They raised the money a dollar at a time — selling Gatorade at soccer games, scraping together every penny they could — and then a travel company took it all and vanished. For the University of Dallas men’s basketball team, a dream trip to London has turned into a financial nightmare.
The Crusaders paid more than $60,000 to GoPlay Sports nearly two years ago to fund a planned trip to the British capital. Then, on April 9, 2026, the company sent a notification informing the team it was entering Chapter 7 bankruptcy and could no longer fulfill any bookings. Just like that, the money was gone — and the trip with it. CBS News Texas reported the story after the team went public with their frustration.
Two Years of Work, Gone Overnight
How do you even begin to explain that to a locker room? Head coach Matt Grahn had to do exactly that, and by his own account, it was one of the harder moments of his coaching career. “Difficult, I don’t think even scratches the surface of how I felt about it — I was embarrassed. I was completely embarrassed,” Grahn said. “We’ve worked so hard on this trip as a group. The players put an amazing amount of work and effort into this, and then to go back and say, ‘Hey, there is nothing’ — shame, embarrassed, angry.”
The $60,000 wasn’t handed over in one easy check. Players, coaches, family members, and friends grinded to pull it together. Senior Michael Kennedy described the effort bluntly: “We worked. I also spent a lot of time selling Gatorade at school soccer games just to raise anything because $60,000 is a big sum. We’re just trying to do it, penny by penny.” That’s not a figure of speech — it was genuinely penny by penny, concession stand by concession stand.
For freshman Luke Paton, the anger is still raw. “How do you let this happen,” he said. “As a company, it’s your job to fulfill your clients’ trips and bookings, and we gave you this money, so what happened to it?” It’s a fair question. One that, so far, doesn’t appear to have a clean answer.
For One Player, It Was Personal
Among all the players affected, Kennedy’s situation carries a particular weight. He’s a senior — and he’s from London. The trip wasn’t just a basketball excursion for him. It was supposed to be a homecoming of sorts, a chance to show his teammates where he grew up and, crucially, to play in front of his parents, whose health makes traveling to the United States impossible.
“I was going to show them, like, where I live,” Kennedy said. “I was 100% confident this trip was going to happen; nothing could have gone wrong, but it did. I just, it feels like betrayal a little bit, you know, two years of working with them, but for what?” That last question — for what? — is one that’s hard to shake.
A Bankruptcy Filing That Doesn’t Quite Add Up
Still, the story gets murkier from there. GoPlay Sports cited increased cancellations tied to the ongoing Middle East situation as a contributing factor to its shutdown. The company claimed it was entering Chapter 7 proceedings. But as of April 20, 2026, no corresponding bankruptcy filing appears to exist in public court records — a detail that raises serious questions about what’s actually happening behind the scenes.
The university’s legal team is now investigating the matter, and Coach Grahn says he’s actively exploring alternatives to salvage something from two years of planning and fundraising. What those alternatives look like — and whether any of the money can be recovered — remains to be seen.
What Comes Next
The University of Dallas isn’t a powerhouse program with deep-pocketed boosters waiting in the wings. This was a team that sold sports drinks at soccer matches to chase a once-in-a-college-career experience. The gap between what they had and what they’ve lost isn’t just financial — it’s the kind of thing that sticks with a group of young athletes long after the season ends.
For Kennedy, the senior who won’t get another shot at this, the sting is sharpest. He spent two years trusting a company to hold up its end of a deal, all so he could stand on a London court with his teammates and — for maybe the last time — play basketball near home. That’s not something you can refund, regardless of how the legal proceedings shake out.
“It feels like betrayal a little bit,” he said. Sometimes, that’s exactly what it is.
