Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has decided against his company participating in the upcoming FCC spectrum auction. Here's his reasoning.

In a statement through Sprint's newsroom on Saturday, Marcelo Claure announced Sprint would not participate in the FCC incentive auction next year, a decision that rival T-Mobile CEO John Legere called "crazy," according to PC Magazine. The auction's purpose is for broadcasters to sell unused spectrum to wireless carriers for a portion of the profits.

In his announcement, Claure explained his reasoning, saying, "Sprint's focus and overarching imperative must be on improving its network and market position in the immediate term so we can remain a powerful force in fostering competition, consumer benefits and innovation in the wireless broadband world."

He continued, "Sprint has the spectrum it needs to deploy its network architecture of the future."

As evidence, Claure pointed out Sprint's current investments to make its network coverage denser by adding cell sites using existing spectrum it already employs, as well as investments into carrier aggregation technologies that use 2.5GHz spectrum, rather than the 600MHz up for auction next year.

The spectrum auction could be a boon to cell networks, increasing the bandwidth capacity and connection flexibility of whomever wins the buy. But smaller carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile have been concerned about how fair their positions against the biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, will be, as PC Magazine noted.

T-Mobile has, itself, even successfully pushed for changes in some of the FCC's auction rules, though not all it asked for.

Despite possibly being in a weaker position in the auction, T-Mobile's John Legere tweeted, "They are crazy to sit out this historic action!" in response to the news. He later added a habitual rebel-style tweet, cheerleading his company's participation in the auction: