'It's a man's world': Male athletes leading way in NIL money
Male athletes are leading the way six months after the NCAA cleared the way for college athletes to earn money on their celebrity.
They lead in total name, image and likeness compensation and have more NIL deals than women, according to third-party data from July 1 through Dec. 31 for some 125,000 athletes — about a quarter of the nearly 500,000 in the NCAA's three divisions.
NIL opportunities are clearly uneven, among genders and Power Five schools.
The Washington State women's volleyball team, for example, has zero deals. Several of its international players are not eligible for them but coach Jen Greeny, whose teams have gone to the NCAA Tournament six straight seasons, said women’s teams just don’t seem to be a priority.
“I am not aware of anyone that has approached any of our players, and we are (the) most successful sport at Washington State,” Greeny said. “So, it is a little bit disheartening.”
Men’s sports make more money — often enough to help fund other sports — and have a much larger presence on TV and in media, so it’s natural that businesses look to those athletes for the best return on investment, sports management experts say.
“It’s a man’s world. We're just trying to find our place in it,” said professor Ketra Armstrong, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sport and a member of the Michigan Task Force on Women in Sport. She added: “For women to break into this, it has to be strategic. It has to be intentional. It almost has to be unusual."
There is no public clearinghouse that tracks NIL compensation and activity, so the true size of the fledgling industry is somewhat unknown. NIL tech platform INFLCR declined to give an exact figure, but said athletes using its system have reported deals totaling “eight...
