The Business of Sports Icons: Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens

The business of sports icons with Rick Harre starts now. $5 buys you a Dolphin ticket in 1966, the first one ever.

At the end of the day, you could actually buy the team if you wanted to for $5 million.

You want to buy an All-Star shortstop, it's gonna cost you $29,000.

Man, have things have changed in the last.

50 years.

At the end of the day, it was a business.

Nobody knew it.

Harvard Law School.

I wrote a thesis and I went to the professor and said, I want to do something on sports law.

He said that's great, but there is no such thing, and if there is, we don't teach it here.

I had to win a squash game for the right to do that.

And at the end of the day, we certainly have caught up.

It's a 2.6 $billion trillion business right now.

And in fact, it has grown by about 20% year over year till Rudy Gobert tests positive for COVID in March of 2020.

Industry shuts down. a million jobs lost.

Nobody knows when they're getting back, but the rebound.

In fact, the Yankees, nearly 9 to $10 billion.

George Steinbrenner 50 years ago buys the team for $10 million.

The Lakers sell for $10 billion.

The bids start in Vegas and Seattle.

For 8 or $9 billion for the NBA, it is a resilient industry and as we get back post-COVID, cooperation, survival of the fittest, shared information, and understanding this is a business that's growing faster than any other, and you've got to be on top of it to survive and thrive in the business.

Now we're heading for the new Roaring 20, not 100 years ago after the Spanish flu, but something even bigger.

The positive aspects of the sports business permeate our own life, and as we go through the finest minds in the industry, about 100 of them agreed to be part of my book The Sport Business.

Book, you're going to get the business from them as only they can provide it to you.

Executives, owners, players, athletes all lined up to give you their best judgment in the best business possible.

So buckle up, be ready for a show like none other.

Sports professor Rick Harrow, speak with you soon.

This week on the Business of sports icons, our guest is Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, an engineer, entrepreneur, public servant, and lifelong Atlantan leading one of America's most influential cities.

Born and raised in Atlanta and educated in Atlanta Public schools, Dickens earned a degree in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Public Administration from Georgia State University.

Before becoming mayor, he worked in business, education, technology, and community development.

Then served 8 years as an at-large member of the Atlanta City Council.

In January 2022, Dickens became Atlanta's 61st mayor.

His administration has focused on public safety, affordable housing, infrastructure, economic opportunity, youth investment, and stronger neighborhoods.

He began his second term in January 2026 as Atlanta entered a defining period of growth and global visibility.

As a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Atlanta is preparing to welcome visitors from around the world, while using sports and major events to drive tourism, investment, job creation, and community development.

Now, the sports professor Rick Horo sits down with Mayor Andre Dickens to discuss leadership, Atlanta's continued growth, and how the World Cup can help shape the city's future.

Here is Rick Horow with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.

The whole idea of public-private partnerships and facilities and how communities move forward is intertwined in enlightened leadership, public.

And private, and the US Conference of Mayors is a clearing house for that enlightened leadership.

One of the most enlightened leaders you can possibly find on the face of this earth is Atlanta Mayor Andrew Dickens.

You like that?

Is that OK?

Is that a good?

That was good.

I think you'll take that.

And frankly, uh, you know, a Miami ACC guy, kind of difficult to talk about Georgia Tech, but you did OK this year, 16 team playoff, you'd have been in.

Yeah, we'd have been in if we would have had 16, but Georgia Tech, uh, we had a great start.

We were 9 and 0, and then we kind of fizzled out towards the end with some losses that we really want to get back next year, and we've got a great recruitment class, so I think Georgia Tech and Brent Key are a great coach, he's doing a phenomenal job, so.

We'll be back at the top.

All right, so you and other mayors need to reconvene how you restructure NIL and the future of sports so it doesn't get away from us.

You've got other issues.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah, he probably got a mayor NIL or, yeah, mayors for NIL, you know, Nick Saban is in it.

Coach K is in it.

You might as well do it as well.

You worked in engineering, in business.

You got an MPA at Georgia State University, you're Georgia Tech grad, BS in chemical engineering.

Um, those are industries.

If you put the stuff in the wrong test tube, you blow it up.

