Iowa G Caitlin Clark headlines H&R Block's initiative to address inequities for women who are working to capitalize on NIL opportunitiesGETTY IMAGES
ESPN.com's Mechelle Voepel noted Iowa G Caitlin Clark and South Carolina G Zia Cooke are "headline names" for a new initiative by H&R Block called "A Fair Shot," which will provide $1M in sponsorships and "support for women college athletes." The program "seeks to address inequities for women who are working to capitalize" on NIL opportunities. The company said that it also is "providing tax preparation services to help sponsored athletes manage tax decisions from NIL income." According to figures provided by the company, 67.4% of the compensation from NIL deals is "going to men," compared to 32.6% for women. Clark said that she and other college athletes are in the "early stages of figuring out the best opportunities allowed by the new NIL rules," and that this sponsorship was "a big one for her." Clark: "It was an easy yes for me to be a part of it. The inequities are something that female athletes have been dealing with a long time" (ESPN.com, 3/1).
PERFECT TIMING: In DC, David Gardner noted women's basketball player Flau'jae Johnson, who will enroll at LSU this summer, is also a rapper who "already has a 122,000 subscribers on YouTube and a distribution deal with Jay-Z's Roc Nation." If she had been born two years earlier, Johnson "would have faced a choice between playing basketball and making money off her music," but in the wake of the NCAA relaxing its restrictions on NIL rights, she "doesn't have to sacrifice one of her passions to preserve the other." In the past, she "wouldn't have been able to profit off her music, even though it was separate from her basketball endeavors" (WASHINGTON POST, 3/2).
