NIL
NiJaree Canady’s NIL deal with Texas Tech softball is a bargain
Back in January as I was working on the preseason story about NiJaree Canady, her name, image and likeness deal with the Matador Club, and the Texas Tech softball team’s great gamble, I had to start thinking about what’s realistic.
Every team goes into a season thinking the Women’s College World Series is within reach. The Red Raiders had plenty of reason to think that was the case. Not just because of Canady’s arrival, but the team that, on paper, was solid enough around her to complement the best pitcher in the country.
There are never any guarantees in the NIL world. Those lofty goals become even harder when a deal such as Canady’s becomes public. There’s a reason most massive NIL deals for individual players are left to vague terms. Words like “around” and “roughly” are used more often than a real-life dollar amount are put out to the world.
There’s a reason for that. Once dollar amounts are attached to an athlete, suddenly that’s all they’re known for. It becomes the ultimate talking point whenever they have a bad game, and it’s used as the qualifier for any achievements or downfalls that come along.
This past basketball season had a couple major cases of this. While Kansas didn’t have any individual NIL deal made public, it was well known the Jayhawks shelled out a bunch of money to get back to prominence. And when those big deals didn’t make Bill Self’s team any better, Kansas became the proof positive that big money in NIL doesn’t automatically generate team success.
Also in the state of Kansas was Coleman Hawkins, who signed with Kansas State for a one-year, $2 million deal. At the time it seemed excessive for someone who’s career-high averages of 12 points and six rebounds a game related more to a second or third option on a team rather than one of the highest-paid players in the country.
Hawkins and the Wildcats didn’t have a great year, at all, and Kansas State fans let Hawkins hear about how he wasn’t living up to his contract. Hawkins tearfully talked about how the pressure got to him throughout the season, and how he felt like he didn’t make the impact many felt he should have in Manhattan.
Keeping in mind that Coleman Hawkins and NiJaree Canady are in no way, shape or form the same people, or types of players in their respective sports, it was still fair to wonder how Canady and the Red Raiders would handle all of it.
Any conversation around Canady this season inevitably led to the NIL deal worth $1,050,024. ESPN came to town for a documentary about it, then sent a writer to Lubbock for their own full-length feature story. During the TV broadcast of the Tallahassee Super Regional against Florida State, it came up time and time again.
One thing that’s stood out about Canady throughout the year is just how she’s handled it all. She had the same quotes to me in January as she did to ESPN in March and April. The money didn’t matter to her. It’s not nothing, but it’s not the end goal.
But it was the one thing anybody who wanted to talk about Texas Tech could think of as a discussion point. And you can’t blame them. It’s one of the biggest stories in college softball and women’s sports in general.
Each of these things have been in the back my mind throughout Texas Tech’s season. Talk of a trip to the Women’s College World Series came quick, and never really dissipated as the Red Raiders moved throughout the year. The team got better throughout, able to find ways to win with or without Canady at 100% or in the circle at all.
From the jump, the thought was if Texas Tech could host a regional, anything else would be gravy. The plate is overflowing now. A regular-season title, a Big 12 tournament title, a regional title and now a Super Regional title later, Canady’s deal has not only been worth it, not only has she lived up to the massive expectations on her, but it could also be said Tech contributors John and Tracy Sellers got a bargain.
Canady has been as good as ever as a pitcher. Her 30-5 record gives Canady the second-most wins in a season for Texas Tech. Her current 0.89 ERA leads the nation (for the third year in a row) and is easily the best in Tech history. And some of these numbers would probably be better if not for the leg injury that hampered her for much of Big 12 play.
That leg injury also prevented her from taking as many at-bats as she and coach Gerry Glasco had intended. Even without a plate appearance for well over a month, Canady still leads the team with 11 home runs and is third on the team in RBIs with 34.
Derrick Shelby, Canady’s manager with Prestige Management Group, told me in January his client wants to be softball’s equivalent to Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ two-way sensation who signed a massive contract two years ago. Were it not for the leg injury — suffered while playing first base — it’s fair to wonder how much better Canady could’ve been both in the circle and at the plate.
Canady hasn’t just been as good as advertised; she’s made even my modest “let’s see how this goes” approach seem foolish. She made the unreachable seem inevitable. Her seventh-inning home run in Game 1 against Florida State, in which she was pitching a complete-game shutout against one of the best teams in the country, felt comical in its absurdity.
Of course she was going to deliver in that moment. It’s what Canady has done her entire career. She’s made being a million-dollar softball player feel like she’s doing some charity work.
What Canady has helped the Red Raiders achieve this season is stuff of legend, and it goes beyond the softball field. Attendance records have shattered at Rocky Johnson Field repeatedly this season. The sales of her jersey have been astronomical. The hoard of fans, from all ages and walks of life, that surround her for autographs and pictures after games is enough to make me uncomfortable, yet she’s done it all year with the look of joy and appreciation each time.
Will Texas Tech finish the impossible again and win the national championship? I could say probably not, but at this point it’s hard to say what the Red Raiders aren’t capable of anymore. Canady has changed that perception.
Whatever happens in Oklahoma City is just more gravy on top. And we might need a bigger plate when all is said and done.