Billionaire investor Mark Cuban believes sports rights fees for the NBA are going to “skyrocket” because ongoing media consolidation has been “irrelevant” for traffic thus far.

“One school of thought says ‘well, sports right fees must be going because it’s tougher in that market,'” Cuban explained to CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the NYTimes Dealbook conference. “But what they don’t recognize is that these large entertainment media platforms, the online – the Facebooks, the Googles, etc, … none of them have been able to succeed and be truly effective in recreating audiences” for live content.

“I think the sports rights fees for our league in particular are going to skyrocket.”

Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, also said he would support any of his players who chose to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem. He provided evidence for the claim by citing a similar situation that occurred more than a decade ago.

“More than 10 years ago, one of my players was on a video saying: ‘the national anthem, it’s not our national anthem,'” he recalled. “I supported him. I supported him because he’s an American citizen and he has the right to communicate what’s on his mind.”

Cuban is worth $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.