Former Stanford University softball ace NiJaree Canady made waves when she announced on July 24 that she would be joining the Texas Tech Red Raiders in Lubbock. Her reported NIL deal could signify that softball is emerging as the next big thing in women’s sports.
John Sellers, the co-founder of the Matador Club, told the outlet what the signing means for both parties. “It’s a game-changer for softball, and even beyond that, she (Canady) could have gone anywhere, but she’s coming to Tech.”
The deal, according to Blake Lawrence, the CEO of Opendorse, a company that facilitates and manages NIL deals, is “unprecedented.”
Unsurprisingly, Canady was last season’s USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year.
Canady told ESPN after announcing her move to Texas Tech that women’s sports deserve to be invested in, because it will pay off on the back end.
“I could never have imagined this,” Canady said. “But I feel like we need to invest in women’s sports. We saw it with women’s basketball this year: You invest in women’s sports and women’s basketball just blew up on a national stage. I think the same thing has happened with softball…If I’m even a little part of that, that’s my whole dream.”
Canady continued, “My goal every year is to win the Women’s College World Series, so that’s my goal right now. I think there’s a good young core coming in and a lot of good players from Louisiana. They’re all studs and they looked really good. To be able to compete in the Big 12…I think that will be fun.”
Softball’s rise has been explicitly tied to the compelling nature of Canady’s performances, and like Clark, she does not shy away from unleashing her emotions when she deems it necessary.
“I feel like I show my emotion a lot on the mound,” Canady told the outlet in May. “Especially if it’s a good battle.”
Like the WNBA, what has triggered the explosion of softball, and other women’s sports currently experiencing a boom in popularity is a combination of star power, television placement, and the work of the women who paved the way before them paying off.
Natasha Watley, a four-time first-team All-American at UCLA and a two-time Olympian who currently runs a foundation that is dedicated to increasing the diversity in softball, told The Athletic before her transfer to Texas Tech, that Canady is the key to that, because of her visibility and popularity.
“I have a young daughter now; to see a Black pitcher at Stanford University – that’s normal. That wasn’t the norm for me,” Watley said. “I don’t know if she realizes how powerful it is.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
