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:
The NFL draft recap, new NFL Schedule. Aaron Rodgers’ new contract with the to Pittsburgh Steelers,
NBA draft & playoffs,
College athletics 5 plus 5, MBB/College FB,
NHL playoffs,
LIV updates,
MLS season, 2026 World Cup,
MLB season
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:
1. NFL Draft recap, new NFL schedule, Aaron Rodgers to Pittsburgh
“Pittsburgh really shined in the NFL draft. The weather was tremendous on Thursday, Friday a little bit of rain. I took my daughter on Saturday afternoon. They’ve become the model. Every city that hosts — and next year it’s going to be in Washington DC — I believe Washington will shatter the record that was set recently by Pittsburgh, beating Detroit from two years ago because of their location. People will train down from New England, New York, Philly, Baltimore, and up from Atlanta and Florida to go to this event. It was a very, very cool event. Pittsburgh pulled it off and it was great. To see 700,000 additional people in the city was overwhelming.”
“The Steelers, Aaron Rodgers signed a one-year deal more than twice what he made last year — 22 million for this one year with an accelerator that could get him to 25 million. Some people are talking about this now while organized team activities are taking place. For the first time ever it seems like the growth here is going to be in brand-new countries that have never hosted an NFL regular season game. Melbourne is going to have a game, Rio in Brazil, and Paris, France — the Steelers are going to play there.”
“The NFL has, of the 32 teams, assigned countries to certain teams. For example, the Cowboys’ only country they’re assigned to is Mexico. The Pittsburgh Steelers are assigned to Germany, Ireland, and Mexico. They’re trying to get those countries excited about and supporting those teams, so what better way than to go there and play a game? That’s where this seems like the growth is, and that was very apparent on day three of the draft.”
“Boy, it seems like the NFL loves them some Eagles. The Eagles are playing on Thanksgiving in Dallas, they’re hosting on Christmas Eve, and they’re on a lot of the radar for national games, as are the Steelers. So it’s going to be a great football year and it’s pretty exciting.”
2. NBA Draft and NBA Playoffs
“The NBA Draft Lottery took place. It looks like Washington got the first pick, Utah second, Memphis third, Chicago fourth. In no particular order, I don’t think it’s clear-cut who’s one, two, three, and four in the draft. The players are AJ from BYU, Peterson from Kansas, Boozer from Duke — of course his dad played in the NBA and was an All-Star — and Caleb Wilson from UNC Chapel Hill. They are considered to be without a clear top four. You could argue what order, and it should be interesting what Washington does. There’s a little bit of drop-off from five and down.”
“Spurs versus OKC. This is what we’ve all wanted. This is one versus two. This is going to be an awesome series. Those two teams are going to be around for a long time because they are both so young.”
“The Knicks could get to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 with Patrick Ewing. So that’s pretty exciting in the NBA. I think OKC versus the Knicks, and OKC wins back-to-back titles.”
3. College athletics: 5 plus 5, college basketball, college football
“Brand new rule, it’s called five plus five. When you graduate high school — or when you turn 19 — you have five years you can play. They’re trying to rush this through with the NCAA and all the big conferences. There are players that are playing that are 26 or 27 years old, getting an eighth or ninth year. This is insanity, right? Let’s streamline this, let’s make it incredibly simple so everybody understands.”
“If you get injured, you don’t get that year back. You have to do it in five years. So that would cap everybody out at roughly 23 or 24 years old. The only exemptions would be pregnancy, military, and religious missions. It all kind of makes sense because we’ve got guys going in that are on second marriages, they’ve got child support, alimony — and it’s like, how do you play college sports when you’re 26 or 27 years old?”
“This will give freshmen more of an opportunity because they’re really missing out on opportunities coming out of high school. You can leave any time you want to go play professionally, but you can’t play any time past those five years. Simple as could be.”
“Ohio State, $50 million is what they’re going to pay. They have a budget of roughly $50 million. That’s above and beyond NIL — just here’s our budget for our athletic department, we’re spending $50 million this year on our football team. If you’re not going to spend 50, and you’re in the SEC or Big Ten, then can you compete with a $50 million payroll?”
“They really want to push through 24 teams in the college football tournament, up from 12. And in 2027, March Madness is going to go from 68 teams to 78. Ten additional teams will get in. But now you may see teams with three losses making the football playoff. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but they’re going to give more opportunities to teams.”
4. NHL Playoffs
“We’ve got a Game 7 coming up, Buffalo versus Montreal. The winner takes on the Carolina Hurricanes. Then you’ve got a tremendous Colorado Avalanche team that is going to play the Golden Knights of Vegas, and the winners of those series will go to the Stanley Cup Finals.”
“No more Tampa Bay Lightning, no more Florida Panthers. They’ve won quite a few recently. Back to back, yes. So now we’re seeing a bit of a changing of the guard.”
5. LIV Golf updates
“They are on life support. They lost $6 billion in their 54-round type format. Five guys in particular want to come home and play in the PGA — Jon Rahm, Bryson, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Cameron Smith all saying, ‘Can we come back and play for the PGA?’”
“I believe they will take them back. I think it’s happening already. It’s forgive and forget, and probably we’ll just pretend like it never happened that they left the PGA. But for all practical purposes, LIV is dead.”
6. MLS season and World Cup ticket prices
“The MLS is going to be on a little break because the World Cup is starting on June 11. There are going to be 11 US cities hosting the World Cup. There’s been controversy about the prices going through the roof, and now it looks like the prices are finally coming down a little bit.”
“With food prices, gas prices, cost of living — for them to try to demand $5,000 a ticket or $10,000 a ticket, it’s obscene. It feels predatory, and people just won’t buy it. It’s not an inelastic product. It’s elastic. The rubber band will only stretch so far, then I just won’t go.”
“There have been lawsuits and people trying to figure out why the prices of the tickets are so high. It is very difficult, even with electronic tickets, to control the secondary market once you decide you want to go down that road. Some have argued it’s impossible to control the secondary market. But it’s something they better figure out really fast because this thing’s jumping on us June 11th.”
“They’ve got high-end facilities, they’re ready to do it, and this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime type of situation for a lot of people. I think we’re going to do a really nice job hosting it in the United States.”
7. MLB season
“We are roughly a third of the way through and a couple things jump out at you. The Rays in Tampa, their building’s been fixed after the hurricane, they’re playing there, and they have 30 wins already. That’s number one in the AL East. The Yankees are number two.”
“We had rivalry weekend, which I found very interesting. The Mets play the Yankees, the Phillies play the Pirates, Rangers and Astros — it made a lot of sense and sparked interest around the league.”
“In the Central we’ve got two teams over .500. How about the Sacramento Athletics, number one in the AL West right now. The Braves have the most wins in baseball. The Phillies got off to a horrific start, fired their manager, hired Don Mattingly, and they’ve gone on a run since then.”
“The Cubs look really good in the Central. Everybody in the NL Central is over .500. The West, it’s all Dodgers. Padres looking really good too.”
“There’s a number of brand-new Japanese players that are doing very well this year for the first time. We’re going to see more and more players coming in from the Nippon League in Japan to become stars in MLB.”
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