New York Times Article Reveals Earnings Gap in NIL Era

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13/09/2024 20:04

Female swimmers and divers are expected to earn three times as much as their male counterparts through name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, according to an article published by the New York Times.

The article summarizes how much athletes can earn through NIL deals. While it leads with the top earners – football and basketball stars who can pull in over a million dollars in a year – it also provides some data on non-revenue sports.

Unsurprisingly, football and men's basketball lead the way, with an SEC quarterback expected to earn just over $1 million a year between sponsorships, school-associated collectives (boosters), and other streams of revenue. Data for the most lucrative sports is broken down by position.

Among Olympic sports, swimming and diving has a wide gap between expected earnings for women ($13,519) and men ($4,462). It's not the widest gap; women also out-earn men dramatically in gymnastics ($20,857 versus $2,282) and volleyball ($10,645 versus $488).

The sport with the widest gap in the opposite direction is golf, where men ($23,101) project to out-earn women ($8,059) by more than $15,000.

All of the data in the article was provided by Opendorse, which advertises itself as "the leading athlete marketplace and NIL technology company." It is based on all transactions processed between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2024. Sports-specific reports only account for the top 25 earners.

Opendorse was founded in 2012, nine years before NCAA student-athletes could profit off their name, image, and likeness. Today, the platform hosts around 150,000 athletes, both collegiate and professional.

Various sources have told SwimSwam that most swimmers' earnings in the NIL era aren't coming from collectives. Instead, they rely on agents who seek out brand deals separate from their school's athletic department.

This won't be the final word on the upper limit of NIL earnings. Student-athletes are bound to get more savvy in growing their personal brand, and there will surely be continuing legal battles, House v. NCAA or otherwise.

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