Rick Maese
Rick Maese is a veteran sports reporter at The Washington Post whose work sits at the point where games, government and powerful institutions collide. He focuses less on scores and more on how policy, money and health decisions reshape sports, public spaces and the people who use them. His recent work spans federal battles over municipal golf courses, the politics of college sports, the risks and science of football, and performance and regulation issues around the Olympics, including doping and technology such as banned swimsuits.
Sports projects, public land and political power
Maese has carved out a distinct sub-beat around large sports projects built on public land and the political fights that follow. He has chronicled the Trump administration’s push to overhaul East Potomac Golf Links, documenting how an upscale golf plan could erase a long-standing haven for cyclists and runners on the peninsula’s public loop road.
Across a series of pieces, he follows the project from new federal contracts and court hearings to on-the-ground tree removal and engineering challenges, showing how a municipal course becomes a test case for transparency, oversight and community access.
His reporting draws heavily on records and visual evidence, including detailed plans the president carried during a tour of the course and documents that reveal the true scope and timeline of the redesign. In one article he reports that attorneys told a federal judge 150 trees had been removed from East Potomac Park as routine maintenance, setting that claim against the visible stumps and the broader redevelopment debate. In another, he shows how the Park Service’s work to fortify a sea wall - a major cost and engineering hurdle - could delay the project for years and add hundreds of millions of dollars, framing the golf makeover as a long-running federal infrastructure story, not just a sports amenity.
Maese applies a similar lens to plans for Rock Creek Tennis Center, covering National Park Service officials who raised legal and environmental alarms about a fast-tracked lease that favored a private operator tied to the pro tournament held there. He also follows negotiations that keep D.C. public golf courses open under a new deal while leaving the future of East Potomac uncertain, emphasizing the stakes for everyday players on “everyman” courses as federal officials move toward a major overhaul of one site.
This cluster of work positions him as a go-to reporter on the intersection of sports facilities, federal agencies and local communities.
Health, safety and science in football and other sports
Maese consistently returns to the health and safety implications of modern sports, especially football. He has reported on extreme conditions, including an NFL game played on turf measured at 157 degrees, where players were forced to hose off their cleats because of the heat. In coverage of teams traveling to Australia, he examines competing strategies to manage jet lag and performance, turning scheduling quirks into stories about human physiology and preparation.
His work on brain injury is anchored by a major piece on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, where he reports that at least one in four former NFL players who died in recent years had CTE based on the largest study to date of deceased players’ brains.
The article explains that researchers believe the true prevalence at death is higher, and it situates the findings within league rules, concussion trends and long-term risks for players. Beyond football, he covers Olympic and elite sports through the lens of performance and regulation, including doping and equipment controversies such as banned swimsuits, tying competitive gains back to questions of fairness and athlete welfare.
Ownership, private capital and gambling in sports
Maese regularly reports on the financial transformation of sports, following how private equity, alternative ownership models and gambling reshape leagues and teams. In an in-depth look at private equity’s “billion-dollar scramble” to own pieces of franchises, he traces recent changes in Los Angeles Lakers ownership and profiles a new group arguing that sports ownership needs a different framework as it seeks to deploy billions. Related coverage follows LIV Golf after the withdrawal of Saudi backing, explaining plans for players to become majority shareholders and the uncertainty that comes with a once-heavily funded tour now searching for a sustainable model.
He also writes about the growing influence of gambling and prediction markets, including a story on the hottest market on Kalshi - a product the NBA does not believe should exist - and a piece examining how leagues’ anxieties about prop bets were validated by an NBA scandal. These articles break down the mechanics of bets, regulatory concerns and integrity risks, showing how wagering and speculative markets bleed into competitive outcomes and public trust. Taken together, his business coverage is explanatory and consequences-driven, focused on who gains, who loses and how financial engineering alters the landscape of professional sports.
College sports and federal intervention
College sports policy is another recurring focus, where Maese tracks both legislation and executive action. He has covered a sweeping Senate bill designed to remake college sports and impose order on a system transformed by athlete payments, frequent transfers and litigation.
That article walks through the Protect College Sports Act’s key changes, notes the lopsided 77–22 vote, and explains the divide in the House over how Congress should intervene in the college athletics system.
In related work, he reports on efforts by the Trump administration to “save” college sports, including planned executive orders that would reshape the landscape. These pieces follow the political figures driving the agenda and place their proposals in the context of recent upheavals in college football and basketball. Elsewhere, he writes about the billionaire Trump ally “blowing up college football,” connecting individual actors to structural changes and the sport’s shifting power balance.
Across this coverage, his emphasis is on governance: who writes the rules, how they get passed, and how they affect athletes, conferences and fans.
Maese has covered the NFL for the Washington Post since 2009, including a multi-season stint as a team beat reporter, and he continues to blend day-to-day league coverage with longer features on safety, policy and the broader direction of the sport. He also writes across the sports section, from WNBA playoff structure to viral moments involving college quarterbacks and AI-generated videos, but those stories still reflect his core interest in how decisions, technologies and rules shape modern sports culture.
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