where they're met by Neil Degrasse Tyson. At least I assumed that's what happened since I've never seen a string and flattened piece of rubber plummet from the sky. Turns out they never get that far. The atmospheric pressure gets to them and they gradually return to earth or rot. More likely, the NFL will float down from the high its about to experience over the next decade. The beauty of it is that we may not even foresee what pops their bubble.
