Mark Cuban's always thinking, and, for the most part, he's always sharing those thoughts.
On Monday night, his focus was on media coverage of his Dallas Mavericks, and specifically the role of "paid Internet reporters."
"The internet reporters who get paid, [in my humble opinion], are to the Mavs and any sports team, the least valuable of all media," Cuban wrote on his blog. "I'm a firm believer that their interests are not only not aligned with sports teams like the Mavs, but in fact are diametrically opposed."
Cuban explained that the goal on the Internet is page views, leading to persistent questions about trade rumors being asked of players and personnel.
"The hope isn't that someone will say, 'yes [a rumor is] true.' The hope is that it will elicit a comment that is headline-worthy," Cuban said. "The result is that the team is often negatively impacted. Players get distracted. Team personnel get distracted and spend too much time dealing with the rumors. It's a negative for any team."
Cuban's perspective is that of an NBA owner concerned only about how his team (and subsequently, his team's image) is portrayed in the media. It's no surprise, then, that his solution to these paid Internet reporters is to allow fans to simply follow official, team-sponsored news feeds, such as the team's official site or Twitter page.
"So why do we let them in the door? What value do they serve to the Mavs?" Cuban wrote. "It's not like they are journalists. They are Fox News/MSNBC for sports. They may be popular, for now, but whatever benefit they served four or more years ago seems to have quickly disappeared."
It's certainly an odd stance, one not expected to come from an owner so involved in technology and trends, so it's naturally inspired several responses. Interestingly enough, the reaction of many of these "Internet writers" was rather tame.
"Cuban picks the 'paid Internet writers' as his foil, but it is an epidemic that stretches from 'paid Internet' to 'unpaid Internet' to, yes, newspapers and TV," wrote Quickish.com's Dan Shanoff. "Especially newspapers and TV, who have been in the 'desperate to drive eyeballs' game a lot longer than the web folks and feel the pinch even more now. Watch local TV news or visit a local newspaper website recently? If the Mavs gamed like these folks, they would be in first place in the Western Conference."
WaitingForNextYear.com, a fan site devoted to Cleveland sports, may have disagreed with Cuban but also understood his points.
"Do I think that access to a team is the be all-end all? Not one bit," the site said. "But do I feel that access has made me a better professional while allowing more insight to a Cleveland team for our amazingly loyal audience? Undeniably."
While Cuban might not bring about any immediate, major changes to the way sports are covered, he at the very least got the sports world talking on Tuesday. That's always something he's done best.
