Manny Lorras Photography
Call him a sports industry cartographer. For much of his career — really for much of his life — Rick Pineda has made a habit of charting the best path through unfamiliar places. He emigrated to the U.S. from Colombia at 13, and found his way into sports after chancing on a TeamWork Online listing.
“Sports chose me more than the other way around,” said Pineda. “Fortunately, almost every job I’ve had didn’t exist before, so I got experience quickly.”
Rick Pineda
Director of Sports, Diageo
Age: 39
Born: Bogota, Colombia
Education: North Carolina State University, B.A., anthropology
Family: Spouse, Julia
Advice to my 20-year-old self: Work/life balance is important. When I was at MSG, I worked every event. That’s a lot.
How I deal with stress in the workplace: Running, usually by the West Side Highway. That’s my escape.
Cause supported: I do English translations for the New York Board of Elections to help immigrants.
App I use most: Delta Air Lines.
First social media platform I signed up for: Facebook, when it was called “The Facebook.”
Social media platform I use/follow most today: Instagram.
Person in sports business I’d most like to meet: Phil Knight.
Sports business leaders should be more mindful of … : Empathy for co-workers.
Most pressing issue
facing my generation is … : Environmental/sustainability issues.
At Madison Square Garden, Pineda drove around the tri-state managing the Rangers Road Tour grassroots program. “I was a natural,” he laughed, “a Colombian teaching ice hockey basics.” Pineda did well enough “breaking the ice” that MSG recruited him into sales as it was undergoing its billion-dollar transformation, partially underwritten by new, larger signature sponsorships.
Among those were Delta, which eventually led Pineda to sponsorship jobs at JetBlue and Etihad airlines, brands also building sponsorship capabilities. Deals for JetBlue included a naming-rights agreement for the Red Sox spring training facility.
Etihad was on a spending spree, so Pineda got to oversee a kit deal with NYCFC, administer an MLS league deal and work on global properties, including Formula 1 and the Manchester City Premier League team.
As fantasy sports boomed around 2015, he was recruited by FanDuel to run the NBA’s first daily fantasy sponsorship, along with 16 team deals. Pineda wanted experience on the other side of the negotiating table and sold for MLS, generating more than $20 million in new sponsorships over 4½ years.
Like so many, Pineda was looking for a new path after the pandemic. He found another company building its first centralized sponsorship program in Diageo. Over three years, that’s grown to 18 brands activating 70 U.S. sponsorships. Pineda also helped land the NFL’s first leaguewide spirits sponsorship.
“Brands like Captain Morgan, Crown Royal and Johnnie Walker don’t need more awareness; they need consideration during a football occasion and we’ve definitely built that,” he said. — Terry Lefton
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