Hierarchy of power in hotel TVs to change as Mark Cuban preps Shark Tank exit
The hotel room staple won’t be the same without Mark Cuban
Aux News Shark Tank
Shark Tank is nothing without its beady-eyed, razor-toothed, man-eating aquatic hosts. Since season two, Draymond John, Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, “Mr. Wonderful” Kevin O’Leary, and Mark Cuban have been manning the board seats, tearing apart aspiring entrepreneurs, pitching yet another breakthrough in golf course urination technology. Now, that school of five, their bellies filled with chum made of flop sweat and flailing business school dropouts, is set to become four. In what amounts to the greatest shift in power in hotel room television consumption since the advent of impractical jokes, Mark Cuban, one of the Tank’s most powerful and renowned sharks, is leaving Shark Tank.
Cuban, who first appeared as a guest host in season two, will call season 16 his final bucket of hapless inventor guts. “It’s time,” he said in a recent appearance on the Showtime podcast All That Smoke. Though he’s loved sending “the message the American dream is alive and well” if you can create the right socks-based subscription box, Cuban is proud that he and his fell sharks have “trained multiple generations of entrepreneurs that if somebody can come from Iowa or Sacramento or wherever, and show up on the carpet of Shark Tank and show their business and get a deal.” It’s really that easy.
“That’s what happens, right?” Cuban asked, ignoring the cold realities of Shark Tank as a viable business opportunity in an increasingly volatile and hostile marketplace. “Now we’ve got people coming on saying I watched you when I was 10 years old. I’m like, fuck. But we’re helping them, right?” Cuban, who is worth $6.2 billion, added. “I’ve invested in, I don’t know how many hundreds of companies. On a cash basis, I’m down a little bit, but on mark-to-market meetings, the companies are still in operation. I’m way up.”
This might be Cuban’s final lesson for all Shark Tank viewers and future entrepreneurs: Be a multi-billionaire, get out while the getting’s good, and have a nice life.
30 Comments
The Cuban’s Missing crisis.
Take this star and show yourself out.
My “shitty hotel cable” go to is always HLN because they run Forensic Files no -stop and, other than Dateline, it’s the easiest show to fall asleep to.Come to think of it – I can’t remember the last time I was in a hotel that had any kind of PPV or porn options. Did cell phones kill hotel porn?
I think so , if I’m in a shitty hotel I just watch whatever I have on my streaming apps on my phone ( my partner will just watch whatever Lifetime movie is on or SVU rerun) ..although now fancier hotels let you log on to Netflix or MAX on their TVs so that’s a cool bonus ( I was staying in NYC when Succession finale aired and thought I had to wait till I got home to watch it but the hotel offered MAX)
The best hotels are the ones that I can just cast my phone to so I don’t have to deal with logging into anything. That’s been pretty rare though. That hotels with streaming always seem to have a previous login still active, so that at least saves time.
That’s my go-to in better hotels, just log into one of my streaming accounts and pick up where I left off.
HLN is the best.
Forensic Files for sure or long ago we’d always end with The Profit marathons on CNBC. But I think that Marcus guy turned out to be a douche nozzle so it’s not on anymore.HLN had some fugitive show we liked to watch as well.
I work in a hotel. Whenever I go to a guest room during the afternoon/early evening, if the guests aren’t watching Fox News they’re watching Shark Tank. I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed this.
What kind of guests do you have, why aren’t they watching Forensic Files as God intended??
Extremely wealthy ones.
Because they’re not losers.
The last time I was in a hotel, I watched a lot of King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Seinfeld. TV Land, I think? Food Network is good when nothing else good is on too.
We tend to watch Storage Wars in hotels. I’ve never watched Storage Wars anywhere else.
The Harry Potter movies seem to always be on when I go to a hotel. They’re just entertaining enough to have on, but not so much that I want to sit down and watch them.
I feel like on the rare occasion I’m staying at a hotel, I wind up watching a Law & Order.
Last time I stayed at a hotel without the kids I watched John Wick and some Bourne movies.
I know Lori wasn’t there in S2, but… no mention of Lori? The core gang is going from six to five, not five to four. (But you could argue the only real “core” that’s almost always there is Mark, Kevin, and Lori while the others switch.)
I’m surprised there’s no mention of the obvious: Cuban’s clear political aspirations. The man despises Trump and has been more than willing to speak out against him. But having a contract with Disney (not exactly a friend of the culture warriors, but still) would naturally handcuff him. I’ll be curious to see how a “free” Mark Cuban gets involved in politics, if at all.
Well also, Mark wasn’t part of the regular cast in S2. He was a guest shark on three of nine episodes (per Wiki) and became a regular in S3.
Jokes aside, Mark Cuban really has made Shark Tank work because he’s a billionaire people generally know and like. It seems like more than half of the people pitching on the show want him to be their shark. Kind of wonder how they’ll replace him.
Yeah he was my favorite. He struck the right balance, between being savvy and sympathetic. He was not inclined to punch down if he wasn’t interested, unless he smelled a scam or sensed he was being bullshitted.
He’s be the top choice for Mrs. F. and me if we ever were on there despite Mrs. F.’s crush on Daymond. Last would be Barbara and her constant chirping about Cousin’s Maine Lobster. Oh, people like lobster? Shocking! Good job.
I like Barbara. Her companies are probably happy when she gives them free advertising. Lori seems to have the most successful Shark Tank-related products, so she’s probably the best to have if you’re pitching something up her alley. Robert seems nice, Mark & Daymond are OK, and Kevin is the biggest jerk.
Cuban has invested a total of $28M of his own money with a cash out of approximately $26M, so not bad… The current market positions he holds that have yet to be realized Cuban has valued at $200M (which I have no doubt about).Cuban has been rather transparent about his loses and successes on Shark Tank. Now if Mr. Wonderful wants to talk about the shitshow was the acquisition of The Learning Company one more time, maybe someone should talk about the investor losses and horrendous bookkeeping!
Lets also not forgot how O’Leary threw his wife under the bus (boat?) for killing someone drunk driving a boat at their cottage north of Toronto. It was a fucking sham that they both got off scot free.
It’s Daymond John, not Draymond.
This is timely. I stayed in a hotel last night and watched the only episode of Shark Tank in my life. At least part of it, it was pretty bad. Just the same 5 responses on why they all had to pass.
I’ve found carrying around a Google Chrome – which weighs almost nothing – in my laptop bag facilitates streaming to hotel TVs that otherwise do their best to prevent it in an attempt to force you to PPV.Haven’t seen Shark Tank outside of maybe a doctor’s lounge or such since.
He’s also selling his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, curious.
So now it was just announced that Cuban sold his majority stake in the Mavericks too. Sure seems like he’s gearing up for a political campaign.