When politics, it's all about gray area compromise and creative thought.

How do you reconcile the two?

Yeah, you know, it's tough because as an engineer, you know that you can problem solve and you can get to the right answer, but in politics, while you may know what the right answer is, you got to be able to communicate it and get people to yes, which means somewhere along the way you might have to compromise or do incremental improvements versus just go directly to the answer.

We've been able to do that, uh, successfully and, uh, once you get the momentum going, people give you some grace.

Well, they should give you some grace because you certainly earned it.

So you've been in the chair since 2022, but you've been in the political hot seat since 2014.

Uh, what was the epiphany?

When did you say, all right, I'm gonna do this?

Yeah, I've always wanted to be the mayor of Atlanta, and I started off as a city council member for eight years, in 2014, and I just said, hey, it's time, it's time for me to run and uh go lead.

I was a neighborhood leader and I was a nonprofit and church leader, and I said, let's go to government.

Yeah, well, so, COVID-19 mask mandate issues, 100 million to housing, early childhood education, nightlife division, 13 million for homelessness, um, Amazing accomplishments in a relatively short period of time.

Yeah, we had to get a lot done in a short amount of time.

It's been 4 years of just constant acceleration.

I said we had to supercharge the government because we were coming out of COVID and I had to get everybody back to work.

We had to do our, you know, uh, separation and mask policies, our social distancing, but we said we're gonna fill potholes, we're gonna bring down crime, we're gonna make sure these youth have activities.

We're gonna grow our public, um, service areas as well as our Uh, parks and recreation.

And so we just did all we could and look at the results.

The city is doing very well.

We had to jump in there and get it done.

Luckily, I had a great team and, uh, we knew how to, you know, just, just get stuff done and not, not let, um, politics get in the way.

Interested for a politician to say not let politics in the way.

Need more of you.

Uh, you know, when you think about it, US Conference of Mayors has been involved with this group as a volunteer for a number of years and the whole idea of enlightened public-private partnership.

Revenue sharing, uh, in the broad notion of PPP.

I know you're big on the airport piece and you did that yesterday and, and stadium world, you know, there were about $12 billion annually pre-COVID, then nationally, it dropped to about $6.

Now they're about $32 billion in the pipeline for the next 5 years.

Uh, COVID meant people needed to wake up, pay attention, get more creative on everything they did.

Yes, for sure, you know, COVID just showed us that we, you know, had to be.

Able to still get work done while being careful about what the community expectations and needs are.

I'm big on public-private partnership.

P3s are a way for us to get things done, less expensive, more innovative, and save time.

Working with the private sector because they have a profit, you know, driven motivation to make sure their stakeholders are taken care of, whereas the public is still about getting the work done for the most amount of people at the right cost.

Tough question, but, uh, I think easier after COVID.

Billions of dollars, $10 billion on this $30 billion list committed from the public sectors nationally, yet you look at your priorities, their affordability and housing and the like.

Given the need for creative environments today, is there room for both public money for sports entertainment, infrastructure, and the other probably more needed priorities in the in the community?

Every deal is different.

The community benefits agreements have to be incorporated, local hiring, uh, making sure that you have local contracting and, um, disadvantaged business contracting, making sure the, um, city council and the mayor's office get multiple bites at the apple, that you don't just do this one day.

And then it lasts for 30 years.

You want to make sure that you can, uh, come back to the table and say what's working, what's not working.

Um, you never want to just hand over the keys to a private entity for something that's gonna use a whole lot of public dollars.

So, public-private partnerships are key.

I think they can work.

Um, I, I dare not go into every city and tell them what, what will work for them, but what works for us is, uh, some form of public-private partnership for stadiums and arenas.

Given that you, you know, CFP, you have World Cup coming up, or you have Super Bowl.

It helps you if you have an owner like Arthur Blank.

Oh yeah, there's nothing better than the Arthur Blank.

I mean, not only is he driven for success, but his heart is in the right place.

He puts his money and his team to work to be able to, you know, help us do community side stuff, not just stadium.

He's built a beautiful stadium, he's got an amazing team, two teams, the Falcons and United.

They are, you know, great success stories.

Um, we got to win a championship with the Falcons.

