With NIL, women’s basketball players doing better than male counterparts

Travel to the Mall of America in Minneapolis – the host city of the women’s Final Four – and see an entire hallway wall consumed by a Gatorade advertisement featuring the face of UConn’s Paige Bueckers.

Venture elsewhere in Bueckers’ hometown this weekend and see initial efforts from her latest endorsement with education platform Chegg, which in partnership with food recovery company Goodr is launching a free pop-up grocery to shine awareness on food insecurity. 

Along with Chegg and Gatorade, Bueckers has a fast-growing endorsement portfolio that also includes global e-commerce platform StockX and Cash App. She has filed a trademark application for “Paige Buckets.” And she is among the most prominent faces during a banner first year for women’s basketball in the nine-month-old NIL era.

“Women’s basketball has been one of the winners of NIL,” Peter Schoenthal, CEO of Athliance, told On3. “It’s been one of the pleasant surprises. They’re getting a lot of deals. And it’s not just the big athletes like Paige; it’s a lot of these student-athletes locally.”

To underscore that point, consider this: Of all the millions of dollars paid to student-athletes for NIL activities since the era began July 1, 18.5 percent of those dollars went to women’s basketball players, figures from NIL company Opendorse show. That percentage ranks second only to football players (50.6 percent). It’s ahead of men’s basketball players (15 percent).

Women’s basketball TV ratings are up. NCAA tournament attendance is up. And for the first time, players are profiting, monetizing their Name, Image and Likeness. Blake Lawrence, co-founder and CEO of Opendorse, said it is likely some women’s basketball players will earn more from NIL opportunities while in college than they would once they reach the pro ranks. 

As a former college basketball player at William & Mary and as someone still involved in the game at various levels, Mit Winter, a Kansas City-based sports attorney, can sense growing excitement surrounding the women’s game.

“This is leading to current women’s players becoming more well-known than past players, which will likely lead to more deals,” Winter said. “In addition, many of the women’s players have large social media followings that are demographically desirable to brands. As brands become more comfortable with doing NIL deals, many of them will gravitate towards women’s basketball players for this reason.”

Large social media presence leads to deals

That women’s basketball compensation is ahead of men’s basketball has surprised Lawrence, whose company works with more than 75,000 athletes. One of the reasons is because brands see more staying power and consistency among women’s basketball players. The most obvious high-profile NIL deals in college basketball, Lawrence said, are found on the women’s side, largely because the most marketable players have such a large social media presence. Bueckers has nearly 1 million Instagram followers; Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith has 713,000. The Cavinder twins, Haley and Hanna, have 4 million TikTok followers. 

What’s more, women’s players traditionally stay in college for four years, so they are going to maintain a target audience in a particular market for several years. In contrast, many, if not most of the most marketable men’s basketball players – Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, Duke’s Paolo Banchero and Memphis’ Jalen Duren chief among them – are likely to be one-and-done, short-lived phenomena in their respective college markets. 

Particularly before the season tipped off in November, Lawrence said, there was high risk for some national advertisers to work with men’s basketball student-athletes, not knowing how the season would play out for the freshmen or who would be breakout stars. And before you know it, their first and only college season is done, serving as a pit stop en route to the NBA.

“The level of success has been extremely positive for women athletes in general with NIL, let alone women’s basketball athletes around March Madness,” Jim Cavale, founder and CEO of INFLCR, told On3.

Schoenthal added, “They do a great job of promoting themselves, and they tend to be a little smarter, hard-working and craftier than men at this stage in their lives. So that was always an advantage for them in the NIL world.”

Another reason top women’s players have thrived is because of fan engagement with social media. It’s true across all women’s sports, but even more so with women’s basketball versus men’s basketball. The audience engagement on women’s sports’ Instagram accounts, for instance, is three to five times higher than that on the men’s side.

“Those who hit ‘follow’ on Hailey’s page or Bueckers’ page are more likely to watch the videos they share, like the posts they make, click on the links they post and buy the products they promote,” Lawrence said. “This is more likely to happen. That increases the value of their post.”

