The Athlete & the NARP

Retiring at 30 years old sounds like a dream come true, but for many professional athletes it’s their unwelcome yet inevitable reality. Athletes typically maximize their career earnings towards the beginning of their career, meaning they have to plan for retirement and support their lifestyle on an increasingly dwindling income. Grappling with the sudden transition to the regular working world can...

Tune into Claire and Jenna's Top Story Tuesday from the week leading up to November 11, 2025. Surreal by Unwritten Stories | https://soundcloud.com/unwritten-stories Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Tune into Claire and Jenna's Top Story Tuesday from the week leading up to November 4, 2025. Surreal by Unwritten Stories | https://soundcloud.com/unwritten-stories Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Warm July air, a hot dog wrapped in tinfoil, a cold beer in hand and nine innings of baseball: sounds like a summer evening well-spent. Baseball has always been a sport best enjoyed from the stands, where fans can experience a team camaraderie that feels homegrown even at the professional level. Amidst declining viewership within the past decade, MLB is striving to incentivize audiences to buy int...

Tune into Claire and Jenna's Top Story Tuesday from the week leading up to October 28, 2025. Surreal by Unwritten Stories | https://soundcloud.com/unwritten-stories Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Tune into Claire and Jenna’s Top Story Tuesday from the week leading up to October 21, 2025. Surreal by Unwritten Stories | https://soundcloud.com/unwritten-stories Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

The life of a professional NFL cheerleader is not all glitz and glamor. The select group of women that can demonstrate they have the dancing skills, bubbly personality, bombshell looks and the “it” factor required to make a squad put hours each week into preparing for game days. NFL teams love to use these women as extensions of their brand, marketing their sex appeal to a football audience that i...

Tune into Claire and Jenna's Top Story Tuesday from the week leading up to October 14, 2025. Surreal by Unwritten Stories | https://soundcloud.com/unwritten-stories Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

The WNBA has seen enormous growth since its inception in 1996, but the emergence of Caitlin Clark as its new superstar has put a spotlight on the league that is brighter — and harsher — than ever. The increased popularity means more revenue flowing in, and the players want a greater piece of it than the 10% currently allocated to them. The owners are pushing back, asking that in return the players...

College athletes that elect to use their allotted eligibility to the fullest, so-called “fifth-year seniors”, have always been part of the NCAA system. The COVID-19 pandemic and the opening of the NIL floodgates have made it possible for teams to have sixth, seventh and even eighth-year seniors on their rosters, their ages testing the boundaries of how old a typical college athlete should be. A ha...

The rapid rise of sports streaming services has allowed fans to access almost any sporting event with just a few clicks — and, usually, a few hundred dollars. Every major streaming service, from Netflix to Amazon Prime to Hulu, has managed to grab a slice of the pie. The diversification allows leagues to reach new audiences and reap the benefits of hefty media rights deals, but it also means that...

Sports and politics are deeply intertwined, but not always in ways that are obvious, or intentional. Sportswashing, the practice of using sports to redirect public attention away from unethical conduct, is purposeful, calculated and often weaponized on a global scale. We’ve seen it with the Olympics - think China in 2022 - occupying a solid chunk of the F1 calendar - think the Abu Dhabi, Azerbaija...

With sports betting, the odds, at least in the long term, are never in your favor. Sports betting companies and casinos lure sports fans in by touting how easy it is to get involved. According to the bookies, as long as you understand the concept of the over-under, you’re on your way to the easiest money you’ll ever make. In reality, the increased accessibility of online sports books after sports...

The free-for-all NIL market that college athletes have gotten used to for the past four years is likely ending. The NCAA recently agreed to settle for nearly $3 billion in an antitrust lawsuit, the payout of which will go to current and former collegiate athletes. The NCAA’s framework involves establishing a clearinghouse to review NIL deals for legitimacy, eliminating scholarship limits in favor...

The Olympics are a show-and-tell for the cities that win the honor of hosting them. Sure, audiences tune in to witness the world’s greatest athletes competing for a coveted gold medal, but host cities can take advantage of the increased media coverage to promote their culture, lure potential tourists and prove that they are capable of hosting global events — at least, that’s the idea. The myriad p...

What do Nike, Bose, State Farm, Chipotle, AT&T, CVS, American Eagle, SKIMS, Ulta Beauty and Kellogg’s all have in common? They are brands that have partnered with college athletes since the floodgates of NIL opened in July 2021. Taking on sponsorships has become the new normal for student-athletes. The new market is especially beneficial for elevating women’s sports and allows athletes to reap...

“Shut up and dribble.” Laura Ingraham’s self-righteous criticism of Kevin Durant and LeBron James’s decision to publicly express their political views in 2018 embodies the distaste that surfaces when sports and politics collide. Some sports fans view athletes as monoliths whose comments on personal issues and social justice advocacy disrupt their entertainment. For some athletes, the fact that the...

Sin City is quickly becoming a sports city, and shows no sign of slowing down. Since the Golden Knights became Las Vegas’s first major professional sports team in 2017, Vegas has gained two additional major teams, 10 minor professional teams, a Formula 1 Grand Prix, a Super Bowl and is on track to receive two more major teams in the near future. On one hand, Vegas is a city with spectacle and extr...

Place a bet on your own team and face a two-year suspension. Assault someone, however, and you can be back on the field six games later. These specific policies belong to the NFL, but the league is by no means an outlier. Sports organizations have displayed a concerning level of antipathy toward domestic violence and sexual abuse for decades. Sweeping allegations and evidence under the rug has bec...

It’s no secret that sports are a business. Governing bodies and team executives seek to maximize their financial gains, and for a good reason: the sports industry can be lucrative, but it’s also expensive. Part of that expense involves taking care of the athletes that make it all possible, prioritizing their physical health and putting regulations in place that ensure their safety — even when it i...

From an early age, girls learn that women’s sports are viewed as inherently inferior. Relegated to second-rate TV channels and promoted far less often than their male counterparts, female athletes have constantly struggled to command respect and appreciation for their work. When female athletes dominate their sports and are strong advocates for themselves, they command people’s attention, and that...

Put on some makeup before competing and you’re too feminine. Add some muscle during preseason and you’re too masculine. No matter how female athletes present themselves, they can never meet the ever-changing standards of what an “ideal” woman in sports should look like. When women like LSU’s Livvy Dunne or UMiami’s Haley and Hanna Cavinder try to take back control — and make an honest living — off...

America is saturated with professional sports teams. If you don’t live in a city that has one — or a handful — chances are there’s one not too far from home that you can pledge allegiance to. Teams can weave themselves into the fabric of a city’s culture, as with the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys, or bring a new fanbase to life, as with the Vegas Golden Knights or Angel City FC. The deman...

Sports are, quite literally, on a level playing field — or are they? The prominence of nepotism, both at the league-wide and individual levels, taints sports’ reputation as a meritocracy. Athletes like Bronny James have made millions cashing in on their family name en route to a professional career in the NBA, a league where many players come from nothing. Meanwhile, the million-dollar entry fee r...

“Dye it pink, throw on some glitter and shrink it down” is typically the misguided approach the sports industry has taken when marketing to women. Brands are clueless about how to engage a female fanbase, a rapidly growing market that simply wants to enjoy the game without receiving belittlement. At the same time, engagement with women’s sports — at the professional and collegiate level — is consi...