I am the lead of the cheerleading squad for the.

Falcon?

Oh no, Matt Ryan's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought you were German.

You can't confuse.

I say this all the time.

I'm a bigger Falcons fan than I ever.

I mean, I grew up in Atlanta.

I want us to get a Super Bowl.

I was there at the Super Bowl in Houston when we were, uh, did you did you leave at halftime?

Yeah, we, no, I stayed all the way through.

We beat the Patriots just not at the end of the game.

Yeah, no, no, they didn't very well.

Yeah, yeah, stopped the game at halftime.

You guys had to.

I blame Lady Gaga.

She did the halftime.

Too long and it just changed the whole floor too long and just like, you know, that that's as much, that's as fantastical as the guys that, uh, uh, would bear the or blame the power outage in New Orleans for the Niners that that I mean, come on, man.

I mean, live, live in a real world and that's, that's like, that's, I'm a fan.

I'm gonna blame anything, the wind, the sun, whatever it takes, but we, we, we, we got to get back to the Super Bowl.

One issue with all mayors that is an interesting dynamic, they all admit, and I've been in the business of metrics and how to do these things.

The hardest thing to quantify, but the easiest to understand is the quality of life, emotional excitement, commitment when a team does well or when a team relocates or a major event comes in.

How do you feel about that equation?

I mean, I'm a um I'm a math guy.

I'm a physics guy.

Energy matters, you know, it's a true energy around sports when they come into a, a, a new city or they build a new stadium, heck, even changing uniforms or, or getting a new quarterback, you get a new energy, and that matters significantly, and that, and that pumps energy into your economy and into your people.

Yeah, so the quality of life goes up.

So, uh, what about youth sports and their role in Atlanta, Georgia, team involvement, all that, how important is that?

You know, Georgia is a big, uh, football and basketball, track and field state, you know, in the state of Georgia, we produce a whole lot of talent that goes on to the NFL, the NBA, track and field, etc. on the men's and women's side.

And so we make sure that we invest in local parks and recreation, our AAU, our YMCA.

I have midnight basketball on top of all of that.

Uh, we do everything we can to keep the kids busy, which helps them be able to learn teamwork, learn conflict resolution, but also, it's a violence reduction, um, apparatus too, because once they're busy playing, they're not out there doing other stuff.

All right, so this is a trap, but not a Pulitzer trap.

So, I've been appointed, uh, the national chairperson.

Of Nutil, the National Urban Debate League for sports debate.

I've told them that it's important not just debating in junior high or high school about the national debt or China policy, but should athletes be paid and franchise relocation.

And we're doing that nationally and the first team that's involved is the Falcons.

We're having major events that start this spring.

And so I want to make sure. that you know that next time we talk, it's going to be about how to make sure that it happens for the betterment of Atlanta, especially because the metrics, when you look at graduation rates and student involvement and self-esteem are all really important, which is why Arthur and Rich McKay bought into it.

That's right.

Hey, I'm all for it.

I think that's a wise decision, uh, getting people to debate something that they can really touch and feel, and, um, that they enjoy.

And also on that issue, it's hard to debate and emerge with your lives in this quote unquote uncivilized society.

I, I hope when people learn a little bit more about how to agree.

Uh, to disagree and hug it out at the end of things, it becomes better for everybody.

Yeah, civility is what we, we, we're starting to see decline, but I think that, uh, we can do as much as we can to have civil conversations, to have orderly debate, to be able to, you know, find compromise, to see the greater good in everybody and make sure.

Do we speak positive life into some of these conversations.

Social media, the algorithm has us driven towards negativity.

So if we can come out of this thing without uh being eaten alive by all the things that's trying to get us, we'll be a better uniform it.

Your mouth to God yours.

Finally, uh, future mega events in Atlanta.

Super Bowl every 5 years, CFPs.

Let's drill the cup in unrivaled success.

I mean, you got a whole bunch of good stuff coming up.

Yeah, World Cup's coming in a few days.

We have the, uh, Super Bowl in 2028.

We just had Major League Baseball, um, All-Star Game, um, just a few months back in 2025.

We got the Final Four coming in 2031.

Are you a hockey fan?

Do you want hockey?

