Of all the people celebrating Indiana University\u2019s unexpected college-football championship Monday night, Mark Cuban is the most prominent. (Well, after John Mellencamp.) A graduate of the business school, the Texas billionaire has been pouring money into IU since at least 2015, when he contributed $5 million to start a campus sports broadcasting center where much of the footage from IU games gets edited.<\/p>\n
With the Hoosiers going from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the heap, the two-season arc was downright cinematic <\/a>\u2014 ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit called it \u201ca movie\u201d \u2014 an idea Cuban seconds. He also believes the victory means something for the country at large at a time when college sports has become professionalized and celebritized at an astounding rate.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n The Hollywood Reporter talked to Cuban in Miami just before he went to the national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium. He reflected on the team, AI, why he left Shark Tank behind and why he\u2019s jumping into live-event promotion, as he just did last week with a stake in the live-DJ promoter Burwoodland. The conversation was lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n We\u2019re talking just a few hours before your beloved Indiana takes the field to try to do the improbable. Why do you think a national-championship win (the team would go on to beat the University of Miami 27-21) for Fernando Mendoza and the other players would mean so much not just for the school but for the country?<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the American Dream. To go from the outhouse to the penthouse, isn\u2019t that what it\u2019s all about? This is something no one ever imagined would be done. Too often in life we jump to conclusions, we stick to the conventional wisdom. \u201cIndiana football sucks.\u201d We presume that because it always was that way it will always be that way. And when someone changes the narrative and perception, as Coach Cig [Curt Cignetti] did, and you realize it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a bit of a moneyball aspect \u2014 or, if you will, an indie-film narrative \u2014 to what he did, since the school\u2019s NIL cash was so much lower than other programs.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s I think what makes it so special and inspiring. It would be different if Cig and Athletic Director Scott Dolson did this by spending more money. But they did it with role players; they did it by outmaneuvering and out-strategizing the competition. How do you make this fit here and that fit there? It was almost like Shark Tank \u2014 a startup operation.<\/p>\n I was going say but thought that might be too on the nose.<\/strong><\/p>\n Haha, but it\u2019s true. We saw it all the time on the show, someone comes from a small town and they have a story and no one believes in them and the next thing you know they\u2019re really successful. Investing in this school feels a little like making a good deal on Shark Tank.<\/p>\n A deal you alas won\u2019t be making anymore [after departing the show<\/a> at the end of last season]. Why did you leave?<\/strong><\/p>\n I really liked doing the show but what would happen is I would get bored when Mr. Wonderful would take someone behind the barn or Laurie would ask \u201ctell me about you\u201d and so I would make a deal just to alleviate the boredom. And then once I did a deal I was committing to spending a lot of time [with the founders]. Because this is their lives and this is their future and also I don\u2019t want to be in a story where someone says \u201cwe did a deal with Mark Cuban and then he ignored me.\u201d So it would just take a lot of time and some of it was babysitting. I love working with entrepreneurs but I don\u2019t miss the babysitting.<\/p>\n You\u2019re saying it\u2019s not all the rainbows and sprinkles of those success-story updates we see later??<\/strong><\/p>\n Haha no. I mean there have been many success stories like that. BeatBox Beverages and so many other incredible exits. But the demands are much greater than what you see on the show.<\/p>\n Between your own exit there and no longer controlling the majority of the Mavs, it must leave you with plenty of free time.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m really busy with Cost Plus Drugs. I co-founded it [in 2022] with the mission to change the costs of health care and I think we\u2019ve been insanely successful. I spend about 90 percent of my business time on that.<\/p>\n You did just make a Shark Tank-esque \u00a0investment, buying an undisclosed stake in Burwoodland, the promoter behind Emo Night Brooklyn, Gimme Gimme Disco and Broadway Rave. What resonated with you about what they\u2019re doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n To me it was about AI. I think with so much of AI coming we\u2019re doing to be spending even more time indoors, more time with our screens. And we\u2019re going to want to be spending time with other humans. To say \u201clet\u2019s go out and do something fun tonight.\u201d These guys have figured that out and we need that.<\/p>\n Finally, I have to ask on behalf a lot of our readers who are NBA fans and Lakers fans, what do you make of where the Mavs are? Obviously there was a lot of consternation about the [Luka Doncic] trade to L.A. a year ago, and now the GM is gone too\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n I thought the trade was a bad idea and I advised on that but I\u2019m not in charge and nobody has to listen to my input. I felt bad for Mavs fans since there was a lot of change and a lot of heartbreak. But [No. 1 overall pick] Cooper Flagg has been better than I thought he would be a rookie so that is a bright light and there is hope for the franchise.<\/p>\n And we just saw how fast a team can turn things around.<\/strong><\/p>\n From the outhouse to the penthouse.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the people celebrating Indiana University\u2019s unexpected college-football championship Monday night, Mark Cuban is the most prominent.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":534470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[2494,151068,1318,15727,18655,33690,26878,236645,1317,1315,1316,24961,62,36770,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-534469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-cooper-flagg","9":"tag-curt-cignetti","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indiana-university","12":"tag-iu","13":"tag-kirk-herbstreit","14":"tag-mark-cuban","15":"tag-national-championship-game","16":"tag-ncaa","17":"tag-ncaa-football","18":"tag-ncaafootball","19":"tag-shark-tank","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115938550370162923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}