After practice and school, Texas junior setter Ella Swindle recorded a Dove commercial. She started the video by facing the camera and explaining why she liked to use the product, and the rest of the short advertisement captured her using it personally.
Creating the video was the next item on her busy checklist as a collegiate volleyball player. In the name, image and likeness, or NIL, era, creating and maintaining partnerships like this one is becoming more of an expectation for successful college athletes.
“I’ve had a really well-rounded experience just as a student-athlete at Texas,” Swindle said. “And I feel like when you come to Texas, there’s a lot of expectation that’s put on you to succeed.”
As Swindle has proven, these higher expectations and the heightened pressure result in bigger opportunities as a student-athlete. Since arriving on the Forty Acres, Swindle has established partnerships with brands like Dove, 7-Eleven and Avoli.
Swindle is a well-recognized athlete at Texas, helping lead the school to a national championship in her freshman year. Additionally, the expanded viewership of volleyball and other UT women’s sports added to recognition of its top players like Swindle.
Statistics show last year’s NCAA tournament was the most-consumed one in history, with over 1.3 billion minutes watched across ESPN platforms. Texas volleyball sold out its first-ever game in the Moody Center this season against Stanford, with 10,899 fans in attendance. Even in Gregory Gymnasium, which holds just 4,000 fans, the Longhorns have seen a consistent increase in attendance over the past eight years.
The expansion of college volleyball’s audience, in turn, increases the number of well-known faces within the sport and helps athletes cultivate their platforms.
“It’s super cool to see those (attendance) numbers go up everywhere,” Swindle said after Texas’ five-set win against Stanford. “But tonight, it was at Texas, and I think that we showed everyone how much fun college volleyball is.”
However, despite the progress, many of the top collegiate volleyball players still seem far away from competing with top-earning basketball players and even athletes in track and field.
Nebraska’s junior outside hitter Harper Murray was the lone NCAA volleyball player to make the list of the Top 20 Female College Athletes with the Highest NIL Valuations in 2025, coming in at No. 19.
Eleven basketball players made the top 20, which is likely at least in part due to the uptick in ratings for women’s college basketball. That being said, this increase in viewership of women’s basketball and brand deals for its athletes could set a tone that translates to other women’s sports, too.
Live audiences for women’s sports are projected to grow to 5.2 million from 4.1 million by 2027, meaning the future could be bright for this Texas team and the sport at large. If last year’s viewership statistics are any indication as to where college volleyball is headed, the audience tuning into the 2025 NCAA tournament could be unprecedented.
Texas will open the tournament in front of a home crowd against Florida A&M on Friday, Dec. 5., with hopes of claiming its third national title in four years.
