Mark Cuban is back in the card-collecting game, and this time the target is Fernando Mendoza.
The former Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur has bought Mendoza’s one-of-one rookie patch autograph from 2026 Topps Flagship Football, a card released at the end of August. Cuban, who is also a Shark Tank star, now joins his co-star Kevin O'Leary as another billionaire television personality making a splash in the high-end hobby.
According to multiple social media outlets, the card was pulled by a collector who then emailed Cuban directly to gauge his interest. Cuban didn’t make the call alone, either. He checked in with his son, Jake, who is an avid sports card collector and gave his father the blunt version of the upside and the risk.
"If Fernando sucks, then you're an idiot," Jake Cuban said. "If Fernando is who you think he is and he's going to be great, then it would be a bargain."
That advice was apparently enough to push Cuban into the deal, though the price has not been made public.
Cuban’s tie to Mendoza goes beyond the card itself. He attended Indiana University, where he enrolled in the Kelley School of Business and earned a Bachelor of Science in management. He also said in early May that he personally bankrolled the NIL deal that brought Mendoza to Indiana.
"I'll put up the money and we can go get Fernando [Mendoza]."Mark Cuban tells FOS that he provided the NIL money which allowed Indiana to sign the Heisman winning QB before the 2025 season. pic.twitter.com/BZAFOSt6ng
That move paid off in a big way for both Cuban and the school. Indiana finished 16-0, Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy, and the Hoosiers went on to win the school’s first National Championship in football.
The Mendoza card market has already shown plenty of heat around the quarterback’s top one-of-one pieces. According to Card Ladder, his highest documented sale is a 2025 Bowman Chrome University one-of-one superfractor, graded BGS Mint 9, which sold on January 29, 2026, 10 days after he won the FBS National Championship, for $78,000. Alt handled the auction, which drew 50 bids before closing, and Card Ladder now places its value at $84,640.
Mendoza’s cards remain relatively scarce overall. Collectors are mainly limited to 2026 Flagship, Bowman Football, and Topps Now releases when it comes to cards featuring him as a Raider.
The 2026 Topps Flagship card Cuban bought is one of the few major Mendoza chases on the market, and another Mendoza one-of-one has already shown strong demand: his 1991 Platinum parallel autograph sold for a best offer of $25,000 on September 23, 2026, after originally being listed at $37,000.
For now, the exact figure Cuban paid for the 1-of-1 remains unknown. But with his Indiana connection, his NIL backing of Mendoza, and a son who knows the hobby, this looks less like a headline grab and more like a collector going after one of the rarest cards tied to a young quarterback he already believed in.
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