🔥Upside Chat: Dr Ron Dick, Duquesne University, Ex NBA/NCAA Exec on Gambling Scandals in NBA & MLB, World Series TV Ratings, New Babe Ruth from Japan, NHL/NFL Standings, MLS Switching Calendar.

This week we had the honor to interview again Dr. Ron Dick, associate professor of sports marketing at Duquesne University in the school of business. Ron also worked for 20 years in sports, including 15 years in the NBA with the Sixers and the Nets, and then five years in the NCAA.

You can watch the video interview below or you can listen to the audio interview above:

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on:

• Gambling Scandals in NBA and MLB

• NBA teams and standings

• MLB: World Series TV Ratings, The New Babe Ruth from Japan

• NFL Teams and standings

• NHL Games Abroad and Teams

• NCAA: College Football and Basketball Updates

• MLS Calendar Alignment with European Leagues

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Ron located at the top of this blog post.

Here are some of the best quotes of our conversation with Ron:

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Q1. Gambling Scandals in NBA and MLB

On the Integrity of the Game:

“The integrity of the game is being threatened. In the NBA situation, Tim Donaghy, who’s from Philadelphia and went to Villanova and Cardinal O’Hara, he’s the referee that went to jail. They tried very much to isolate him and say he was a rogue referee that was all doing this by himself. And after he came out of jail, he said, ‘You know, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Basically I’m not alone. Today me, tomorrow it’s gonna be somebody else.’ And he looks like he was right. I mean, we have all these other players involved now.”

On Who’s Behind the Investigation:

“The FBI is very patient. They almost never lose. They’re methodical. They don’t pounce until they have something with real meat on the bones. The question I’d like to ask is, who alerted the NBA and the MLB about this? Do you really believe these leagues want this negative publicity? They just want it to go away. The people that are pushing for this, for the FBI to get involved in the investigation, believe it or not, are DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, and Bet365. They’re the five largest companies that pay millions of dollars to have this association with the sports teams. I know they’re behind it because they’re getting beat. When the house loses money, they want to know why, and they see money moving mysteriously toward prop bets in particular, not just over-unders.”

On Terry Rozier’s Scheme:

“In the case of Terry Rozier from Louisville and the Miami Heat, who’s making $26 million a year, what he did was he told the bettors, ‘Don’t bet on the overs. You can bet on a prop bet—how many points a player’s gonna get, how many assists they’re gonna get, how many turnovers, how many rebounds.’ He said, ‘Bet all the unders.’ And then seven minutes into the game, I’ll grab my knee and pretend I’m injured. And all those unders came in. When they saw hundreds of thousands of dollars moving mysteriously and then they tracked it again, the house was losing because it was fixed. You’re taking the integrity of the game away.”

On Why Players Risk Everything:

“I’ve talked to people about it, and they say the greed—it’s like drugs. It’s the lure of the easy money. Well, you know, no one’s gonna catch us. It’s a quick hit. We’ll make some money. Charles Barkley was on ESPN and he said, ‘When you make this kind of money as an NBA coach and NBA players, why are you putting your career at risk for so little money compared to what you’re making every year?’ It’s chump change. I mean, it’s nothing. It’s peanuts. I don’t know. It must be the thrill of the chase. It must be getting over on somebody. I have friends who say it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it’s a zero-sum game, meaning it’s never enough. But you sold your soul for nothing.”

Q2. NBA Standings

On Early Season Surprises:

“It’s still very early in the season. The Pistons—I mean, it just seems like yesterday they were not a very good team, and now all of a sudden they’ve turned the corner. I wouldn’t have thought the Sixers were gonna be seven and four. That surprises me. They got a really good player, number three overall. He scored over 40 points in his first game as a rookie. He was quite a draft pick, and you team him up with a young Tyrese Maxey and things are looking good there. Joel Embiid seems to be fading a little bit. He’s more of a role player now than maybe before. He is a very highly paid role player, but he’s one injury away from sitting out games. He doesn’t do back-to-backs. Good for the Sixers. It’s time that team makes the playoffs and does some damage.”

Q3. MLB World Series TV Ratings

On the Historic Viewership:

“There are feelings that baseball was just for older people and that younger people are bored by it. They’ve done some nice things with speeding the games up. The ratings for Game 7—now of course you got a lot going on. You got Canada with Toronto, wonderful city, one of the biggest cities in North America. You’ve got Los Angeles, the second biggest city in the United States, and you have the entire Japanese community as a country who was watching that game. Canada did 11.6 million viewers, Japan itself did 12 million viewers, and the United States had over 29 million viewers. This was rivaling what maybe a Super Bowl would be. Baseball was really strong. The zenith point was 33.06 million at 11:45 at night. I mean, that game went late into the night. What an exciting game. It really helped the viewership—one of the highest since 2007 for the World Series.”

