Dr. Patrick Rishe is the Founding Director of the Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as a Professor of Practice in Sports Business within WashU’s Olin Business School. He is also the Founder and CEO of the sports consulting firm Sportsimpacts, as well as a contributing Sports Business writer for Forbes.com.
Regarding professional highlights from 2018 alone, Dr. Rishe received the annual Reid Teaching Award from the Olin Business School, served as the NCAA’s expert witness in their favorable outcome in the Todd McNair lawsuit, and conducted an Economic Impact Study for the 2018 SEC Men’s Basketball Championships.
As the Founding Director of the WashU sports business program which began in 2015, Dr. Rishe has produced (1) an annual Fall Sports Business Summit which has attracted over 75 sports industry speakers in its first 3 years, (2) experiential projects with organizations such as Populous, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Carolina Hurricanes, and the Vegas Golden Knights, and (3) sports immersion trips where dozens of WashU students have traveled to New York City and Los Angeles to network with numerous sports organizations. Dr. Rishe teaches classes in Sports Analytics, Sport Marketing, and the Business of Sports. Prior to WashU, Dr. Rishe spent 16 years at Webster University as an Economics professor.
As the Founder and CEO of Sportsimpacts (started in 2000), Dr. Rishe’s firm has conducted over 85 Economic Impact Studies including 3 Super Bowls (2016, 2011, 2006), 3 Final Fours, and a Ryder Cup. He has also done impact studies for entire college athletic programs (Ohio State, Texas, New Mexico), and has conducted market research at over 20 NCAA Championship events.
Academically, Dr. Rishe has published numerous academic papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Sport Marketing Quarterly and the International Journal of Sport Finance. In the classroom, he has taught Sports Business courses at UCLA, Saint Louis University, and Pepperdine University, has been a guest speaker at Harvard’s Sports Law Symposium and NYU’s Tisch Graduate School of Sport Management, and has previously (2015-2017) moderated panel discussions at both the MIT Sports Analytics Conference and Stanford University’s Sports Innovation Conference (2015, 2018).
In media works, Dr. Rishe has been a contributing OpEd columnist for FORBES.com since 2010, where he has published over 800 pieces which have garnered over 4 million readers. His insights on topical sports business issues have appeared on various national media outlets such as NBC Nightly News, CBS News, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox Business, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio, Marketplace Radio, and NPR.