Mark Cuban makes $30K donation to University of Dallas for UK trip

Players and coaches of the University of Dallas men’s basketball team said they are out $60,000 after a travel company filed for bankruptcy following a series of payments the team made for a trip to London.

But a $30,000 donation from Mark Cuban on Wednesday may allow the trip to happen after all.

The Division III program based in Irving spent 18 months fundraising for a trip to the United Kingdom as a part of a team tradition. Head coach Matt Grahn said the program tries to take any player not from a city within their conference home for a series of games if they stick with the program for three years.

Senior forward Michael Kennedy grew up in the London suburbs, so his team was eager to take him there to play a few games in front of friends and family.

After over a year of hard work, they had the means to do it.

“We raised over $65,000,” said Grahn, who is in his 16th year with the university and fifth as its head basketball coach. “We did anything and everything. We ran camps. All of our camps were fundraisers. We sold concessions at soccer games in the fall. We worked as ushers and security at AT&T Stadium for Cowboys games.

“We worked our tails off, and then it got ripped out from underneath us.”

The team was set to depart for the trip on May 28, but on April 6 — after making two payments of $30,000 to the travel company GoPlay LLC — they received an email stating the company had ceased operations and would be entering the Chapter 7 bankruptcy process. 

Grahn said GoPlay’s CEO stopped responding to all communication, and the company’s website and social media presence were shut off. He says they have not been refunded and believes that process could take months or years.

GoPlay did not immediately respond to The Dallas Morning News’ requests for comment on Wednesday.

In an email to Grahn, GoPlay cited “a combination of reduced bookings and increased cancellations due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East” for why they needed to cease operations.

In addition to helping the team book its trip, Grahn said GoPlay had gifted them a trip for two, including plane tickets, two nights in a hotel and tickets to either a theater or sporting event, that they could use for their fundraising. The team raffled off the tickets and chose a winner two days before the company shut down, raising $36,000 on that prize alone.

“With Texas gambling laws, we pulled the winner two days before GoPlay went under, so now, I either have to give all the money back to those specific donors, or I have to honor that trip,” Grahn said. “So now I’m not only out $60,000, but I’ve also got to pay for this winner to go to London for two days.”

The team started a social media campaign on TikTok to re-raise the funds and pushed the trip to August. One post made earlier this week has over 75,000 likes and 650,000 views.

That campaign reached former Mavericks principal owner Mark Cuban. Grahn said Cuban’s office contacted him Wednesday, saying Cuban wanted to donate $30,000 to their trip. Cuban told The News over email that he wanted to make the donation “because it was the right thing to do.”

The students had raised $13,000 on their own in the last month. After Cuban’s donation, they have just $17,000 left to raise to meet their goal.

“It took everything I had not to just bawl openly on the phone,” Grahn said. “It’s incredible. $17,000 definitely looks better than $47,000.”

The private Catholic university’s attorneys are now also involved, seeking to reclaim the original $60,000 lost. Grahn said they noticed the company hasn’t officially filed for bankruptcy yet and that there isn’t much that they can do until then.

But after Wednesday’s surprising donation, things are looking up for their trip to Europe in a few months.

“I remain extremely hopeful,” Grahn said. “I’m just trying to do right by these kids. I’m trying to do right by their families.”