BALTIMORE — Last fall, Mia Ewell and a male college athlete did the same promotional work for an online employment company. But when it was time to get paid, Ewell, a junior shortstop for the Morgan State softball team, received $30 less than her counterpart.
“It’s not a huge amount of money that I’m that upset about. But it was the fact that it even happened,” she said. “It was kind of like, ‘If I’m doing the same work, why am I not receiving the same compensation?’ It’s disappointing, but as a woman and as someone who has lived the life of a young girl and has done all this, it’s not that surprising.”
Ewell and Olivia Rothfeld, a junior singles player for Towson tennis, are hoping to change that outlook. They signed a name, image and likeness deal last month with H&R Block’s “A Fair Shot” program to raise awareness about the imbalance of NIL deals between male and female college athletes.
“I was really honored to be chosen to be a part of this project because it’s something that means a lot to me,” Rothfeld said. “I think it’s crazy that NIL is a pretty fairly new thing and the numbers are already seeming to favor men in terms of the amount they’re getting paid and the amount of deals they’re getting in general.”
The disparity of NIL deals between male and female college athletes is clear. According to numbers provided by H&R Block, only 23% of sponsorship money from the NIL market goes to female athletes. And only a fraction of that compensation is received by female athletes from historically Black colleges and universities, despite a recent study from Sponsor United that showed two HBCU athletes ranking first and second on a list of the top 10 NIL dealmakers in college sports from Jan. 1, 2022, to March 1, 2023.
“As we were thinking about how to lean in and provide support, we pivoted so that it became a program to support female athletes to further the conversation around equality and pay and help to close that gender gap by starting a conversation on the disparate approach across student-athletes,” H&R Block Chief Marketing Officer Jill Cress said. “It’s a really exciting platform and we treat the opportunity with a sense of responsibility to encourage these young women to fight for equity in their sponsorship dollars and our role in providing support for them.”
The program, which is co-sponsored by Fabletics and Jambys, has expanded from 19 female college athletes last year to 50 this year, which includes 18 Black athletes from 16 schools and eight from HBCUs.
It also coincides with Women’s History Month in March and the tax preparation season through the middle of April. To honor Women’s History Month, the athletes filmed short videos via TikTok citing the women in their lives who inspired them in their pursuits. The videos have generated almost 60 million impressions, according to H&R Block officials.
Ewell chose her older sister, Aliyah, who played outfield at Morgan State, and Rothfeld selected her mother, Paige. But Ewell said even her videos celebrating Women’s History Month drew critical comments.
“A lot of the time, there are men who are saying things like, ‘You’ll never compare to what male athletes can do,’” she said. “What I want people to understand is, we’re not trying to be men, we’re just trying to be the best at being a female athlete. I don’t have the natural strength of a man. If I’m playing baseball, I’m not going to hit any home runs. I can’t hit it over a fence 300 feet away. So I feel like it’s kind of been hard not to respond to those types of comments and stuff and to just let it go. But I have to realize that they’re just being haters. I’m doing my best at what I can do, and I don’t want other people to be discouraged or see me get all riled up at another person because of their irrelevant opinion.”
Rothfeld said she finds it disappointing that sponsors have contributed to the discrepancy in NIL deals between men and women.
“We’re all college athletes and we’re all working just as hard and putting in the same amount of hours,” she said. “So it’s pretty frustrating and overall just unfair that these companies are basically just giving in to the bias.”
Cress said she hopes “A Fair Shot” encourages other companies to expand their scope when sponsoring athletes.
“With our overall commitment to equity and who H&R Block is, having the platform to bring this topic of representation to this audience is a really important platform,” she said. “What we’re really excited about this year is, yes, it’s a big topic for the athletes like Mia and others, but it’s also a topic for other brands.”
Ewell and Rothfeld hope “A Fair Shot” continues to stoke conversations about equity for all college athletes.
“It’s really important that people keep this topic alive,” Rothfeld said. “We need to even out the playing field for men and women and just because in the past, men have been prioritized, that doesn’t mean that we can’t change things going forward.”
