🏀 UVA Women’s Basketball Meets Reddit

Every year we continue to see big name investors come into the fold across the college athletics NIL landscape. This time, it’s at UVA.

The University of Virginia women’s basketball program was an absolute force during the 1990s, never losing more than eight games in a season from 1989 to 1997. Dawn Staley, who is now a legendary coach at South Carolina, starred for Virginia at it’s peak. The program has not posted a winning record since 2016-17.

In steps Alexis Ohanian.

Ever heard of him? Maybe not. What about Serena Williams? Maybe… Reddit? Ohanian, a graduate of UVA, started Reddit with his college roommate in their UVA dorm room and eventually sold the company. Ohanian is now worth $150 million dollars, and is married to and shares two children with tennis legend and women’s sports icon Serena Williams.

Ohanian has committed a $776,000 per year pledge over the next 4 years to “bring the nation’s best hoops talent to Charlottesville and win some championships in the next four years”. The yearly pledge amount is in reference to Seven Seven Six, the venture capital firm Ohanian founded in 2020. The name is a nod to 776 B.C.E., the year the Olympics started.

Virginia reported $214,000 in women’s basketball ticket sales in 2022-23, while Ohanian’s total donation is about 15x the team’s annual ticket haul. This will not only support current players of the program through investments in things like equipment, travel, nutrition, coaching, team building, and other varied services, it’ll also surely aid in attracting top talent to Charlottesville to enjoy such luxuries.

An important note here is that Ohanian directly donated the money to the Women’s Basketball program through the university, and not a collective or NIL fund. Those are still separate entities under current NCAA law. Colleges can begin to incorporate student-athletes in revenue-sharing programs as soon as 2025-26, but that’s a whole different matter of itself. It is unlikely that Ohanian’s donation will be given to players via NIL.

This trend of high-profile investors stepping into the alma maters and creating significant change quickly is surely not going to stop anytime soon. As sports and pop culture continue to be more and more intertwined, people like Ohanian will keep coming out of the woodwork.

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