Female stars embrace wild new world of NIL

Concerns about the seismic changes rocking college sports have lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz proposing legislation that would pump the brakes. But for many next-generation female stars, the new name, image and likeness rules for college athletes have meant more money — in many cases, a lot more money. And they’re not complaining.

The ability to market and monetize one’s own image is helping female athletes pay the bills — even those from small schools and relatively low-profile sports.

“I feel like NIL opens up so many opportunities, especially for women because there’s not that much opportunity for women to go pro in their sports,” said Sydney Smith, a gymnast at Southern Connecticut State University who has monetized her social media following with NIL deals.

NIL deals are game-changers, even for those female athletes who eventually turn pro, Smith said, because even the most successful women stars “aren’t really getting paid what they deserve.”

Smith, who grew up in Northern Virginia and graduated from Robinson High School in Fairfax, told The Washington Times, “I feel like NIL opens up opportunities for women so they can get paid off of their hard work.”

In 2023, Smith started posting more regularly on social media. She says she just enjoyed posting content, specifically on TikTok. Her videos showing handstands, dance trends and lip-syncs amass millions of views. She now boasts more than 2 million followers on the platform and has signed multiple brand deals.

“it’s impacted my career because it’s opened up many opportunities for me to get noticed by different brands and companies,” the senior said. “And it’s made doing my sport more exciting because I can look forward to doing these jobs and opportunities that I wouldn’t have been able to do before.”

Smith’s NIL deals with Hey Dude Shoes, LionsRKing and Leaf Trading Cards have earned her money she never would’ve seen before the NCAA allowed athletes to profit from their personal brands in 2021.

Ot3 — a company that tracks NIL deals and athlete marketability — ranks Smith eighth among female student-athletes despite her school’s Division II status. 

The NIL road hasn’t been fully rosy for the college senior. She said she’s had to deal with jealousy from rival teams and athletes who think they’re more deserving of deals. 

“Some people don’t agree with NIL or don’t think it’s a good thing, even though I think it opens up so many opportunities for athletes,” Smith said. “I get a lot of backlash from people that don’t really understand how much work it actually is to do social media on top of my sport and school.”

Even though fans have started to recognize her in public, the photogenic Smith said she is comfortable sharing her online brand with her predominantly male social media following. 

“A Sports Illustrated cover, like [LSU gymnast] Livvy Dunne did, that’s definitely a goal of mine,” the TikTok star said. 

Dunne — one of the nation’s most recognizable female athletes — found that social media fame came with its own price tag. She started traveling with increased security in 2023 after a group of her young male fans interrupted a gymnastics competition. 

For Cruz and others who have weighed in on the ramifications of the NIL changes, the future of college sports is in jeopardy.

At a roundtable discussion earlier this month, the Texas Republican hosted coaches, lawyers, athletic directors and athletes to talk about the impact of NIL on college sports — and for many of those who joined the discussion, NIL is a disaster in the making.

The free-for-all, the senator said, “threatens to jeopardize all that is working so well in college athletics. More and more there is agreement that Congress needs to act to ensure that we have a level playing field, that college sports can continue to thrive.”

Cruz said he wants athletes to profit from their skills but said he is concerned that some schools will gain an unfair edge by pushing athletes toward deals. Current NCAA guidelines prohibit schools from negotiating on behalf of players or NIL collectives, but universities can inform student-athletes of potential opportunities. 

“All the things I believed in for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics,” former Alabama football coach Nick Saban said. “It’s whoever wants to pay the most money, raise the most money, buy the most players is going to have the best opportunity to win. And I don’t think that’s the spirit of college athletics.”

Propping up the old system doesn’t have much appeal for marketing-minded athletes like Kiki Rice, a D.C. native now playing basketball at UCLA. She was the first collegiate athlete to sign a NIL deal with Jordan Brand and spoke to the Times while preparing for the NCAA Tournament. 

“What you see is a lot of brands want to partner with female athletes because we create better content or we’re more personable or they can reach a different audience that they wouldn’t otherwise,” the sophomore guard said. “It’s definitely something positive for women’s sports from that standpoint.”

After graduating from high school in 2022, Rice entered her collegiate career with a plan. She sat down with an agent and discussed what her brand portfolio could look like in the future. That portfolio now features partnerships with top brands like Buick, Beats by Dre and Dove. 

“A lot of the brands that I’m working with now are brands I could see myself partnering with long-term when I’m in the WNBA or even after my playing career,” Rice said. “Just developing these initial relationships and potentially creating work opportunities is something that I’m always thinking of.”

Both Rice and Smith described their NIL opportunities as a third job that takes time and focus on top of their academic and athletic pursuits. Regardless, neither athlete believes there’s a need for more regulation. 

“It’s a new concept and it’s going to be playing out, but I don’t think there should be limits on what deals you can do or how much money you can make,” Rice said. 

But Rice and Smith are not representative of the typical college athletes. Their NIL experiences were widely positive, but they are two of the 80 most popular female student-athletes in the country, according to Ot3. 

Athletic directors and NCAA officials say they’re concerned that NIL opportunities are being perverted from their original purpose. Instead, some collectives are setting up “pay-for-play” programs to recruit athletes to particular schools. 

A February court ruling determined that the NCAA can not punish athletes for negotiating deals during the recruiting or transfer processes. Even NIL supporters like attorney Darren Heitner believe something needs to change to protect athletes from potentially unsavory deals. 

“Congress needs to step in, if it is going to make sure that athletes are not employees, to also then help them out and codify that those working conditions are set in place for every school across the country,” Heitner said at Cruz’s roundtable.