[5] She graduated from Framingham High School in 2005,[6][7] and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations with a minor in Dance from Hofstra University in 2009.

[8][9] In 2011, while bartending in Boston at the White Horse Tavern, Nolan started a blog called Bitches Can't Hang, which focused on pop culture and news.

[5] In an interview with GQ in 2018, Nolan expressed regret for how Bitches Can't Hang and her "being mean about women" jump-started her career.

[5] In August 2013, Nolan joined Fox Sports 1 as a digital correspondent for Crowd Goes Wild, a sports/entertainment talk show hosted by Regis Philbin.

A September 2014 video featuring commentary on the Ray Rice domestic violence incident was picked up by The New York Times[13] and received praise in multiple media outlets.

On February 23, 2017, it was announced that Garbage Time would either be retooled from its current format, or Fox Sports would find a new hosting vehicle for Nolan.

[28] In September 2018, her ESPN+ series Always Late with Katie Nolan launched; a 'best of the year' episode aired on the main ABC network on December 30, 2018.

On October 18, 2016, she narrated the story of Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for rule changes in football due to the violence of the game in the early 1900s.

[37] Nolan is also the former Guinness World Record holder for most donuts stacked in a tower while blindfolded (seven), doing so on the November 7, 2018 episode of Always Late.

[39] Nolan joined the broadcast team for Apple TV's Friday Night Baseball starting in April 2022 in a one-season experiment.