Q4. New Babe Ruth from Japan

On Roki Sasaki (Murakami):

“We have an announcement coming out of Japan. We have what is commonly called the Babe Ruth of Japan. His team just posted him, meaning he can go to an MLB team and you have to pay them a fee to get out of that contract. This is the nature of the relationship between Japan and MLB. This player’s name is Murakami. He is the Babe Ruth of Japan. He’s not overly athletic. He hits the ball a mile. He strikes out a lot. So he’s really not an outfielder. He’s more of a third baseman or first baseman. I don’t know that he’s gonna go to the Dodgers unless he wants to take a pay cut, which I’m gonna assume he doesn’t. So look for him to sign with the Yankees, the Red Sox, or somebody of that ilk would be my guess. But you gotta love the Hot Stove League. I mean, we got free agency happening, possibly trades. Look for that guy to be a very interesting piece to leave Japan and come to MLB next year.”

Q5. NFL Teams Doing Well

On Paul Tagliabue’s Legacy and Current Standings:

“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the death of Paul Tagliabue. He was the commissioner from 1989 to 2006. He oversaw great growth in the NFL. We saw expansion, salary caps put in place, free agency finally for the players, TV deals exploded, new buildings built throughout the league. The Rooney Rule was put in place where you must interview a minority candidate. He is one of the most important figures in NFL history. When you’re asking about wins and losses, it looks like the Eagles are seven and three in the NFC East, the Lions and Bears and Packers are doing pretty well. Surprising, the Patriots—look at that, nine and two. They hired one of their former players who had been the head coach of the Titans and he’s just getting it done. The Bills are sitting there at six and three. Look at the West, the Broncos with Bo Nix as quarterback are eight and two. The Chargers are seven and three and just beat the Steelers, and the Chiefs are five and four. So that division is wide open, but it’s getting to be exciting.”

Q6. NHL Games Abroad and Teams

On European Expansion:

“They’re really trying to expand their brand in the NHL, and there are some really good teams in the northern part of Europe. I had the opportunity to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, Sweden, and next-door neighbor Norway. Hockey’s big up there for obvious reasons. Our Pittsburgh Penguins are playing the Nashville Predators on November 14th and 16th and then flying home after that to get an opportunity to expand their brand into Europe. That to me makes complete sense. The northern part of Europe is a real fertile area for growth. A little surprising, the Oilers only have 18 points. It looks like our two teams in Florida are doing really well—the Florida Panthers in Miami and also the Tampa Bay Lightning. They’re both kind of middle of the pack right now, but again, it’s early. Could this be finally the year Toronto does it? Some experts think so. They haven’t won a championship in 59 years, so they’re pretty due.”

On Winter Olympics:

“Don’t forget the Winter Olympics—we’re gonna shut down the NHL this year, February 6th to the 22nd. We’re going to one of your neighbors in France. They’re going to Italy and they’re gonna play. The Winter Olympics will have hockey in Milan, Italy, and Cortina, Italy, where we will have all our players in the NHL playing with their respective countries.”

Q7. College Football and Basketball Updates

On College Football:

“With college football, we have two teams in the top 10 that have two losses. Notre Dame is sitting there at 9-2. They have a big game against the top 25 team, the Pitt Panthers—both starting freshman quarterbacks. Texas is number 10 at 7-2. But Ohio State is really doing well—undefeated. Indiana Bloomington, undefeated. Texas A&M, undefeated. Alabama and Georgia with one loss, Texas Tech, Ole Miss with one loss, Oregon at eight and one. So that rounds out the top 10. The one common denominator with all these big payouts to coaches that programs want to get out from under is their agent is usually a guy named Jimmy Sexton. He’s the one getting these guys the big contracts. Of course, Scott Boras is a feared agent in MLB and Lee Steinberg was loosely based on in the movie Jerry Maguire from 29 years ago.”

On College Basketball:

“Switching gears to college basketball, BYU supposedly has the best player in the country, and his name is AJ Dybantsa. He’s probably gonna be the top pick in the draft in 2026 in the NBA. He plays for BYU. BYU is buying players left and right and they should be a team that may end up going to the Final Four.”

Q8. MLS Calendar Alignment with European Leagues

On the Schedule Change:

“The MLS yesterday announced a shift in its competition calendar to align the league schedule with the world’s top soccer leagues, especially in Europe. Beginning in the summer of 2027, the MLS will adopt a summer-to-spring season format, basically starting around August until June, making it one of the most significant developments in the league’s history. I think it’s absolutely a good thing. The only downside for the MLS is you’re taking on the NBA and you’re taking on hockey directly, and the early part of the NFL. That would be my only concern about that. As far as getting and securing talent, which Europe has been known to be number one for with the Premier League and soccer, that might help. If we mirror it and get it consistent, we could go from being the 10th or 15th best league in the world to top five. I think the MLS definitely belongs in the top 10. It makes sense. It’s good news for the MLS. It’s a good decision.”

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