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Adam Rittenberg
Haley and Hanna Cavinder won’t be NCAA athletes much longer. Unless the Miami women’s basketball team makes a late surge, their collegiate hoops careers will end next week after the ACC tournament.
“This season, our record isn’t the best, and obviously that’s not fun,” Haley Cavinder told ESPN. “But playing on the court with Hanna and being able to just leave our careers at the University of Miami together is something I wanted to do.”
The Cavinder twins first appeared on the social media scene as dancing TikTok creators during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 while freshmen at Fresno State. When the NCAA approved athletes to start monetizing their individual name, image and likeness in July 2021, Haley and Hanna were front and center.
Their popularity had grown on social media, and brands were eager to partner with the blond, basketball-playing twins from Gilbert, Arizona. Minutes after midnight on July 1 that year, the twins were in New York to sign an NIL deal with Boost Mobile.
They soon added agreements with Dick’s Sporting Goods, Under Armour, Champs Sports, Ghost nutrition and the WWE, where they made appearances at major events and hinted at pursuing careers in the ring, even after the 2022-23 season.
The Cavinders, who transferred to Miami ahead of the 2022-23 season, now have their own app, TWOgether, where they promote nutrition and fitness, and they maintain partnerships with sports, nutrition and content companies. According to their agents, Jeff Hoffman and Alexi Hecht of Everett Sports Management, the twins have “progressed from securing five-figure deals for social media posts and stories to commanding seven-figure partnerships and acquiring equity stakes in leading brands.”
“We kind of started out as trailblazers,” Haley Cavinder said, “and now we’re becoming entrepreneurs.”
While their time as the faces of NIL is winding down, the Cavinders won’t be leaving the business world any time soon. And though there’s basketball still to be played, Haley and Hanna Cavinder are ready to continue to shape their combined brand and grow a portfolio of marketing partnerships.
“I feel like I’m getting old now,” said Haley, who turned 24 with her sister on Jan. 13. “Times have changed. I’ve seen women’s basketball evolve over the years, and being a part of that, and kind of leading somewhat of the way in certain areas with Hanna is something that is extremely important.”
When they were 12, Hanna and Haley talked about one day owning a hotel and calling it the Twins Inn. Their father, Tom Cavinder, founded the Southwest Elevator Company and serves as CEO, while their mother, Katie Cavinder, is a vice president there. Hanna and Haley learned from their parents about running a business and about saving and managing money.
“It’s kind of been in the blood, so being able to see their work ethic every single day definitely resonated with Haley and I at a young age,” Hanna Cavinder said. “Even before NIL did pass, we wanted to do something together. Our life has definitely changed tremendously, being able to capitalize off of every opportunity.”
Hanna described what she and Haley do as “the most surreal job,” while Haley — who leads Miami and ranks fifth in the ACC in scoring this season at 18.3 points per game — added that the sisters “make a great team when it comes to being businesspeople.” When they started their college careers, attaching such terms to amateur athletes was still somewhat taboo. But college athletes are viewed differently now.
The change is especially present in women’s basketball, where stars such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Aliyah Boston — and now Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins — have developed national profiles and made major money along the way.
“In the beginning, obviously, there weren’t as many eyes on women’s basketball, but NIL kind of opened that up a little bit for women in sports in general,” said Hanna Cavinder, who ranks second on the Hurricanes this season behind her sister in assists with 4.3 per game to Haley’s 4.6. “It kind of blew up during Angel Reese’s year and Caitlin Clark’s year. It’s completely changed, and it’s going to continue to change and grow.”
The Cavinders have spent nearly five years broadcasting almost every element of their lives on social media. The constant exposure of life online has brought opportunities and financial rewards, but the twins also have experienced the nastier side of social media.
Although they try to avoid criticism of their content, they catch some strays.
“We can always sit here and say, ‘Oh, we don’t look at the comments,’ but we’re all human beings,” Hanna said. “Seeing something and then, obviously, you might start believing it yourself, is kind of just a hard process.”
Their strategy is to support one another and to view everything through a business lens rather than a personal one.
“That just kind of comes with what you put on the internet,” Haley said. “At the end of the day, it just kind of made us have tougher skin and understand, ‘I can’t look for approval from people that really don’t know me.’ I look at it as a business tool, my social media. How do I maximize and capitalize off of it in that way? Because that is a dark hole that social media brings, and that is hard at times, but also this is what helps us. This is our dream job.”
The Cavinders’ post-college work will revolve around the deals they made while playing for Miami. Although they work with plenty of partners, they have tried to be selective and have gained equity in several companies. They will continue to create content, but as they exit college, they view themselves much more as entrepreneurs.
They also will devote more time to their app, where they have full marketing control and which allows them to connect with women around the world about fitness goals.
“We love being busy,” Haley Cavinder said. “Name, image and likeness did set us up to be successful, but now afterward, those partnerships don’t go away, the following doesn’t go away. It’s just, how can we continue it on, continue the Cavinders brand on with other passions?”
When college athletes have asked for NIL advice, especially women, the Cavinders encourage them to identify partnerships they believe in and to not place limits on themselves. They think that revenue-sharing from the House settlement will be an adjustment but that athletes are still positioned to maximize their value.
“You can do it all,” Hanna Cavinder said. “You don’t have to just be a basketball player. You don’t have to just be a TikToker. You can be a little bit of everything.”
