
Rachel Bachman
Senior Sports Reporter at The Wall Street Journal
Senior sports reporter, @WSJ. @SJI_Update alum.
Articles
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1 week ago |
wsj.com | Rachel Bachman
As the sport braces for a summer of upheaval, college football’s richest conferences are making a play for more voting power and more guaranteed playoff spotsThis was already shaping up to be a seismic summer for college sports. For weeks, officials have been bracing for a multibillion-dollar antitrust settlement that will launch the sport into a new era in which colleges will share revenue with the athletes who help generate it. Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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2 weeks ago |
wsj.com | Rachel Bachman |Laine Higgins
NiJaree Canady’s transfer from Stanford landed her a seven-figure payday and has Texas Tech in an NCAA softball super regional. But lucrative deals like hers could soon be doomed. The Texas Tech softball team is just two wins away from the Women’s College World Series for one spectacular reason. It has a pitcher worth $1 million. Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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3 weeks ago |
wsj.com | Rachel Bachman
When Jess Smith took over as president of Golden State’s WNBA expansion franchise in early 2024, fans approached her with one request: Please make it cool. “They wanted the premier sports experience—in women’s sports,” Smith said. No minor-league vibes. No being overshadowed by the men’s team. Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8Subscribe NowAlready a subscriber?
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4 weeks ago |
wsj.com | Rachel Bachman
More runners are going for models with huge, cushy soles—even though some run afoul of racing rulesWhen a new breed of super shoes hit the distance-running scene nearly a decade ago, they turned the sport on its head. No one was prepared for the Nike shoes with chunky soles injected with a carbon-fiber plate to suddenly make runners more efficient and so much faster. As other brands scrambled to catch up, world records were tumbling left and right. Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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4 weeks ago |
wsj.com | Rachel Bachman
The governing body of running, World Athletics, scrambled to rein in the Frankenshoes. One rule capped a shoe’s sole thickness, or “stack height,” at 40 millimeters—about 1.6 inches. But recently, something strange has started to happen. Shoe companies started going over that limit, again and again, on purpose. Soles are now rising like cheese souffles, and runners are snapping up the super-sized shoes—even if they carry the risk of being disqualified from races.
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FIFA announces expansion of the 2031 Women's World Cup, to be held in the US, to 48 teams. Even before the expansion, and when the US was bidding on 2027, organizers projected it would generate $3 billion in revenue. (from 2023): https://t.co/EcUTd2x5GX

NEW: After chunky super shoes debuted nearly a decade ago, rulemakers set a limit on their sole thickness: 40 millimeters. But then something strange happened: Brands started making ‘illegal’ shoes—on purpose. https://t.co/oE7vSu6JEe

https://t.co/7DJyhXlXzN

Pretty girls wear pearls 💖 Peep the custom A’One Pink A’ura 👀 @_ajawilson22 // @nikebasketball https://t.co/2jvaw9aU9s