I want hockey.

Um, I'm not a big hockey fan, but I like the fights, and I like to see a, a first mayor who admits it, everyone loves it, the first one who admits it, right?

I mean, if it's the most orderly form of fighting, you know, in all the other sports they fight and the refs, you know, it turns into a brawl because, you know, it's not organized, like they got rules to fighting in.

And then you're also on ice skates, so you can't like, like knock a guy out too much because you can't really get leverage.

So it like it is.

Yeah, but the economics, uh, you know, I, I know the commissioner is really excited about looking at Atlanta again.

You know, you don't give up on a city because you had a team move twice, you look for a better deal, right?

We have failed soccer.

Two times before Arthur Blank brought soccer to Atlanta United, he brought it the right way.

He asked us, how can we create a fan base for this versus forcing it on us.

So we ramped up into soccer from the community up to the big stage.

As a sports mecca civic leader, what advice do you have for, you know, other mayors around here and others who are putting together public-private partnerships as business people?

Yeah, make sure you, uh, you know, look at the track record of cities that's done it, uh, successfully, uh, make sure that you involve the community in it, the chamber of commerce in it, the mayor's office for sure, city council, um, but also, you know, make sure that you, um, you know, go into some sports that aren't always the most, you know, I would say.

Uh, women's soccer, for instance, wasn't a big driver.

Now it has a huge following, we're building stadiums around it and then WNBA and the unrivaled, so I think there's a lot of ways to be able to get sports, um, you know, we want to get back to being big in tennis, um, uh, because that's a huge sport and you know, you have the Opens, etc. that come, so you got a big tournament.

So I think, you know, you got the football, you got the basketball, you got the baseball, um, you know, maybe the leagues don't want to expand 32 or more, but if you're a mid-sized city, you can still do some work, you know, you could have another, um, you know, soccer or some other related team.

Where's Andre Dinkins, uh, 5 years from now?

Hopefully hoisting a, uh, you know, Super Bowl championship.

Bad.

By the way, he guarantees it, right?

He guarantees.

Joe Namath's guaranteed it.

He was fine.

He was OK. other guy's guaranteed it.

I don't know fine, but you're OK.

That's right.

That's right.

I wouldn't even be mayor.

I'll be working in the blank organization or something, that's trying to get us a football, you know.

Usually some people will say, well, if he calls me, this guy, yeah, I was just kidding, but there's, I can't think of anybody more deserving as far as the future of Atlanta is concerned than Mayor Deacons.

City's in good hands.

US Conference of Mayors in good Good Hands.

Really appreciate your time.

All right guys, thank you.

Next episode, we turn to San Antonio, the heart of South Texas, where Rick Horo sits down with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.

Here's a preview of their conversation.

At CBA, when you get down to like the brass tax of it, is originally it was $60 million.

They, they upped it to $75 million based on some of my pushback, $75 million but $75 million over 30 years, what does that actually mean?

Um, that means $2.5 million each year, while $2.5 million.

It costs $16,000 to make a speed bump, right?

So $2.5 million divided by $160 that's 156 speed bumps.

Well, 156 speed bumps divided by 10 council districts, everybody gets 15 speed bumps.

Now, is that the kind of community benefits agreement that we want and that we deserve?

I, I would argue we need, we know, we need and deserve more.

The hardest thing that other mayors talk about after they allocate a little or a lot of public money.

Is the quality of life and the benefits once the team is successful and hypothetically if the Spurs win the championship, Thunder wins the championship.

David Holt's all over talking about how wonderful Oklahoma City is to the world that wasn't before.

So much of this is emotional, right?

Um, San Antonio, the San Antonio Spurs, that's our only professional team, right?

Our only major league professional team.

And frankly, like we, we are the no drama team.

We have traditionally been the no drama.

A team and our city really you think your coach will continue to do your new coach will be non-dramatic.

Oh, I, I believe so.

So we're very thank, uh, thankful for, for pop and his leadership over the many, many years, um, and the way he's also spoken up on issues that matter to our community.

I think that speaks to kind of the organization that that they are, that notwithstanding.

Tune in next episode for the full interview with San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.

Thanks for watching the Business of sports icons.

We'll see you next time.