Jeremy Crabtree, senior editor at On3, said: “I think we all expected the top women’s players to be attractive to brands because of their large social media followings. But it’s been a pleasant surprise to see just how marketable. Given how the sport’s popularity seems to be rising, it will be interesting to watch what’s in store for the sport with NIL moving forward.”

NIL deals have run the gamut

In Year One, the variety of women’s basketball deals have run the gamut, starting with the Cavinder twins announcing deals as the clock struck midnight to usher in the NIL era July 1. There have been team-wide deals, such as UCF signing with Tampa-based College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. There have been extremely forward-looking deals, such as UConn freshman Azzi Fudd signing with BioSteel Sports Nutrition to make her an equity partner. And there have been under-the-radar deals, such as players giving high school students and families campus tours for $500.

Winter’s favorite deal was Bueckers’ deal with StockX. He thought it was especially cool how Buckers made sure StockX involved her teammates in the deal by giving them free shoes. “I’m a big fan of deals where a star player can involve his or her teammates in the deal in some way,” Winter said.

For Cavale, the story that made the biggest impression involved Oregon’s Sedona Prince, who built up her TikTok following throughout the pandemic. She then used her social media reach to expose the inequities the women’s NCAA tournament encountered versus the men’s tournament. And while work remains on the equity front, that Prince led the charge in exposing inequities already has led to change, particularly on the March Madness branding side.

“What’s happened in the NIL era is she’s generated a significant amount of revenue,” Cavale said. “She has a real legitimate growing NIL business, doing all kinds of activations. But she also is just an activist for equality. And she’s using her platform for that. I just love that story – she has bloomed into this amazing combination of brand and athlete.”

For Lawrence, one of the many deals that stood out to him was when the Cavinder twins posted a TikTok video in February, when they traveled to Los Angeles for a photo shoot for Champs Sports and Eastbay. The post, liked by nearly 25,000 followers, was an endorsement for another company, Celestial Seasonings Tea, which they say helps get them through their busy days. The striking part of the post? They filmed it while flying to L.A. on a private jet.

“A year ago, if you said within the next year, there’ll be women’s basketball student-athletes getting flown from city to city on private jets to film commercials for national advertisers, you’d say, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, that seems like a little stretch,’ ” Lawrence said, while texting a reporter the TikTok video. “But there it is; it’s right there.”

No questions about marketability

No doubt plenty of work remains on the gender equity front for women’s basketball to benefit from the same resources and financial models afforded on the men’s side. But as those battles are being waged, and a much-needed spotlight remains on those issues, there should be zero questions about the marketability of the most prominent faces of the female game.

So what’s the next frontier for women’s basketball in the NIL space? That’s clear, according to industry sources: Donor-led collectives, which Lawrence said currently account for the largest source of NIL compensation in the marketplace. And in time, they are coming to help support an elite women’s basketball program near you. 

One source raised the possibility of a financially robust, school-specific collective targeting the Cavinder twins. The twins, who had played at Fresno State, entered the transfer portal in mid-March.

More broadly, expect to see ambitious donor-driven collectives form specifically to help compensate elite women’s basketball teams for NIL activities. While it’s not going to be the millions of dollars that can be seen on the top-level football side, a little back-of-the-envelope math led Lawrence to estimate that if 15 well-heeled donors ponied up $50,000 annually, that $750,000 could lead to 15 female players on the team pocketing an extra $50,000 each per year just from local marketing opportunities created by the collective.

“That’s significant,” Lawrence said. “That’s a real opportunity to have a baseline expectation of what women’s basketball players are going to receive from compensation, and without having to be these TikTok stars or social media influencers. It will set a new ground floor in terms of opportunities.”

Until then, there is at least one more appealing deal ready to be secured. Orangetheory Fitness is extending a NIL offer to the Most Outstanding Player of Sunday’s national title game. The contract would include compensation, a trip to the company’s Florida headquarters and a lifetime membership. The way Bueckers has performed on the court, she may just grab that deal as well before the weekend’s out.