UConn star Paige Bueckers adds Bose to NIL portfolio
Paige Bueckers may not be playing this year due to an ACL injury. But that’s not stopping the UConn women’s basketball star from signing NIL deals.
The junior guard announced Monday afternoon on Instagram she has signed with Bose. She becomes the second women’s basketball player to ink an NIL agreement with the audio equipment company; South Carolina‘s Aliyah Boston signed a deal with Bose ahead of March Madness.
It marks her first deal since she announced her ACL injury in August.
“I am excited to officially join the Bose family,” Bueckers wrote on Instagram. “You already know the soundtrack to my comeback is going to be epic and louder than ever thanks to Bose. I’ve got my QCE II earbuds in and we are locked in.”
Bueckers, the 2020-21 national player of the year, will have three years of eligibility remaining following this season. And even though she is eligible to head for the WNBA, she announced earlier this month she will return to the Huskies for the 2023-24 season.
Last year was not much easier for Bueckers. She missed 19 games from November to February, dealing with an anterior tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscus tear in her left knee. After a December surgery, she recovered and returned to lead UConn to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and its first national championship game berth since 2016.
Now she has to rehab after another surgery.
“I was going full speed and I sort of tried to come to a stop and there was some contact, not a lot of contact, but it just kind of gave out,” Bueckers told reporters. “I knew it was bad, I felt a pop. And then I went to the training room and I was extremely frustrated. I didn’t know how serious it was, but I knew something was wrong.”
Bose just most recent NIL deal for Paige Bueckers
Paige Bueckers also has not had problems securing partnerships since the NCAA lifted its NIL ban on last summer.
She has a deal with Crocs, and she became the first student-athlete to ever sign an NIL deal with Gatorade back in December. Since then, she’s rolled out her own custom bottle as part of Gatorade’s Fuel Tomorrow Gx Collection.
With her recent announcement to stay at UConn for at least another two years, she stands to make more money from NIL opportunities in college than she would earn by playing in the WNBA. The maximum WNBA base salary for the 2022 season was about $228,000.
“I mean, she’s going to make well over a million dollars. It’s not even a question,” chief executive of Student Athlete NIL Jason Belzer told the New York Times. “She probably has more value as a student athlete from a marketing and endorsement perspective than she will as a pro, unless she becomes an absolute All-Star, Sue Bird-like person.”
Bueckers is also closing in on 1.5 million followers across her Instagram, Twitter and TikTok accounts. She’s currently at 1.45 million followers. Finding NIL opportunities is not going to be a problem for Paige Bueckers, and that’s not even factoring in what she might command in the market when she’s back to full health.