Before coming to the WNBA, Cameron Brink had numerous brands approaching her to sign NIL deals with them during her time as a college basketball star. In 2023, while still at Stanford, she signed an NIL deal with New Balance, making her the first female basketball player in its roster.
Many were surprised back then that she inked a deal with New Balance, as they were expecting her to sign with Nike given her family’s connections to that brand. Her father Greg Brink, according to reports, was Nike’s CFO for North America operations, while her mother Michelle Bain-Brink was the marketing manager for the brand’s women’s sports footwear division.
With those familial connections, Cameron Brink joining A’ja Wilson and Sabrina Ionescu in Nike’s roster of female talent seemed like a given. Instead, she went a different route.
On her “Straight to Cam” podcast, Brink said that it was exactly her parents’ association with Nike that made her decide to sign with a competing brand.
“I really didn’t have an issue, knowing what New Balance stands for and what they do,” Brink said. “I didn’t have an issue being like, ‘I’m going to go a different direction.’”
The LA Sparks star added, “When you’re a Nike kid, I wasn’t allowed to wear any other brands of shoes growing up. They were very serious about it. … It (New Balance) was just the best option for me and my career, and my parents were both retired at that point, too.”
Brink’s parents also used to be college athletes, so they likely understood the benefits of having an NIL deal to her name. They had since retired from their positions in Nike when their daughter was offered an NIL deal by New Balance, so there was no stopping her from signing it.
Cameron Brink also benefits from New Balance’s partnership with the WNBA
Cameron Brink believes that her signing an NIL deal with New Balance before her selection in the WNBA draft was the best career move she made. And given the brand’s latest move, the decision she made in college only seemed to look smarter than it did before.
New Balance has partnered with the WNBA, inking a multi-year deal that seeks to promote women’s sports, using the women’s league as a means for outreach and communication. With Brink as the brand’s most high-profile signee from the WNBA, New Balance will likely select the LA Sparks to be the face of its WNBA-related campaigns, which in turn will raise the marketability of the women’s league.
While the specifics of Brink’s shoe deal with NB have not been made public yet, she is expected to make above the WNBA’s average salary.
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Yelle is a broadcast communications graduate from the University of Perpetual Help-Dalta and has pursued a career in television and news writing in Net 25 and Radyo Agila. Some of her works can also be seen through her previous publication in Fastbreak.com.ph.
