This podcast is about professional wrestling...but also college sports

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Thanks for your patience everybody. I'll return to action on Monday morning, after doing a pretty terrible job at taking time off for this week.

I wasn't able to record Going For Two this week, but that didn't mean it didn't happen. In this episode, Bryan caught up with old friend Chris Vannini of The Athletic. Only this time, we didn't book Chris to talk about major G5 storylines...although they did chat about that. Bryan booked Chris to talk about his other area of expertise: professional wrestling.

Me? I can't say I know much about wrestling. But Bryan certainly followed it growing up, and both of these two can speak very credibly into WWE's deep ties in college athletics, from their NIL deals, to them using college sports as a recruiting platform, and more.

Going For Two is the free podcast of Extra Points, which drops every Wednesday and Friday. You can find it via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts.

You can also find the videos of our previous podcasts right here.

Our apologies, scheduling conflicts prevented the second podcast from dropping this week.

Despite me spending most of this week playing Switch with my daughters and making a mess out of my garage, we did publish some cool stuff on Extra Points this week.

Our Andy Wittry interviewed a few high-major college basketball players to better understand exactly what happens AFTER an athlete enters the transfer portal. Like, do they get DMs? Texts? How long do they have to wait before somebody reaches out?

I also did an NIL deal with Alexandra Chlumsky, a pole vaulter for Notre Dame. I asked her to write out what a typical day for her is really like, which goes to show how crazy the schedule is for a college athete. You sure have to be wired some kind of way to take an ambitious courseload, compete as a D-I athlete, AND still work a campus job sometimes.

Our paid subscribers also got to read a freelance story from Nathan Strauss about the college hockey Frozen Four, and whether it makes more sense for hockey's postseason to be played on campus or not. He talked to fans, coaches and administrators to get a better understanding of the major issues facing one of the more unique events in college sports.

Next week is a big week for Extra Points...this publication will turn THREE. I'm excited to share where we're going next. I can tell you that your subscriptions are the reason I can afford to pay freelancers, pay for good website tech, pay to host a gazillion FOIAs, and keep this enterprise growing. You can support us, and make sure you get every single newsletter (and some free stickers!) with a paid subscription:

Thanks for sticking around. I'll catch up with y'all next week!

This Extra Points newsletter is brought to you by Skyway Interactive:

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To sponsor a future Extra Points newsletter, please email [email protected]. For article ideas, newsletter feedback, FOIA tips, athlete NIL sponsorships and more, I'm at [email protected], or @MattBrownEP on Twitter, and @MattBrownEP on Instagram. I'll be back in action on Monday.