Give Amarth a long look in Black-Eyed Susan
Drew Dinsick handicaps a 'wide-open' Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, believing Amarth could be the filly to beat at Pimlico Race Course.
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Chicago Tribune
36 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Paige Bueckers has cashed in on sponsorships. Can she help her WNBA teammates do the same?
DALLAS — After winning the NCAA championship with UConn, Paige Bueckers says she placed a giant Wingstop order with DoorDash: $540 for 400 wings and fries, the receipt showed. 'It's probably my most-used app on my phone,' Bueckers said from the orange carpet the night of the WNBA draft, when the Dallas Wings selected her with the first pick. 'No. 1 fan. I love you, DoorDash.' Social media users suggested she partner with DoorDash, and the company took note, naming Bueckers its first athlete creative director just before she made her pro debut. With just six professional games on her resume, Bueckers recently picked up another honor. The rookie was named to Ad Week's 2025 Most Powerful Women in Sports list. The Wings have certainly felt her impact. As of May, the organization had sold merchandise in all 50 states and 23 different countries since drafting Bueckers in April, Wings CEO and managing partner Greg Bibb told The Dallas Morning News. The Wings had earned more revenue from individual ticket sales in the month leading up to her pro debut than the organization did all of last season, which was a record year for Dallas. DoorDash is one of the latest sponsors in the portfolio Bueckers started building in college. When her UConn career culminated in April, her NIL Valuation — a measure sports media site On3 uses to estimate an athlete's value and marketability — was $1.5 million. The three-time unanimous first-team All-American has both driven and benefited from the women's basketball boom, which corresponded with the dawn of NIL. It's largely because of that new appetite, and the opportunity to capitalize on her star power, that Bueckers began her professional career having earned seven figures. '[Without NIL] you don't get to start building your wealth, building your networking, the relationships that you have. It would start at a later date,' Bueckers told The News after a recent practice in Arlington Getting that head start has set up Bueckers for success in the WNBA, whose players must market themselves aggressively to make up for low pay, unlike in other leagues where seven-figure salaries are the standard. Deals don't come as easily for WNBA players who have contended with limited media coverage and typically pull in less viewership than other major leagues, including the NCAA. While some of the sport's biggest stars have inked lucrative deals as pros, those opportunities aren't always available to everyone. 'The NIL landscape has reinforced certain beauty standards that endorse 'blonde-ballers' and created an inequitable market for those who do not meet those standards,' according to the 2025 Politics in Sports Media report from UT-Austin's Center for Sports Communication and Media. In a time when the WNBA is cracking down on online hate, Bueckers has been outspoken about the attention she receives as a white athlete, compared to her Black peers. 'There's not ever equal coverage,' Bueckers said in a recent interview with Time. 'I feel like I've worked extremely hard, blessed by God. But I do think there's more opportunities for me. I feel like even just marketability, people tend to favor white people, white males, white women.' Bueckers reportedly will make about $348,000 on her four-year rookie contract and about $79,000 in her first season with the Wings, but she also leans on a robust sponsorship portfolio that includes Gatorade and Bose, to name two of her brand deals. The WNBA league minimum is about $65,000 and the player super-maximum hovers around $250,000. Those figures have led some of the sport's superstars to remain in college, where they can make more money from NIL deals than a pro salary. Sponsorship opportunities exist for professional women's basketball players, but they need to cultivate a presence off the court. Is Chicago Sky vs. Indiana Fever a rivalry? Fans at a packed United Center think so. 'It's good for basketball.'Wings All-Star guard Arike Ogunbowale, a pre-NIL era athlete who signed to Nike after going pro in 2019, recently started a YouTube channel. 'I think before that, people didn't really know me too much. I mean, they might not know me still,' Ogunbowale told The News. 'But I think they have a little bit more glimpse of my personality and just my lifestyle.' DiJonai Carrington, one of the Wings' new guards and the WNBA's Most Improved Player in 2024, has cultivated a unique online persona that has led to work with brands such as EOS, Savage Fenty and Reebok. 'With endorsements, it's completely supplemented my lifestyle and being able to not go overseas and with the current CBA, being able to still sustain for the other six months when we're not receiving a check,' Carrington told The News. 'It's really important to build your brand as a person.' Wings forward Maddy Siegrist, who is signed to Puma and credits her agent for much of her sponsorship success, inked NIL deals when she starred at Villanova from 2018-23 and has also landed partnerships since the Wings drafted her in 2020. 