Incoming Oregon Track Athletes Sign NIL Deals With HOKA

Two incoming Oregon Duck freshmen have signed NIL deals with shoe giant HOKA.

NIcole and Samantha Humphries, both juniors at Lewisville Flower Mound, finished in a first place tie in the girls 6A 5K race / Henry Huey/Special to American-Statesman

As has been highlighted during this new NIL era, the ability for student-athletes to capitalize off their Name, Image, and Likeness is not just limited to the revenue-generating sports of football and men's basketball.

Plenty of athletes across different programs have been able to cash in, whether that is from their social media presences, local deals, or agreeing to sponsorship opportunities, some of the top NIL earners are those who are not on the football field or basketball court.

Incoming Oregon Ducks freshmen Nicole and Samantha Humphries could be the next ones who find themselves on that list after signing an NIL deal with shoe giant HOKA.

Located in Texas, they were not legally allowed to sign NIL deals while competing in high school athletics within the state, so once their eligibility was finally exhausted, the two were able to start capitalizing on their Name, Image, and Likeness.

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Both are expected to be middle-distance runners for the Ducks next year and are coming in with a ton of hype surrounding them.

Nicole won the 800-meter title with a Texas 6A state-meet record time of 2:06.24, while her sister previously won the state title in 2022. There's a chance Samantha might have gone back-to-back as she posted the seventh-best time in the nation before suffering a season-ending injury.

With NIL deals becoming more prominent for high school athletes, it will be interesting to see how that affects commitments going forward for all programs.

Oregon is a Nike school, so it's intriguing that the Humphries would be allowed to sign this type of deal as HOKA is a competitor of Nike.

Without knowing the particulars of the deal, it seems strange that this type of contract would be signed, but it's also a great opportunity for these two as they enter their freshmen seasons at Oregon and look to dominate at the collegiate level like they did in high school.