Paige Bueckers, #5 of the UConn Huskies, shoots the ball in the second half during the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Final Four semifinal game against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 5, 2024.
Steph Chambers | Getty Images
University of Connecticut star Paige Bueckers, on the cusp of becoming a WNBA No. 1 pick, is taking her talents to the realm of financial literacy.
The star Huskies guard has teamed up with Intuit to offer free educational financial literacy programs to athletes and students at universities nationwide.
“I know how important financial literacy is, and learning how to manage your income, your taxes and making smart financial decisions, so for me to be able to share that opportunity with others, I think was very important,” Bueckers told CNBC.
As part of Intuit’s new campaign, the financial technology platform will be offering a suite of financial education programs with the purpose of helping students navigate their financial future. The company says it will offer an NIL Tax Empowerment Workshop to help athletes understand the tax implications for name, image and likeness revenue streams.
Bueckers, 23, is part of one of the first classes of student-athletes to take full advantage of the new policies allowing for NIL deals. Beginning in 2021, the NCAA relaxed its rules and for the first time began allowing students to profit off their name, image and likeness. It has dramatically changed the model for college student-athletes.
She said she has learned most of her financial literacy through a financial advisor.
“I’ve been very blessed, very fortunate to have this opportunity with NIL to be able to capitalize off of that, start to build wealth, start to make money in college as a student athlete. But definitely, I think at first when NIL came into play, I didn’t really know much about finances,” she said.
To date, Bueckers has signed more than 25 deals with companies such as Gatorade, Chegg, Bose, Verizon, Madison Reed and StockX.
In December, she made history by becoming the first NIL athlete to launch a shoe with Nike.
Bueckers said NIL has not only been beneficial to her personally, but it has also been helpful to women’s sports overall.
“It’s done great things to the women’s game,” she said, “in terms of the visibility of seeing people on commercials, ads and all over social media.”
