Pittsburgh enlists Mark Cuban and Jerome Bettis to showcase its tech brawn during NFL Draft

Billionaire Mt. Lebanon-native Mark Cuban had to leave Pittsburgh to make his fortune.

But if the city's tech scene was then what it is now, he said Wednesday, he would have had no reason to leave.

"It's harder to fail here than any other city," Mr. Cuban said during a Q&A at the Powering the Future of Sport: A Draft Week Showcase at Hazelwood Green. "Once you're here, there's no particular reason to leave.

"I think Pittsburgh, after Silicon Valley, is becoming the leading center for artificial intelligence and robotics. … And what makes us dramatically different than Silicon Valley is it's affordable to live here. We're not arrogant. We not only go to sporting events, but we understand them. It's completely different than Silicon Valley. And so I think that really sets Pittsburgh up to just continue to grow and amaze people. It's just phenomenal what's going on here, and starting here."

On the eve of the NFL Draft, Pittsburgh officially launched its strategy to display its brawn not only in football, but in a wide-ranging field of topics, including AI, robotics, tech and all the game-changing data that comes with it.

The showcase at Carnegie Mellon University's newly minted Robotics Innovation Center was designed to bring sports magnates - including Steelers icon Jerome Bettis - and Pittsburgh's tech innovators into one space to demonstrate just how intertwined the two industries are, and what the Steel City brings to their future.

"When I think about sports, I think about it as kind of one of the last, truly unifying forces in America," said Meredith Meyer Grelli, the managing director and interim executive director for CMU's Swartz Center of Entrepreneurship. "We have this moment, this very special moment, to show the nation that Pittsburgh is not only this great sports city, but it is truly a leading center of innovation."

‘A robotics playground'

Mr. Bettis knows that football is going to be a different game when his son graduates from college because AI is "going to change the game that he knows and loves."

"That's what makes it so beautiful - it's happening at home," Mr. Bettis said.

He watched and cheered as Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O'Connor dove to catch a football launched by a robot, scuffing his shoes and navy suit in the process.

"That's commitment," Mr. Bettis observed.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Steelers President Art Rooney II got an up-close look at the robots being built by local innovators, such as North Shore-based Gecko Robotics and Polish Hill based-HEBI Robotics - climbing and scanning robots, six-legged robots, snake robots, wearable exoskeletons and "second-skin" wearable sensors.

Indeed, before Mr. Goodell takes the draft stage Thursday night to announce the NFL's first-round draft picks, he likely will have already caught a pass from a robot.

Or gleaned some AI-driven draft insight on player value and trade strategy with software built by the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center.

Or stepped into a batting cage, where AI could match his swing with a current Pirates player, the comparison shown via side-by-side video, using North Shore-based company Diamond Kinetics' sensors.

All were demos at the CMU event.

"You can really think about it as a robotics playground," Ms. Grelli said.

"We are in this frontier technology moment as a country and across the world," she said. "All the areas that CMU has great, great strengths in are incredibly relevant and investable right now. In the technologies that we are developing, and the research that we lead in, the applications are so wide that they touch every aspect of human life, and sports is no exception."

‘Shark Tank' competition, tech style

After a series of discussions on the future of robotics, vision systems, AI and sport, six finalists pitched their startups "Shark Tank" style to a panel of judges - including Mr. Cuban, one of the original "Shark Tank" judges on the long-running TV show.

Over 100 applications came in from across the country for the "Forge to Field Pitch Competition." The six finalists pitched in front of six judges for slices of a $1.75 million prize pool, which includes $1 million in compute credits from Amazon Web Services.

In addition to Mr. Cuban, the judging panel included: Ed Stack, executive chairman of Dick's Sporting Goods; Will Allen, former Steeler and founding partner of Magarac Venture; Deap Ubhi, director and global head of solutions architect for startups, Amazon Web Services; Jeanne Cucinelli, president of UPMC Enterprises and executive vice president of UPMC; and Troy Demmer, co-founder of Gecko Robotics.

Here's how the dollars shook out:

Ms. Cucinelli of UPMC offered migraine-tracker Peachy Day the ability to test in its facilities, and AWS committed $50,000 in compute credits.

ServeSense, which makes attachable performance trackers in racquet handles for all racquet sports, won $125,000 in investment from First Order Fund, and a verbal commitment from Mr. Cuban and Mr. Stack of Dick's Sporting Goods.

San Francisco-based Flowstate, the only out-of-state competitor, which uses AI agents to instantaneously create video content, won $300,000 from AWS. Mr. Ubhi urged the founder to talk with Amazon Prime's NBA team, while Mr. Stack expressed interest in using Flowstate for scouting.

Sensi Fit, which uses 360-degree sensors atop training cones to track athlete performance, received $125,000 from Mr. Allen, which UPMC matched, while Mr. Stack made a verbal commitment to a pilot, hoping to focus on injury prevention for female athletes.

MyoVerse, which measures performance at the muscular level, got $200,000 from AWS, $125,000 from First Order Fund, and a $75,000 commitment from UPMC.

Perforated AI, which changes the structure of AI models using neural networks, got $50,000 from AWS, $125,000 from Mr. Allen, $50,000 from UPMC and a verbal investment commitment from Mr. Cuban.

‘Can we predict injuries?'

For CMU's Sports Analytics Center, the NFL's "amazing amount of tracking data" is a gold mine for the future of sports, said Ron Yurko, the center's director.

"It's generated from the chips and the shoulder pads," Mr. Yurko said. "The NFL has cameras all around the stadiums, literally picking up on the skeletal representation of an athlete. It's an amazing amount of data."

What to do with that trove of data is exactly the question driving the next frontier of sports, he said.

"Can we predict injuries? Can we detect when injuries are happening in real time? What's the optimal throwing motion for a quarterback?" Mr. Yurko said. "We had Jerome Bettis here and [we were] thinking about, what did he do footwork wise, how did he navigate those holes?"

Inseung Kang, an assistant mechanical engineering professor at CMU, showed Mr. Goodell the exoskeleton he and his team have spent two years building in a lab.

"We can train a robot that can customize each individual, per their conditions," Mr. Kang said. "So imagine a sports athlete trying to recover from injury. We can do digital simulation of a person in different types of motion, and we can use those data to train a model. We can have customized solutions for recovery using these exoskeletons."

Mr. Goodell asked about the range of applications - and Mr. Kang foresaw a market for the average consumer, for outdoor hiking use, for example, or rehabilitation.

‘A digital divide in the inner city'

Mr. Bettis said his life changed because of one man who hosted a Detroit football clinic: Reggie McKenzie, a former left guard for the Buffalo Bills.

"He changed my trajectory," Mr. Bettis said on a panel with CMU President Farnam Jahanian.

"Had I not gone to that football clinic, I don't know where I'd be right now. Now I want to try to change someone's trajectory because I know it works. I know the foundation works because it saved and changed my life."

So the player known as "The Bus" started the Cyberbus to bring tech education and access to underprivileged neighborhoods.

"I saw that there was a digital divide in the inner city for the kids that were less fortunate, that didn't have the resources," he said. "Because some of the school programs just didn't have the computer classes and all the things that you needed. … I came to CMU, and we started the first Cyberbus program here. And what we did was we brought kids from the inner city on the campus, and the students helped teach the kids. We taught them how to build a computer, and then integrate that computer into the home."

As for what it means to have Pittsburgh hosting the draft?

"It means possibility, Mr. Bettis said.

"You have these young people who are starting their careers right here in Pittsburgh, and this is really the kickoff point for them. That's what I think about the most, the careers that will be launched from Pittsburgh."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 3:42 PM.