NIL: an acronym most were unfamiliar with until 2021 when California became the first state to allow NCAA student-athletes to get paid for their name, image and likeness. That August, I had just moved from Maryland to the West Coast, earning a scholarship to play women’s tennis for USC. It was a dream come true already, and now, there was a chance I would get paid. It felt like it couldn’t get better than that.

With the funding and history of USC, the prospect of working with big brands and companies as a student-athlete was exciting. However, when I arrived on campus and began my new life as a Trojan, I was astounded by the gender inequities and discrimination when it came to NIL representation and compensation.

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Social media presence plays a major role in athletes’ chances of being scouted for NIL. Companies gauge how many likes and comments athletes typically receive on posts to determine if they are worth signing. Male athletes tend to have more followers on average than women athletes, mostly because of the popularity of male-dominated sports —like basketball and football —and the amount of coverage and revenue these sports generate.

The disparity in followers when it comes to gender is directly proportional to a historical inequity in coverage between men’s and women’s collegiate sports. A study published in the journal Communication & Sport titled “One and Done: The Long Eclipse of Women’s Televised Sports, 1989–2019,” found that “95% of total television coverage as well as the ESPN highlights show SportsCenter focused on men’s sports in 2019.”

Because of increased media coverage, potential followers are more familiar with male athletes. As a result, it was found that male college athletes had an average of 463,000 Instagram followers, while women had about 282,000. This inequity poses its own issues for women, but during my freshman year, I noticed something even more alarming.

In class, another USC athlete shared the harassment she faced online for posting media day photos. Although she was wearing the uniform she competed in, men commented and reposted the pictures in a way that oversexualized her track uniform and body. The post ended up gaining over 18,000 likes and almost 2,000 comments. My exposure to this experience altered my understanding of NIL. A concept I once thought was meant to support and uplift athletes became paradoxical.

Playing time does not matter for men: if they are simply on the football or basketball roster, there’s a good chance they’ll get a solid NIL deal. Unfortunately for women, securing a deal often depends on being the absolute best in the sport or being subjected to oversexualization. Why are women athletes’ looks and bodies such a determining factor in whether they get NIL deals? In my opinion, this whole system is horribly misogynistic, as women athletes are essentially encouraged to reveal their bodies to be considered for deals.

To further expose the double standard when it comes to NIL for male and women athletes, let’s first look at Iowa women’s basketball superstar Caitlin Clark. She is an absolute powerhouse who broke almost every basketball and attendance record during her time with the Hawkeyes. In Clark’s senior year of college — before being selected No. 1 overall in the 2024 WNBA draft — she landed numerous lucrative NIL deals with brands such as Nike and Gatorade. According to CBS, Clark made over $3 million in NIL deals.

Clark’s stardom causing viewership rates to soar is a positive outcome for women’s basketball. These rising ratings have made women’s basketball increasingly popular, so much so that according to a March 2024 study conducted by SponsorUnited, women’s college basketball accounted for 35% of all women’s NIL deals.

However, it’s still unfortunate that women athletes in sports that are not as popular as women’s basketball are not receiving NIL opportunities. In my experience, the most successful women on my team, even those ranked in the top 10 of women college tennis players, struggled to land a single NIL deal during college.

Some argue that women get fewer NIL deals because people don’t want to watch women’s sports. This is actually quite flawed. People want to watch women’s sports when time and attention are given to women athletes. Just look at March Madness this year; 2024 was the first year the women’s tournament drew more viewers than the men’s. The women’s game averaged 18.9 million viewers, while the men’s averaged 14.82 million. This is what happens when you invest in promoting women’s sports, as the game was nationally televised and broadcasted across the country.

Through this, many women’s basketball players became stars, including Cameron Brink and Angel Reese, with the coverage allowing them to be publicized nationally. However, there is still a lot of progress to be made, as this investment has not expanded to the bulk of women’s sports.

On the other side of top NIL earners, you have women like Livvy Dunne. She is the most followed women college athlete on social media, having accumulated over 6 million followers on Instagram and the only woman currently in the top 10 NIL valuation rankings. Although she is an amazing student and athlete, Dunne is not the most decorated gymnast on her team. And, she did not make the lineup in the NCAA Championship meet last April.

In no way am I belittling her talent: it is an incredible achievement to earn a scholarship to play at the Division I level. But, it’s a fact that Livvy Dunne is not famous for being the best gymnast in the country. It could be argued her fame comes from attracting a flood of men to her account for posts in bathing suits and her uniform. The issue here isn’t that Livvy Dunne chooses to post herself this way on social media. Women should be allowed to post whatever they want without judgment or sexualization, but unfortunately, that is not the world we live in.

All of this reveals a darker side of NIL, where women athletes can’t win. If a woman wants to make money, she either has to be the best athlete in the country or appeal to the male gaze online. Male athletes don’t have to do either of these things. This imbalance is the fault of a system lacking guidelines to protect female student-athletes and maintain gender equity within the NCAA.

This is exactly why NIL legislation needs to be addressed to take into account the unfortunate reality of oversexualization of women athletes’ bodies and inequities in coverage and funding. It is imperative that there are explicit prohibitions when it comes to sexualizing women athletes through NIL agreements. Additionally, the NCAA must develop a plan to broaden NIL, giving all women athletes a chance to benefit from it, regardless of their sport.

Sloane Morra is a senior giving her opinions and perspectives on current issues in women’s sports through her column “Second Serve,” which runs every other Friday.