Issue 02: The Class I Didn't Know I Needed

There is a class I took in college that I did not take seriously enough at the time. Research methods. I remember sitting through it thinking it was just another requirement, something to get through on the way to the work I actually wanted to do. I had no idea how much of my day-to-day life as a sports PR professional would be built on exactly what that class was trying to teach me.

Working in sports public relations means being the expert on your client. Not just who they are, but the world they are operating in. When you represent an athlete, a school, a coach, or a sports-adjacent brand, the expectation is that you understand the landscape they are navigating, often better than they do. That is a real responsibility, and it becomes even more demanding when that landscape is changing as fast as it currently is in college athletics.

NIL passed in July 2021. At the time, total player earnings were estimated at $393 million. By 2024, that number had reached $1 billion. In 2025, it nearly doubled again to an estimated $1.9 billion, driven largely by the House v. NCAA settlement, which for the first time allowed schools to directly pay athletes up to $20.5 million per institution annually. Projections put the total NIL market at $2.4 billion in 2026 and $2.6 billion by 2027. That is four years of seismic change, and it is not slowing down.

For anyone doing PR in this space, that pace of change is not just context. It is the job. An opportunity that exists today might not exist in two weeks. A narrative that works right now could be completely reshaped by a rule change, a court ruling, or an executive order by next month. On April 3, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order titled Urgent National Action to Save College Sports, escalating federal involvement in college athletics and tying NIL compliance directly to federal funding eligibility for universities. The effective date is August 1, 2026. That is how fast this moves.

And the downstream effects are significant. 75% of U.S. Olympians come through collegiate programs. As schools redirect resources toward football and men’s basketball to fund revenue-sharing obligations, non-revenue Olympic sports are facing cuts that the USOPC has warned could decimate programs and Team USA for decades. That is not a background story. For anyone representing athletes in Olympic sports, coaches at programs that are being restructured, or schools trying to navigate all of it publicly, that is a front-page issue that requires an informed, timely communications strategy.

The research class I underestimated was teaching me to do exactly this: understand an environment, identify what is shifting, and be prepared to act on it. In PR, that looks like reading the news every morning before you look at anything else. It looks like understanding the difference between what a rule change says and what it actually means for your client. It looks like being able to identify a trending story and knowing whether your client has a credible, relevant angle before the moment passes.

Your clients can educate you on their experience, but they cannot always tell you what is happening in their industry in real time. That part falls on you. And the faster the industry moves, the more that preparation matters.

I did not fully understand that when I was in school. I understand it now.

Built in Public is a newsletter where Amani Marie documents her growth as a young sports public relations professional in real time. It focuses on what she is learning, what she is observing across the industry, and the people and work that stand out.

Some issues will examine moments in sports and how they are communicated. Others will reflect on career development, access, and what it takes to build in this space over time.

This is intended to be a space for learning, sharing perspective, and tracking progress along the way.