Haley and Hanna Cavinder, 22 year-old twins and college basketball players, have made millions of dollars after the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its name, image, and likeness (NIL) policy in 2021. The Supreme Court ruling that resulted in this change has enabled student athletes to profit themselves, as opposed to just earning billions in total for their schools.
But a recent article in the Free Press reveals that the sponsorship deals these students are getting have, unsurprisingly, led to the commodification of yet another group of young women. The twins, for instance, had blown up on TikTok already when the NCAA policy shift was made, and capitalized on the change immediately, signing with sports marketers, wireless-service providers, and so on.
They are talented players, yet the article points out that sponsorships for female athletes tend to reward them for being attractive, particularly blonde and scantily clad, as opposed to rewarding the top players in the field (which the Cavinder twins, for instance, are not).
The Cavinders’ fans are characterized as beer-drinking “dudes” who “appreciate girls who can shoot three-pointers, but really, they like girls in bikinis making mindless videos–OnlyFans with a drop of ‘wellness,’” hence the struggle for the mostly black top scorers to make nearly what the twins do.
Some argue that the twins’ success is empowering, but this is simply false. The story reported by the Free Press is one of women in an industry that rewards them for achieving unrealistic body standards, not necessarily for their physical health. Sure, the Cavinders are fit, but what about the eating disorders that so many of their colleagues in the adjacent influencer world suffer from? Or the eating disorders that their young viewers suffer from?
These influencers occupy a field in which living up to a certain image pays. Still, viewing one’s body as commodifiable is unhealthy. Women do not need to be told that good health and fitness translate to a lean build, even if the message is only implied. Arguably worse is telling them that the public – or, rather, men – will judge them favorably for wearing less. For this culture to permeate athletic circles, where fit players are not always slim, is equally concerning. It conveys that women’s success as athletes, and maybe as people, pales in comparison to their success as perceived objects.