At Last, A Female Athlete Cashes in on the NIL Market

The New York Times’ The Athletic has a feature called MoneyCall, and the lead story in Dan Shanoff’s most recent column is about college sports, because that is where the money is these days. In this case, the column is about the smart money that Texas Tech boosters paid to a softball pitcher, Nijaree Canady. They paid her $1 million to transfer from Stanford, and she has since led the Red Raiders to the Women’s College World Series, where she had thrown every pitch in every game up to that point.

Mr. Shanoff calls it the best $1 million invested in college sports this year, and that seems right, even though I have no idea what metric applies. Mr. Shanoff offers that exposure is one metric, and perhaps that is the goal. I am gratified because in a previous post on this topic, I opined that investing in college football players was risky, given the risk of injury and the fact that no one player can have as large an impact in football. I recommended paying the big bucks for basketball players, but I forgot about softball, where the team that wins is usually the team with the best pitcher. I didn’t know that softball pitchers don’t need to rest their arms the way baseball pitchers do, but part of me wonders about whether it is healthy for Ms. Canady to pitch four complete games within a week.

As readers know, I am skeptical that investing in college athletics is the best use of investment in institutions of higher education. How does Texas Tech benefit from exposure through the success of its women’s softball team? I suppose there is an answer out there, but I would like to see evidence that there is a return on this $1 million investment that is greater than the return on, say, upgrading the university’s science labs. Yes, I am aware that the people who donate $1 million for a softball pitcher would not donate $1 million for science labs, but that to me is exactly the problem with our entire model of promoting our institutions of higher education in this country. I know that having a better science lab improves education. I don’t know that going to the softball world. series does.

Mr. Shanoff also calls it a great investment because it sets a new bar for the earning power of women college athletes, and that is certainly the case.  As I noted in that earlier post, 94% of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and other forms of revenue sharing go to male football and basketball players. Women’s basketball players account for 1.2% of the total. So it is nice to see a female athlete rewarded for her unique gifts, and it is even nicer to see her succeed. But I also hope that she gets a good education along the way because I don’t know how long women’s softball will pay the bills, even for a generational talent.