Who Cashes In When Beauty Moves Into Women’s Sports?
It’s a scene that feels inevitable, beauty and wellness brands finally seeing women’s sports as the cultural and commercial force they’ve always been. Sponsorships are growing. Activations are slick. The imagery is aspirational.
But behind the glow, the biggest checks aren’t going to the women in the photos or the highlight reels. They’re going to the leagues and teams that control the sponsorship rights. The athletes, the ones selling the fantasy and the performance, often see little more than a token fee.
The Rise of Beauty in Women’s Sports
In the past five years, beauty and wellness brands have made a noticeable play in women’s sports. League and team partnerships now sit alongside tunnel fashion content and athlete-led tutorials. For marketers, it’s a dream; female athletes offer both the competitive credibility and the lifestyle cachet that beauty brands want to tap into.
And it’s working. Women’s sports sponsorship revenue is growing about 50% faster than men’s, and the women’s sports economy overall is projected to reach $2.35 billion in 2025. Audience interest is surging; this year’s women’s March Madness drew its second-highest opening viewership ever.
On the surface, it’s all upside. But zoom in, and a key question emerges: who’s actually getting paid?
The Money Flow Problem
In the NBA, players are guaranteed about 50% of Basketball Related Income, which includes sponsorships. A league deal means bigger salaries for everyone.
In most women’s leagues, there’s no such guarantee. A brand can sign a multi-million-dollar partnership, and none of that money is required to go to player salaries. At most, an athlete might get a small appearance fee for a photoshoot or activation.
The math:
Average NBA salary: $4.5 million
Average WNBA salary: $148,000 (max ~$242,000)
Sponsorship revenue growth in women’s sports: ~50% faster than men’s sports
Women in top 100 highest-paid athletes (2024): Zero. Coco Gauff missed the cut by $11 million.
It’s a structural gap, not a perception issue. Sponsorships are sold with the promise of access to the athletes, but the payment pipeline is designed to feed the institution, not the individuals whose image delivers the value.
Who’s Investing — and Who’s Getting Paid
Right now, most beauty and wellness sponsorship dollars land in league or team deals. Those partnerships buy category rights, sideline visibility, and athlete access through the organization, but rarely result in ongoing, direct payments to the players featured.
League/Team-Level Sponsors (institution gets paid):
Fenty Beauty – New York Liberty sponsor; branding on warm-ups, in-arena activations.
Glossier – First official beauty partner of the WNBA.
Mielle Organics – Official textured hair care partner of the WNBA.
Urban Decay – Sponsor of the Los Angeles Sparks; tunnel activations, product seeding.
e.l.f. Cosmetics – Official beauty partner of the NWSL.
Dove – Record-breaking kit sponsor for NJ/NY Gotham FC (NWSL).
On the smaller side of the spectrum are direct athlete endorsements, where the money goes straight to the player; they negotiate their own rates, usage rights, and deliverables:
K18 & Athleta – Simone Biles (gymnastics).
Olay – Sha’Carri Richardson (track & field).
One Size Beauty – DiJonai Carrington (WNBA).
Gillette Venus – Alycia Parks, Peyton Stearns, Taylor Townsend (tennis).
The contrast is stark: far more brands are buying into the game than into the players.
Why This Matters Now
This is still the early stage of beauty’s investment in women’s sports. Patterns set now will become norms later. If the industry defaults to league-only deals, the precedent will be clear: beauty belongs in women’s sports, but the financial upside belongs to the institutions.
The risk isn’t just about fairness, it’s about sustainability. Female athletes have shorter earning windows than their male counterparts, and for many, endorsements are a key way to build wealth beyond their playing salaries. When those opportunities are filtered through a system that prioritizes the league’s balance sheet over the athlete’s bank account, the players lose both immediate income and long-term brand equity.
What Needs to Change
If beauty and wellness brands want to make a lasting, equitable impact in women’s sports, they can’t just buy the banner space. They have to change the model.
Split the spend: Allocate a meaningful percentage of every league deal to direct athlete contracts.
Pay market rates: If an athlete is featured in a campaign, compensate her at endorsement value, not appearance-fee value.
Protect rights: Ensure players can sign their own beauty or wellness deals, even if the league has a sponsor in that category.
For leagues, it means baking athlete payments into sponsorship agreements. For players and their agents, it means pushing for CBA language that guarantees a share of sponsorship revenue.
The Next Evolution
Beauty belongs in sports. The alignment makes sense. The content is powerful. But if the women whose performance and presence make these campaigns work aren’t part of the financial payoff, then the story is incomplete.
The next evolution of beauty’s play in women’s sports won’t just be bigger budgets and more activations — it will be contracts that put the athletes in the room and on the check. Because the glow-up is real, but it’s only worth celebrating if it pays off for the women who built it.