The Olympian to influencer pipeline

By Wailin Wong,

Adrian Ma, Corey Bridges, Kate Concannon

Published August 30, 2024 at 9:10 AM EDT

While the 2024 Paris Olympics are over for some athletes, many competitors are still seeking to capitalize on their fame back on their college campuses. Thanks to the NCAA's 2021 rule changes for Name, Image and Likeness, college athletes are now able to leverage their stardom to maximize their earning potential.

Today on the show, we talk to University of Michigan men's gymnastics star and Olympic medalist Frederick Richard about how he's playing the business game for the long term.

Related episodes:

Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify)

You can't spell Olympics without IP (Apple / Spotify)

The monetization of college sports (Apple / Spotify)

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Wailin Wong

Wailin Wong is a long-time business and economics journalist who's reported from a Chilean mountaintop, an embalming fluid factory and lots of places in between. She is a host of The Indicator from Planet Money. Previously, she launched and co-hosted two branded podcasts for a software company and covered tech and startups for the Chicago Tribune. Wailin started her career as a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Buenos Aires. In her spare time, she plays violin in one of the oldest community orchestras in the U.S.

Adrian Ma

Adrian Ma covers work, money and other "business-ish" for NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator from Planet Money.

Corey Bridges

Corey Bridges is an assistant producer at NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. Bridges enjoys covering stories ranging from public policy to the economics of sports. At The Indicator, he has worked on stories about how certain environmental regulations can impede climate progress and others about how college athletes are taking advantage of their name, image and likeness.

Kate Concannon

Kate Concannon is the Supervising Senior Editor at The Indicator from Planet Money. She leads this small, collaborative team of hosts, reporters and producers in making sense of crucial, but often complex and confusing, economic news in just 10 minutes a day.