How NIL is transforming university gymnastics and attracting Olympic stars

When former gymnast Jordyn Wieber won the World Allround Championships in 2012 in preparation for the Olympic Games in London, she faced a difficult dilemma.

She could gamble on Olympic success and become a professional athlete, or she could turn down the financial opportunity of the fleeting Olympic spotlight and maintain her NCAA eligibility.

With no guarantee of making the Olympic team, Wieber chose to turn pro. Her bet paid off.

She won an Olympic gold medal with her “Fierce Five” teammates and was featured on the front of a Corn Flakes box, but she still mourned the loss of her collegiate sports career.

“Back then, the lifespan of a gymnast didn’t seem very long,” Wieber said. “When I think back to when I was 16 years old and made that decision, it’s crazy.”

Wieber is now the head coach of women’s gymnastics at the University of Arkansas, so her athletes no longer have to choose between Corn Flakes and SEC crowds.

Her current seniors were the first group of student athletes to benefit from NIL, or “Name, Image and Likeness,” which allowed them to earn money through sponsorships, endorsements and social media deals while competing as student athletes.

The structure of gymnastics, both at university and elite levels, changed immediately.

The gymnastics that the U.S. national team performs at world championships and the Olympics is called elite gymnastics, which is considerably more difficult than collegiate gymnastics. The two systems are governed by separate rulebooks.

The new NIL rules not only allowed college gymnasts to benefit financially, but they also blurred the lines between elite and college gymnastics, attracting big names like Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey to compete at both levels.

All three gymnasts excelled in NCAA gymnastics between the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, allowing them to stay in shape and compete more often than most top gymnasts.

After helping Team USA to a gold medal in Paris, Chiles and Carey return to their college teams for the 2025 season.

“What a cool thing for the sport of gymnastics,” Wieber said. “It gets so many more eyes, so much more exposure and it allows some of these athletes who want to go both collegiate and elite to grow our sport.”

She added: “NIL gives them permission to experience both worlds at the same time.”

2008 Olympic silver medalist and NBC Sports gymnastics analyst Samantha Peszek said gymnasts benefit uniquely from NIL, even among their top-earning college athletes. Gymnasts compete in one of the most popular Olympic sports, but they typically don’t have the financial future of a college football or basketball player.

“For sports like gymnastics, where most gymnasts retire when they graduate, there was no opportunity to financially or opportunistically take advantage of the rewards of our sport when you graduated,” Peszek said. “So being able to let them do that while they’re working hard, while they’re still an athlete, is a huge benefit.”

Before the NIL, the sport’s major financial opportunities were reserved for a handful of gymnasts who exceeded expectations every four years and made the U.S. Olympic team.

Even then, the ephemeral nature of Olympic visibility wasn’t always lucrative enough to entice some gymnasts to forfeit their NCAA eligibility.

Kyla Ross, Wieber’s 2012 Olympic teammate and assistant coach at Arkansas, opted to retain her amateur status and compete for UCLA’s legendary gymnastics team rather than accept prize money and sponsorships.

“I definitely think my parents helped me a little bit with that decision,” said Ross, who won her Olympic gold at age 15. “My dad was a student-athlete, and so he always told me that when he was in college, that was one of the best four years of his life.”

However, turning down the financial reward for her success in London was ‘a little bit of a sacrifice’.

Ross became the first female gymnast ever to win Olympic, world and NCAA championships, but she was unable to capitalize on her success until she retired from the sport.

As gymnasts use NIL to expand their online presence, appear on cereal boxes, and blur the lines between elite and NCAA, interest in NCAA gymnastics is growing.

“Gymnasts have always been great role models for young athletes,” Ross said. “But I think now that they can connect even more through NIL, show more community involvement and show that business side, they can grow their fan base even more.”

But finding time to balance everything is easier said than done.

Leanne Wong, a senior on the University of Florida gymnastics team, is not only a Division I athlete, but also a medical student, an Olympic competitor, an author and an entrepreneur.

“Before the rule change, there was no way I could have run a business and made money while pursuing a university education,” Wong said.

She sells handmade bows that gymnasts can pair with their leotards, a signature accessory she popularized while competing for the U.S. national team.

This year, Wong completed a full elite season on the heels of a successful college season. While most of her fellow Olympic hopefuls took the season off to focus on elite gymnastics, she was the 2024 NCAA uneven bars champion and traveled to Paris as a reserve for the U.S. Olympic team.

“It was definitely a challenge to find the balance between preparing for the Friday night competitions and keeping the Olympics in mind,” Wong said.

While many athletes like Wong have benefited from NIL, college coaches across the country have had to adapt their programs to meet the inevitable challenges.

Wieber makes sure her athletes know that academics remain the priority, followed by athletics. Once those responsibilities are met, they can shift their focus to NIL.

NIL resources are also discussed at every university during recruitment, ranging from deal-making assistance to tax support.

“Especially for athletes who are getting a lot of different offers and opportunities, we help them think about how to say no to things,” Wieber said. “How to do their due diligence in the process of evaluating, ‘Do I want to work with this brand? Do their values ​​align with mine?’”

NIL is still in its infancy, but as athletes make their mark, Wieber and Ross want to ensure the values ​​of college sports are preserved.

“Things are going to look a little different than they ever have before,” Wieber said. “Our perspective is to stay flexible and preserve the core of what makes college athletics great.”