The biggest beneficiaries of name, image and likeness in college sports are leaving the game for betting.
Haley and Hanna Cavinder, the women’s basketball players who played their senior season at Miami, are giving up their final year of eligibility to do something they can’t do while in college — talk about betting.
Microbetting site Betr, co-founded by Jake Paul, has hired the 22-year-old athletes and social media influencers as content creators. The deal, which will give them their own podcast, is said to be worth seven figures and comes with equity in the company.
The twins' podcast, Twin Talk, which was launched on iHeart Radio in December, will now be part of Betr media.
“With Betr's media savvy, the explosion of female sports and Betr's disruptive behavior in gambling, it became a question of how far can we go and where do we sign?” Jeff Hoffman, the Cavinders' agent, said in a news release.
“As the Twins become equity partners and creative directors, this partnership with Betr (Media) provides a vested interest and ability to do what they do best: continue to define culture and content.”
While the jury is still out on whether Betr can work on the gambling side — it’s not clear if play-by-play microbetting will be embraced by enough mass — Betr’s media business, boosted by Paul, has established relevancy in a short period of time.
Betr says it has drawn in almost one billion impressions across its social media channels in its first eight months of business.
“We are positioning Betr Media to become the No. 1 destination for emerging talent by providing a truly win-win proposition: Betr can and will leverage the rapidly growing Jake Paul and Betr Media audiences to make emerging talent even more famous than they already are, while also providing best-in-class content development, production and media sales infrastructure,” Betr CEO Joey Levy said in a statement.
Betr’s podcast network includes BS with Jake Paul and 100x Club with big bettor Marco Piemonte.
The Cavinder Twins transferred from Fresno State to Miami, where they led the Hurricanes over No. 1 Indiana in the Sweet 16.
With millions of followers on social media, including more than four million on TikTok, companies flocked to the Cavinders when the NIL floodgates opened.
The twins signed deals with Boost Mobile, Raising Canes, Champs Sports, Intuit TurboTax, the WWE, Crocs, Core Hydration, PSD Underwear, Life Wallet, Cigarette boats, Caktus AI and Six Star Pro Nutrition.
It’s not known how much the Cavinders will talk about betting per se, but they wouldn’t have been able to sign with Betr while still playing college ball.
