On Tuesday, April 9, students in professor Ryan Russell’s digital marketing class in the UTC Gary W. Rollins College of Business reaped the rewards of a real-world social media exercise and scored an exclusive, virtual chat with world-famous entrepreneur, Mark Cuban.
Cuban may be best known as the host of “Shark Tank,” a reality show that gives entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their business ideas to major investors, but he is also part owner of the Dallas Mavericks, owner of CostPlus Drug Company and co-owner of Broadcast.com. According to Forbes.com, he has a net worth of $5.4 billion, making him the 577th richest person in the world.
The social media experiment began last week, when a guest speaker cancelled, and Russell found himself with some open class time. He offered his students a challenge–pick anyone in the world and he would work with them to bring that person to class for a virtual conversation. One of the students threw out Cuban’s name and Russell offered to donate $1,000 of his own money to Cuban’s nonprofit foundation and give each student fifteen points of extra credit for their work on gaining Cuban’s attention via social media and other outreach efforts.
Professor Russell teaches a number of marketing classes and has developed a talent for bringing celebrity speakers to his class. During the pandemic, when all classes moved online, he used a similar approach to snag Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, for a virtual visit with his students.
The students went to work filming videos, taking photos, and creating other content. Other students were aware of Cuban’s habit of responding to email and wrote to him directly. UTC alumni, faculty and members of the local business community saw the posts and added their voices to the campaign via LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
Tony Bonner, a senior entrepreneurship and Spanish double major at UTC, received the answer from Cuban via TikTok: “Deal. If I can schedule it, I’ll do it. But instead of sending 1k , buy Alyssa’s healthy cookies for your classes. We can discuss their marketing :)”
The classroom was packed as Cuban logged on at 2 p.m., chatted with students and answered several questions. He talked with students about his experience working with the founders of Alyssa’s Healthy Cookies and about marketing the Dallas Mavericks. He also answered the question: “What gets you out of bed in the morning?”
“Competition,” Cuban said. “I love to compete. And you know, as I’ve said before, business is the ultimate sport.”
