ESPN announced yesterday morning that the NBA fined Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $25,000 for his Twitter comments on the officiating during a Mavericks game last week. This prompted Cuban to pose an interesting question on his “Blog Maverick” blog entitled Are Tweets Copyrighted?

Obviously Mark Cuban had to have known that he was risking a fine from the league office when he complained about the officiating publicly no matter which venue he used to communicate his displeasure. So, do you think the NBA is right for fining Cuban for his comments? What if his Twitter page was private and someone copied his tweet to the media? Does that change anything? Do you think this fine changes the way owners and athletes feel about using Twitter to communicate?

The always entertaining Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, broke new ground on Friday night when he used his Twitter account to complain about the officiating during the Mavericks’ loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Cuban, an avid Twitterer, asked “how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground?” in reference to a key play late in the game in which a Dallas player fell into the Denver bench after taking a shot.

Cuban has criticized NBA referees in the past but this may be the first time that a professional coach or owner has used Twitter to do so.

Update- March 30 - ESPN is reporting that the NBA has fined Cuban $25,000 for his comments on Twitter. Cuban, naturally, tweeted about it.

While you probably know that Twitter is full of professional athletes and sports teams, did you also know that hundreds of national and regional members of the sports media are also interacting with fans on Twitter?

All of the big names have Twitter accounts. You can read the latest headlines and breaking news by following national media powerhouses ESPN, Fox Sports or Yahoo Sports. If you’re interested in reading more local news for your area, many of the regional sports networks are also on Twitter, including New England’s NESN and FS North, for example.

While reading tweets from national and even regional media outlets can be interesting, sports media on Twitter really shines because of all the local beat writers and reporters that you read every week anyway.

To give you a good example, let’s say that I’m a Philadelphia Phillies fan. I visit the Phillies website religiously and read all the latest blogs about the team. As a diehard fan, I want to know what’s happening to my Phillies as soon as it happens. We all know this is possible on the Internet but Twitter makes things that much easier for fans to get the latest news and information on their favorite team(s) at a moment’s notice.

Let’s go back to the Phillies example. Let’s say that I visit Phillies.com at least twice a week and read MLB.com Phillies beat writer Todd Zolecki’s columns each time I visit. Todd Zolecki just joined Twitter last week. If I read that the Phillies are concerned about Cole Hamels’ health heading into the season in a recent column, I can also see Todd’s recent tweet that says that everything is ok in a sort of 140 character addendum to his MLB.com story.

After I read Todd Zolecki on MLB.com, I go in to work the next morning and pick up the Philadelphia Daily News sports page. I can read David Murphy and Rich Hofmann‘s latest columns on the Phillies in my paper and then navigate to their Twitter pages for even more information on what I just read.

Perhaps the most interest aspect of sports media using Twitter is the fact that sometimes the media aren’t the ones breaking the news. Indeed, as the walls around traditional media continue to come down, Twitter’s stature as a outlet for breaking news continues to grow. That’s not to say that Twitter is replacing traditional media but rather that sometimes breaking news hits Twitter before it hits the traditional media and, in that sense, Twitter can sometimes scoop more traditional sources.

One of the best examples of the Twitter news phenomena occurred just this week when Lance Armstrong was injured in a biking accident. Armstrong informed his fans of the accident in a tweet only hours after the accident occurred.

When beat writers can update fans on the latest news at a moment’s notice and athletes can alert fans to the latest injuries and trades as soon as they happen, how can sports fans not embrace Twitter? For a complete list of sports media on Twitter, please check out the Sports on Twitter list.

If you’re looking for 2010 Winter Olympians on Twitter, please see this post for our directory. Thank you!

I’m proud to announce that the Sports on Twitter list now includes Olympians! The first three Olympic Twitterers are Tasha Danvers, who won a bronze medal in the 400m hurdles for Great Britain at the 2008 Olympics; American swimmer and two-time Olympian Scott Goldblatt, who won a Gold medal alongside Michael Phelps in the 4x200m freestyle in Beijing; and American runner Shannon Rowbury, a 2008 Olympian.

Update- The Sports on Twitter list now includes 13 Olympians. Recent additions to the list include 2008 US Gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin and Swimmer Natalie Coughlin.

Late last night I added a page and new category for NASCAR, the NHRA and auto racing to the Sports on Twitter list. While there are only two NASCAR drivers on Twitter right now, Robby Gordon and Bobby Labonte, I’m sure there will be plenty more in the future. In the meantime, check out the plethora of NASCAR and racing blogs on Twitter. You can follow the NASCAR chatter on Twitter by searching for the #NASCAR hashtag on Twitter Search.

If you’re not familiar with hashtags, they work just like tags on photos. Although Twitter Search can scan for words in tweets, if I write a tweet about Robby Gordon but only include the name of his sponsor and not his name, most people won’t be able to find it. If I add the #NASCAR hashtag to that same tweet, now everyone can find it. If they’re a fellow NASCAR fan, they’ll probably follow me, too.

I also added some race track accounts, too. Yes, some race tracks have their own accounts. Just think about all the preparation that goes into an annual NASCAR or NHRA race, the marketing and the publicity. Following your favorite race’s Twitter account could mean learning about ticket availability before anyone else, so why not? At the very least you’ll meet other racing fans and join the conversation!