Cuban goes off on a lot of tangents there. First he calls out the Olympics for squashing patriotism for going after blogs - fine, that's justifiable. But then he essentially rescinds that by saying that he doesn't want America's best athletes to compete. I understand the worry, and the possibility of losing the return on your investment, but this ultimately should be up to the player to decide, or at worse a contract clause which determines Olympic eligibility. I don't think teams should have the right to keep their players from playing in the Olympics.
By placing the emphasis here on the financial side, Cuban is missing the point of the Olympics. In fact, we probably all are, since there's very little rivalry to drive our patriotism anymore. We don't have a Cold War opponent, or a USSR to go up against, so the impact of winning gold medals just isn't the same. As a result, issues like marketing and branding have come to the forefront. We all subsidize the Olympics, and athletes wearing our colors are our team - they represent us on a worldwide scale in the most respected competition in history. To me, that's worth the investment, to Cuban, whose stakes are much higher, maybe it's not.
But I'll be watching every night, from handball to archery, just because the Olympics are still something special, and a cause to get excited and make exceptions. Unfortunately, I may be part of a dwindling population that feels that way.