Breaking The Barriers Through NIL: Womens College Athletics

For many years, male athletics have been the sole face of athletics overall. They were always the face shown in the media, the highest paid players. Which provided with better opportunities because they were being highlighted in the media. With name, images, and likeliness (NIL) women’s sports are starting to break these barriers. NIL has opened many opportunities for all female athletes to make larger impacts. NIL has allowed women’s athletes to create their own brand name for who they are as an athlete. Allowing more financial opportunities, and being known to a wider audience through media or sponsors.

Growth For Women’s Sports:

Livvy Dunne: LSU Women’s Gymnastics

NIL Deals: Nautica, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Passes, Crocs, Vuori, American Eagle, Body Armor, Accelerator, Motorola, and Leaf Trading Cards, among others. 

Livvy is a confident athlete but is on multiple social media platforms like Tiktok and Instagram with over 13 million followers. She knows how to provide her fans with the media she presents on her socials as well as her NIL endorsments. Allowing her to be number one ranked women’s college athlete in NIL endorsements ranging to 4.1 million. She also is a brand ambassador and influencer. On top of all this she also is a graduate student with a major in technology management. 

Quote:“I was 18 years old when everything changed, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I couldn’t make a mistake. But something you learn on social media is you will get hate and you will get people that are bitter towards you, especially when you have success. But I think that having the eyes on me has been such a blessing in my life, and I feel like it’s translated over into eyes on the sport of gymnastics, which was a huge deal to me and a huge reason why I kept coming back for more. … Watching the growth of the sport, and women’s sports overall, has meant so much to me.” – Livvy Dunne

Flau’jae Johnson: LSU Women’s Basketball 

NIL Deals: Unrivaled, Puma, The Athlete”s Foot, Amazon, Powerade, and JBL Audio, among others.

Flau’jae is a excellent women’s basketball player but she is not like others on top of being a college basketball player she is a rapper. SHe has worked with many well known artists within the music industry. She contains about 3.5 million followers over all her social media platforms. Throughout her basketball season last year she averaged 14.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, averaged 2.6 attempts form the 3-point line, and shot a total of 50.4%. 

Quote: “I think the equity is the most important part, just being able to be invested in something like that,” Johnson told Fox News Digital. “And for me, being able to leverage my brand and to create business opportunities. That’s really what this NIL space is all about. When you’re in NIL, you literally have this short window where everybody wants to have you a part [of something], so to really leverage that into something that’s going to last for a long time. It’s going to be in my business portfolio and gain capital in the future, that’s a really big deal.” – Flau’jae Johnson

Paige Bueckers: UCONN Women’s Basketball

NIL Deals: Gatorade, Nike, CeraVe Skincare, Bose, StockX, among others. 

Paige is a dominant 5th year female basketball guard for the Huskies. Prior to Paige’s collegiate basketball career with UCONN she already had earned many accolades. Which were McDonald’s All-American, Gatorade Female High School Athlete of the Year, Gatorade National Player of the Year, Naismith Prep Player of the Year, Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year, and Minnesota Miss Basketball in 2020 and was a five-star recruit upon graduation. She has faced a lot of adversity throughout her college career like tearing her ACL in 2022, causing her to miss the entire 2022-2023 season. She has averaged 18.8 points, 4.4 assists, and 4.1 rebounds this year. 

Quote: “I’ve been very blessed, very fortunate to have this opportunity with NIL to be able to capitalize off of that, start to build wealth, start to make money in college as a student athlete. But definitely, I think at first when NIL came into play, I didn’t really know much about finances,”  “It’s done great things to the women’s game,” she said, “in terms of the visibility of seeing people on commercials, ads and all over social media.” – Paige Bueckers

Top Women’s Athletes In NIL Endorsements: 

The Future Of NIL:

NIL provides many opportunities for women’s athletics as a whole. Allowing upcoming and present to be able to get their name and brand out there and be able to learn to manage these financial endorsements. Being able to continue to benefit from NIL. One of the most recent events that is boosting attention towards women’s sports is the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Highlighting the importance of investing in these women’s sports to help innovate strategies but to also motivate recognition of women’s college athletics.