UConn's Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd announce NIL deals with Nerf

Two of the biggest stars in women’s basketball, UConn guards Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, announced an NIL partnership with the toy brand Nerf on Monday night.

Bueckers earned multiple national player of the year honors as a freshman in 2021, when Fudd was named the Morgan Wooten Girls High School Basketball Player of the Year. Last season the teammates helped the Huskies reach the national championship game in their first season playing together in college.

“What’s up you guys. It’s Paige Bueckers and I’m here with Nerf, and me and Azzi are going to be doing a fun, little competition today,” Bueckers said in a video posted on Twitter. “We’re going to be competing in a two-leg relay race. In the first leg, you’ve got to make two shots on the Nerf hoop.”

More on 🎯than @azzi_35‼️ Nerf tested our skills with the Elite Motoblitz 2.0 – loser gets soaked with a Super Soaker 👀 watch til the end https://t.co/gx5DsW0znT #nerfpartner #nerf #itsnerfornothin #ad @hasbro @MurphFromNerf pic.twitter.com/TOwCBJPBzz

— Paige Bueckers (@paigebueckers1) November 29, 2022

Then the camera panned to Fudd.

“For the second leg, you gotta knock down the cups and the cup pyramid with the Nerf Motoblitz Elite 2.0,” Fudd said.

The two teammates then engaged in some friendly, competitive banter.

“And the person with the fastest time wins,” Bueckers said. “The loser gets hit with the Super Soaker blaster, which means that Azzi is getting hit.”

“All talk,” Fudd said in response.

The video then shows a montage of the two players competing in the relay race, which was held in UConn’s practice gym. Fudd won with a time of 31 seconds to Bueckers’ 49 seconds.

Fudd then sprayed Bueckers with the Super Soaker blaster.

“Alright, alright,” Fudd said as Bueckers tried to get her to stop. “I’m not done!”

Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd’s NIL opportunities

UConn announced in August that Bueckers suffered a torn ACL, which will force her to miss the 2022-23 season. With Bueckers sidelined, Fudd is enjoying a breakout sophomore season. She’s averaging a team-high 25.6 points per game, while shooting 53.2% from the field and 40.5% from three.

Fudd averaged 12.1 points per game as a freshman.

Bueckers has the highest On3 NIL Valuation among women’s college basketball players at $823,000.

The On3 NIL Valuation utilizes a proprietary algorithm to calculate the projected annual value of an athlete’s earning potential in the NIL landscape. It factors in an athlete’s brand value and roster value, the latter of which factors in the impact of NIL collectives.

While the algorithm includes data from NIL deals, the On3 NIL Valuation doesn’t act as a tracker of the value of the NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. You can learn more about the On3 NIL Valuation here.

Bueckers ranks No. 3 in the Women’s NIL 100 and No. 35 in the NIL 100. She benefits from having roughly one million Instagram followers and more than 420,000 followers on TikTok.

With an On3 NIL Valuation of $185,000, Fudd ranks No. 10 among current women’s college basketball players.

Bueckers’ portfolio of marketing deals includes partnerships with major companies such as crocs, Bose and Gatorade. Fudd has partnered with Chipotle, Stephen Curry’s Curry Brand and MoneyLion, among other companies.