Last updated: July 28, 2026
Age Requirement: You must be at least 14 years old to create an account. Users under 18 cannot send or receive direct messages.
This Privacy Policy describes how Acorn Media LLC ("Varsity NC," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects your information when you use the Varsity NC website and related services (the "Service"). By using the Service, you consent to the practices described in this policy.
Account Information
When you register via Google Sign-In, we receive your email address and full name from Google. You may also provide additional profile information such as a display name or profile photo.
Payment Information
Premium subscriptions are processed through Stripe. We do not store your full credit card number or banking details—Stripe handles that securely. We retain your subscription tier (free, monthly, or annual), billing history, and subscription status. If you make a per-article purchase, we retain a record of that transaction. We also retain any coupon, promo, or email domain discount codes applied to your account for billing accuracy and fraud prevention.
School Profit Sharing Data
If you select a Base School in your account settings, we associate that selection with your subscription payments for the purpose of calculating school profit sharing contributions. We store your Base School selection, your cumulative contribution total to that school, and per-payment contribution records. This data is used solely for the disbursement of contributions to schools and is not sold or shared with third parties. See our School Profit Sharing Policy for details.
Targeted Offers & Audience Segments
We may use your account attributes—including subscription tier, school affiliations, sport interests, reading history, and engagement data—to assign you to audience segments for the purpose of displaying targeted offers or promotional pricing. We retain a record of segments you have been assigned to and offers you have been presented with. This data is used to personalize offers and is not sold to third parties.
User-Generated Content
We store content you create, including article comments, message board posts and replies, direct messages, live story chat messages, poll votes, reactions, bookmarks, pick'em contest picks and group messages, mascot match game responses, user-submitted score and schedule reports, and reading history. All user-generated content is automatically scanned by our banned words filter and PII (personally identifiable information) filter before storage and publication, as described in Section 8 below.
Activity & Preference Data
We track your follows (athletes, schools, threads, brackets, events), bookmarks, reading history, interests, and engagement metrics (such as streaks and activity scores) to personalize your experience and generate notifications. We also retain data related to your participation in interactive features, including pick'em contest picks and group memberships, mascot match game responses, and user-submitted score and schedule reports.
Analytics Data
We collect usage data such as pages visited, time on site, device type, and approximate location (based on IP address) to understand how the Service is used and to improve it.
Age & Date of Birth
At the time of registration, we collect your date of birth to verify that you meet the minimum age requirement of 14 years old and to enforce age-based restrictions, such as the direct messaging prohibition for users under 18. Your date of birth is stored on your account profile and is not displayed publicly.
Automatically Collected Data
We use cookies and browser local storage to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and maintain preview access tokens.
We use Google Sign-In for authentication. Google may share your email and name with us. Your use of Google is also subject to Google's Privacy Policy.
Stripe
We use Stripe to process subscription payments. Stripe collects and processes your payment information under its own privacy and security standards. We do not receive or store your full card details.
Maptiler
We use Maptiler to display weather maps, weather radar, and geographic data. Maptiler may receive limited technical data (such as IP address) in connection with map tile and weather data requests.
Beehiiv
We use Beehiiv to manage and send email newsletters. If you subscribe to a newsletter, we share your email address with Beehiiv for email delivery. You can manage newsletter subscriptions in your dashboard.
YouTube
We embed YouTube videos on the Service. When you interact with an embedded video, your interaction is subject to Google's Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
Other Services
We may use analytics, caching, and content-delivery services that collect limited technical data to operate the Service.
We use cookies and browser local storage to maintain your session, remember preferences, and store preview access tokens. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but some features may not function properly without them.
We do not sell your personal information. We may share data with service providers who help us operate the Service (e.g., Stripe, Google, Maptiler, Beehiiv), when required by law, or to protect our rights. We share aggregated school profit sharing contribution totals with the schools receiving those contributions. Aggregate, de-identified data may be used for analytics and shared with partners.
We retain your account information and User Content for as long as your account is active. We retain billing records and school profit sharing contribution records for as long as necessary for financial reporting and audit purposes. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time; however, certain financial records may be retained for legal and accounting compliance. Some data may be retained in backups or logs for a limited period after deletion for security and legal purposes.
You have the right to:
To exercise these rights, contact us at privacy@varsitync.com.
8.1 Minimum Age & COPPA Compliance
The Service is directed toward high school sports fans, including student-athletes. However, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 14. Users must be at least 14 years old to create an account. This age requirement is in place to protect minors in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If you believe a child under 14 has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.
8.2 Age Verification
At the time of registration, you are required to provide your date of birth. This information is used to verify that you meet the minimum age requirement and to enforce age-based feature restrictions. Your date of birth is stored on your account, is not displayed publicly, and is not shared with other users. Providing a false date of birth to circumvent age restrictions is a violation of our Terms of Use and may result in account termination.
8.3 Direct Messaging Restriction
Users under 18 years of age are prohibited from sending or receiving direct messages on the Service. This restriction protects minors from unwanted or inappropriate contact. It is enforced automatically based on the date of birth stored on your account. If you have reason to believe a user has misrepresented their age to bypass this restriction, please contact us at privacy@varsitync.com.
8.4 Banned Words & Content Filtering
All user-generated content is automatically scanned against a maintained list of banned words and phrases covering profanity, harassment, hate speech, spam, violence, and other prohibited categories. Content containing banned words is blocked before publication. This automated filter operates in real-time on all comments, posts, replies, messages, and chat submissions.
8.5 PII (Personally Identifiable Information) Filter
To protect user privacy and safety—particularly for minors—our system automatically detects and blocks the sharing of personally identifiable information in all user-generated content. This includes phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and other sensitive personal data. The PII filter operates automatically and in real-time. This measure is designed to prevent doxxing, harassment, and unwanted off-platform contact, and is especially important given that the Service is used by high school students.
8.6 Content Moderation & Reporting
Users can report content that violates our Terms of Use. Our moderation team reviews reported content and may remove it, issue warnings, or ban users from specific community features (comments, message boards) or from the Service entirely. Bans may be temporary or permanent. Automated filtering and human moderation work together, but neither is perfect; we rely on the community to report violations as well.
We take reasonable measures to protect your information using industry-standard practices. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
We may send in-app and email notifications for mentions, replies, follows, streak warnings, badge changes, and other activity. You can manage notification preferences in your dashboard settings.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted with an updated "Last updated" date. Your continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
Questions about this Privacy Policy may be sent to privacy@varsitync.com. For questions about school profit sharing data, contact support@varsitync.com.