I'll preface this by saying that I'm an old guy. But what exactly is an "influencer"? And what can Paige or any college athlete do or say on social media that will earn money? Endorsements? Use of her likeness? She hasn't played one minute of college basketball and, as much as those of us who populate boards like these love WBB, it's not a sport with a wide fan base. My guess is that many casual sports fans know who Trevor Lawrence is but couldn't name a WBB player on a bet. Don't take any of this negatively - I'm looking for enlightenment.
Not sure how it works with other platforms, but I watched a video on YouTube by a guy who posts instructional material and said he's making $20,000 per month doing so. I've heard of kids that do fun videos making enormous money too and it's all tied in to how many "views" they get and whether or not they have sponsors in addition to the money YouTube pays per "view".
In the example I'm giving, the guy said he gets a penny per view so if he posts a ten minute video and it attracts 500,000 "views" he'll be paid $5,000. It might have been a half penny per "view" but it's in the ball park.
He also has sponsors that pay a fee in return for him doing a 15 or 30 second promo for their products. It'd be easy to see Paige doing a ten minute instructional video for kids interesting in learning about ball handling or some other aspect of play and having Nike or another manufacturer pay a sizeable sponsor fee.
It's the free market at its best (worst?) and here to stay as long as everyone involved benefits. Paige would for sure, UConn would as well as the exposure will attract players, students excited to go to such a well known school and fans/advertisers for UConn women's basketball.
Mark Emmert will likely benefit too as he will probably issue an executive order requiring all kids active on an NCAA team to pay a flat 20% of their earned income because of the exposure the NCAA provides..................