In The News: Department of Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education
Five defeats and no wins - that's how the first professional season for basketball star Caitlin Clark started. She didn't score as she usually does and rarely found a rhythm with her teammates. And the criticism of the 22-year-old player is already piling up - with no grace period: Is she too small for the professional league? Too delicate? Too weak? Can she not handle the pressure of expectations? Is there racism behind all the hype about the white player, which deliberately overlooks black players with greater talent?
For the longest time, we’ve thought about the marriage between sports and educational institutions on a competitive level. From Friday Night Lights with high school football, to Saturday afternoons in college, to the madness in March with NCAA basketball. The representation of schools in the form of athletic competition has always united student bodies, but even more so, has been an added source of entertainment.
On Friday, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced an unprecedented new sponsorship program: $100k to each of the Las Vegas Aces players, from superstars to rookies. On the heels of that announcement, however, the WNBA confirmed that it would be investigating this sponsorship deal for possible violation of league rules. But why? Today, executive producer Sonja Cho Swanson talks with professor Nancy Lough, co-director of the UNLV Sports Innovation Institute, about the complicated rules of endorsements, sponsorships, and pay-to-play in pro sports — and how we can get to pay parity for female athletes.
Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson says members of her team had no idea about the surprise they were set to receive on Friday. "I don't think people really understand, but we didn't know what was going on," Wilson said after practice at the team's facility in Henderson on Monday. "Our city is behind us 100% and they're giving us what we deserve."
Las Vegas loves its sports teams. The WNBA’s Aces arrived from San Antonio, Texas. We welcomed the Raiders, and soon-to-be Las Vegas A’s from Oakland. But the Vegas Golden Knights are Vegas-born, and their birth certificate was forged in our community’s darkest hours.
Shohei Ohtani wearing a Dodger uniform for the Dodger Stadium debut is a headline in itself. But no matter how much Ohtani tried to clear the air and his name during a news conference, Thursday's home opener would not come without questions about what happened off the field.
March Madness could be very good for state coffers. Sports betting has seen explosive growth in the nearly six years since the Supreme Court cleared the way for any state to legalize wagering. Now, 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of legal sports betting, with six more states eyeing the move.
David Vinturella, professor with the UNLV College of Education’s Sport Management Program, joined Drive Time with Michael Wallace to talk about how sportsbooks can void bets and not pay out winnings.
Sports betting is about the odds, but sports books decide whether the odds are fair.
A Las Vegas non-profit business said they are trying to unleash certified therapy dogs on local courtrooms to assist victims on the witness stand. The effort is in conjunction with a free program involving UNLV law students intended to help children understand the legal process before testifying.
Bryce Hinton has spent most of his life playing sports, has planned on working in sports and has chosen a master’s program at UNLV to help achieve his goal. What he never imagined was that choosing to study in UNLV’s Intercollegiate Professional Sports Management (IPSM) graduate program would land him an internship with one of the world’s largest and most well-known sporting events, the Super Bowl.
Haters may have had enough of the Kansas City Chiefs' tandem of Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes. But their star, and that of their most famous fan, Taylor Swift, is still rising.