While stories of multimillion-dollar name, image and likeness deals often dominate the news cycle, leaving the impression that only football players and men’s sports are seeing the benefits of NIL, Learfield recently reported that female student-athletes' participation in NIL deals grew 120% this fiscal year.
USA Today shared data from Learfield that estimates female student-athletes earned more than $300 million in multimedia rights partnerships.
In 2025, NIL deals for women numbered around 2,100, but that number ballooned to 4,772 in fiscal year 2026. That expansion was a portion of more than 5,000 additional, total NCAA student-athlete deals.
For many of the female student-athletes, local deals have been a game changer. Nearly 1,700 of the new partnerships are with local companies and organizations close to the universities where these athletes learn and compete.
Leading the way for NIL in women’s sports is basketball and softball, and a majority of these women are serving as brand ambassadors, participating in photo shoots for a company, and sharing their endorsements on social media.
"What we're discovering with female student-athletes and their engagement with our brands is they're excellent content creators and storytellers, they're generally social media savvy and they have a genuine brand enthusiasm," Solly Fulp, Learfield’s head of NIL, told ESPN. "It's not just an emerging market now -- it's accelerating. It's awesome for us to see when it comes to not just the focus being on football, men's basketball and the revenue sports, but seeing the Olympic sports really step front and center."
The growth of women’s NIL deals, particularly in Olympic sports, may ease some NIL anxiety, which in past years had many college athletics stakeholders raising alarm bells that revenue-sharing and NIL could eliminate these smaller programs. Despite their fears, Learfield is reporting growth, even in nonrevenue sports.
"The authenticity is coming out in the content and storytelling that they provide in these campaigns ... it humanizes the partnership and provides that deeper connection," Fulp said. "The brands are definitely seeing the benefits with the engagement rates related to those campaigns."
