The Unspoken Dominance of the Name, Image, and Likeness of Olympic Sports

The revolving door of NIL headlines easily leads people to believe that male football players are the ones signing huge deals. But if you take away the Bijan Robinsons and CJ Strouds of the sporting world, the reality is quite different. The average compensation for a football specialist is $403 and $2,128 for a quarterback (Opendorse).

If you dig deeper beyond these averages, it becomes clear that one group dominates the average NIL compensation – Olympic sports. 

The most dominant women’s sport in NIL averages is gymnastics. This should be no surprise since the 2022 NCAA National championships broadcast peaked at 1.1 million viewers, an 11% increase from 2021 (Just Women’s Sports). According to INFLCR, female gymnasts make an average of $7,000 per deal, roughly $5,000 more than NCAA quarterbacks. In fact, when football is removed from the equation, women’s athletics outperform men’s 52.8% to 47.2% in NCAA and NAIA deals (Opendorse).

Transitioning to the pool, swim and dive athletes average almost $9,000 per deal, bringing in roughly $7,000 more than quarterbacks. One groundbreaking example is Torri Huske, an incoming Stanford swimmer; Huske was the first swimmer to sign with legendary swim brand TYR after the 18-year-old won Silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (Swimming World Magazine).  

Even deeper down the Olympic sports rabbit hole is rifle. The average rifle athlete makes $6,087 per NIL deal, demonstrating the power of non-revenue sports.

It’s easy to fixate on the flashiness of football NIL deals, but to truly understand the NIL landscape, Olympic sports must be part of the conversation.