GCC team captures Wildcard win at DICK’s competition

Four Grove City College students from the Winklevoss School of Business won the Wildcard Competition at the 10^th annual DICK'S Sporting Goods & Pitt Business Strategy Case Competition held April 3 at DICK's Sporting Goods corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pa.

A team comprised of seniors Caroline Dawson’25 and Lilian Karchut ’25 and juniors Anthony Fiorenza ’26 and Marcus Loizes ’26 was one of eight selected from 58 video submissions to compete at the event.

“This is a really strong result given we were the only small, non DI school in the finals and this was our first year in the competition. Our team competed with teams from Pitt, Boston University, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin, University of Southern California, University of Minnesota, and Iowa State University,” Professor of Business Analytics Dr. Ryan Miller ’99 said.

Teams were given a data set and asked to analyze it and build a strategy for maximizing sales from the experiences at the new DICK'S House of Sports concept store. The new stores have a variety of experiences, like an outdoor skating rink and soccer field, a two-story rock wall, multiple golf simulators and a virtual batting cage that simulates taking batting practice at an MLB stadium.

The Grove City College team earned its spot on the strength of their pitch for the Pacesetter Playbook, a strategy aimed at enhancing athlete engagement, loyalty, and sales for DICK’s House of Sport. Their plan included launching a super app that integrated AI-driven personalization and performance tracking tools, creating seamless omnichannel experiences for athletes.

The team finished just shy of the top three in the main event but came up a winner in the Wildcard Competition, which pitted Grove City College against four other schools. They had just 45 minutes to produce a completely new strategy for how to utilize a 1000-square-foot-space in one of the House of Sport stores for a new experience. The team proposed an augmented reality space where customers would be able to try out new equipment and compete.

“We were by far the smallest school in the final eight. I was most proud of how the team bounced back from a tough loss after missing the top three to take the wildcard win,” Miller said.

Dawson, Karchut, Fiorenza, and Loizes spent hours developing their initial concept and competing through all three rounds of the competition. They received no academic credit for their work, but the experience was worth it, they said.

“Our team spent weeks nailing down our strategy and presentation. It was awesome to see everyone collaborate,” Loizes said. “It was a really unique experience – I really liked having the chance to figure out a real-world problem.”

For more about the Winklevoss School of Business, visit gcc.edu/business.

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