This year’s Women’s College World Series was one for the books. Games 1 and 2 of the championship series between Texas and Texas Tech broke all-time viewership records, and Game 3, which garnered 2.4 million viewers and peaked at 2.7 million, was the most-viewed college softball game in history. This year’s tournament also shattered in-person records–nearly 120,000 fans attended Devon Park over the nine-day semifinal and final rounds.
College softball made the rounds online too when Appendix G trended on Twitter after a controversial call in the semifinals. And of course, there were two viral business announcements that aired during this year’s postseason: one, that MLB will be partnering with pro softball league, AUSL, to fund professional softball and air it on major sports networks, and two, that Texas Tech star NiJaree Canady’s NIL deal would be renewed for a cool 1.2 million next season just prior to Game 3. And why shouldn’t it?
“Nija Canady is the most electrifying player in softball. She’s box office and she goes out every day and competes,” Canady’s manager, Derrick Shelby, told ESPN just hours before Game 3. “The decision to stay at Tech was not difficult. This program has taken care of her. They have showed how much she is appreciated. The entire staff, her teammates, the school in general have been great. Tonight she is playing for a national championship and she is making history. Everything she wants from this game she can get here at Texas Tech.”
If Texas Tech has taken care of Canady, she has more than returned the favor. Canady is the college softball player of the moment, and she showed her worth well before the postseason arrived, ushering in the no. 1 softball transfer class in the country to Lubbock last year, breaking in-person home game attendance records six times, and leading her team to its first ever WCWS appearance.
However, because Texas Tech lost to Texas following Canady’s lackluster first inning appearance in Game 3, the internet did what the internet does best following the conclusion of the WCWS: pick apart elite athletes for sport from the comfort of their couches.
Specifically, the worth of Canady’s “million dollar arm” was called into question ad nauseam, especially given the timing of the announcement of its renewal. Which, if you take a look at what Canaday accomplished for her team this season, is pretty shortsighted.
The Canady effect
In 2024, Texas Tech finished the season with a 29-21 record and an 8-16 conference record. However, this season, Canady, and the other seven top-100 recruits that committed to Texas Tech after her, finished the year with a 54-14 overall record, a 20-4 conference record, their first-ever conference title, and their first-ever WCWS appearance in the most-viewed WCWS in history.
Those are huge wins for Canady, Texas Tech, and the sport of softball as a whole – who’s to say that’s not worth a million dollars or more? And how many college football coaches have been hired to do the same thing for much more, and spectacularly failed to deliver?
So the TLDR is: before the 2025 season, Texas Tech never even won a conference title. In its Nijaree Canady era, it made it to the final of the WCWS. In one year, Canady accomplished what entire coaching staffs and offices of college athletics employees strive (and are paid) to do: make their programs relevant.
That’s what makes Canady worth a million dollars. And she might be worth even more with the approval of the House settlement.
In case you missed it, the House settlement will usher in significant changes to the already fluctuating college sports landscape. Starting on July 1st, college athletes will be allowed to accept direct NIL payments from their schools for the first time in the history of college sports (plus nearly $3 billion in back payments to former athletes). Schools will be allowed to allot $20.5 million across sports as they see fit (possibly subject to Title IX requirements). Although it is estimated that up to 90% of this compensation will be allocated to football and men’s basketball, standout female athletes like NiJaree Canady stand to benefit monetarily from this new ruling.
But with an increased net worth comes increased scrutiny. And even in the final days of the pre-House era, the discourse around Canady’s million dollar arm is already proving as much.
Sports coverage post-House
Sports media must be careful in the incoming era of college sports. As athletes will be paid outright, they will be put under a microscope more so than ever. College sports has always been a business, but, as we saw with NIL, paying athletes outright will only amplify their visibility and celebrity status. Those of us who cover these athletes must look at the bigger picture of the value these athletes bring to their teams. If we don’t, we risk doing what athletes are already prone to do to themselves: reducing their worth to on-the-field statistics.
And it’s not that Canady’s stats weren’t where they needed to be. Canady threw every pitch of the postseason for Texas Tech until Game 3 of the championship series final when she was lifted in the first inning after allowing five runs to score. In total, she accounted for 520 pitches over 35 innings in the WCWS alone, and won with minimal run support against some of the best offenses in the country, including three-time national champion Oklahoma, to make it to the final series.
From a pure statistics standpoint, Canady was nearly perfect. Texas, led by ace pitcher Teagan Kavan, who allowed zero earned runs through 31 ⅔ innings, was just better (and better rested). And, having seen Canady for two full games before Game 3, Longhorns like Mia Scott, Leighanne Goode, and Katie Stewart, were prepared to step up to the plate and deliver offensively.
The only thing Canady did wrong in the eyes of her naysayers was prove that she’s human after being, in the words of her head coach, Gerry Glasco, pushed to “the very limit” over the course of the WCWS. And while sports media should feel free to acknowledge where athletes fall short, we also can’t deny the overall value these athletes bring to the table.
Besides, if college athletes like Canady are both performing athletic labor on the field and supplying visibility and prestige that athletics workers are paid for off the field, why shouldn’t they be compensated (and legally recognized) as such? National title or not, it’s arguable that Canady is underpaid.
And whether sports media likes it or not, reporting on stories like Canady’s is going to become the new norm. It’s imperative that we see the whole picture of what these athletes bring to the table in college sports’ next era.