'You get a lot of opportunities as a professional,' she told The News. 'I think you have a little more freedom in your offseasons to do more things as well, but obviously everyone's journey is different.' Earlier this year, Bueckers landed a GQ cover and the Chicago Sky's Angel Reese was featured on Vogue. The Sky's Hailey Van Lith and the Los Angeles Sparks' Cameron Brink appeared in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition. Caitlin Clark, Time's Athlete of the Year in 2024, signed a $28 million Nike deal shortly after turning pro. Their lives don't represent the reality of most athletes in the WNBA. 'There's not necessarily equal opportunity in marketing and branding depending on your following and your global image,' Bueckers, who has 2.6 million Instagram followers, told Already one of the biggest draws in the WNBA, Bueckers said she wants to use her opportunities to help others who don't have the same visibility. Bueckers also took this approach at UConn, where she included her teammates in NIL deals and used her influence to create pathways for minority content creators and advertisers. As conversations about pay equity continue and Bueckers lifts the Wings to new heights, expect the superstar to uplift her teammates in Dallas, too. 'When I met with the agency, I told them my values. I talked about giving back, using the partnerships to do something bigger than myself. It's really important for me to involve as many teammates as I can,' Bueckers told 'It's not just something that's transactional to where [sponsors are] just getting something out of me and I'm getting something out of them, but how can we get something out of trying to make this world a better place within our partnership?'
San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Fisk University women's gymnastics team, the first at an HBCU, to stop competing after 2026
NASHVILLE (AP) — Fisk University's bold experiment in women's gymnastics is coming to an end. The school has announced it is shuttering the program at the end of the 2026 season. Fisk made history in 2023 when it became the first historically Black college or university to launch a women's artistic gymnastics team. Fisk's ambitious move to start the program played a hand three years later in the athletic department choosing to discontinue it. Scheduling became challenging because gymnastics is the only sport at Fisk that does not compete against other HBCU schools, forcing the program to get creative and requiring the team to travel longer distances than the university's other sports. 'While we are tremendously proud of the history our gymnastics team has made in just three years, we look forward to focusing on our conference-affiliated teams to strengthen our impact in the HBCU Athletic Conference,' athletic director Valencia Jordan said in a statement. 'Fisk is grateful for the hard work, dedication and tenacity of its gymnasts, staff members, and coaches who made this program possible.' The school said it will work with the affected athletes and coaches to ensure a 'seamless transition.' The announcement came just weeks after Fisk standout Morgan Price — a three-time All-American who became the first HBCU gymnast to record a perfect 10 — transferred to Arkansas, where she will join her older sister Frankie. Talladega College, an HBCU in Alabama, attempted to follow in Fisk's footsteps in 2024. That program shut down after one season due to financial concerns. ___
Hamilton Spectator
12 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Fisk University women's gymnastics team, the first at an HBCU, to stop competing after 2026
NASHVILLE (AP) — Fisk University's bold experiment in women's gymnastics is coming to an end. The school has announced it is shuttering the program at the end of the 2026 season. Fisk made history in 2023 when it became the first historically Black college or university to launch a women's artistic gymnastics team. Fisk's ambitious move to start the program played a hand three years later in the athletic department choosing to discontinue it. Scheduling became challenging because gymnastics is the only sport at Fisk that does not compete against other HBCU schools, forcing the program to get creative and requiring the team to travel longer distances than the university's other sports. 'While we are tremendously proud of the history our gymnastics team has made in just three years, we look forward to focusing on our conference-affiliated teams to strengthen our impact in the HBCU Athletic Conference,' athletic director Valencia Jordan said in a statement. 'Fisk is grateful for the hard work, dedication and tenacity of its gymnasts, staff members, and coaches who made this program possible.' The school said it will work with the affected athletes and coaches to ensure a 'seamless transition.' The announcement came just weeks after Fisk standout Morgan Price — a three-time All-American who became the first HBCU gymnast to record a perfect 10 — transferred to Arkansas, where she will join her older sister Frankie. Talladega College, an HBCU in Alabama, attempted to follow in Fisk's footsteps in 2024. That program shut down after one season due to financial concerns . ___ AP sports:
