They’re ready for their close-up.
The wives and girlfriends of pro sports stars have long commanded the spotlight, but, increasingly, college girl WAGs are taking the field.
They’re racking up millions of views on social media, securing lucrative brand deals and getting their own agents — all before graduation.
“The college WAGs are coming up,” said Allison Kaye, a Florida-based celebrity makeup artist known for Game Day Glam, her on-location service for the partners of star athletes. “We have so much NFL WAG content [already]. College is more fun, and you can also follow [the girls] from college into the NFL.”
She typically does glam for NFL WAGs, but she’s getting more requests at the university level — she recently did Ohio State and Penn State WAGs — as college athletics shine on social media.
In January, a video of Hannah Straub, the girlfriend of then-Miami Hurricanes wide receiver Keelan Marion, got more than 3.6 million views. It showed her leaning over a railing to comfort him with a kiss after a loss. “I’m the best for you, and it is what it is,” she wrote in the caption.
Paulina Adams, a fashion student at Miami University in Ohio, has seen her following balloon since she hard-launched her relationship with Ohio State’s starting quarterback, Julian Sayin, in July with an Instagram post captioned “Life is best with you in it.”
Adams, a lithe blond who teaches Pilates, now has 120,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. Her videos regularly get tens of thousands of likes, whether she’s walking around campus, baking sweet potato brownies or, of course, showing off her game day looks.
“I like showing my outfit because they always slay,” she said in a recent TikTok video that attracted more than 14,000 views.
Brands have taken notice of Chloe Van Berkel, a graduate student in nursing who dates Charlie Sasso, a senior football player at Monmouth University in New Jersey.
In September, Van Berkel went to New York Fashion Week for the first time, attending the Aknvas show with the hair care brand TRESemmé. She also has a partnership with Herbal Essences.
Peter Knell, who runs a talent and brand partnership firm in Los Angeles, notes that partnering with college girlfriends makes sense from a business perspective.
“Brand loyalty is formed early, and if you can do that in an authentic way it can be very powerful and very positive,” he said.
The rise of younger WAGs comes in the wake of NIL, the 2021 NCAA rule change that allowed college athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness.
“Now brands want to make money off of them and everyone in their orbit” — including their significant others, said Knell.
Influencers like Alix Earle, who shot to fame with her “Get Ready With Me” videos while at the University of Miami, and the popularity of sorority content online have proven the promise of beautiful college girls on social media.
“Alix Earle, people followed her because they loved to watch her go to college parties and debrief the night,” said Kaye. “The college WAGs have the same potential.”
She also believes college WAGs are on the rise because audiences are growing tired of the women on the NFL.
“We have 32 teams, 53 people on each roster, so that’s hundreds and hundreds of potential NFL WAGs … we are getting saturated,” she said. “A lot of the content they are posting is very similar. They are going to the games, going to the luncheons — Whereas the college kids really bring a new set of videos online.”
She also thinks their videos feel more authentic. “These girls, they are very genuine people, and I think it’s because they are so young, they don’t know not to be [real],” she said. “They aren’t acting in a certain way, and it makes them so fun to work with.”
Some partners of college coaches are also having their moment. Loreal Sarkisian, the glamorous, high-fashion wife of University of Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian, has more than 200,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram. She recently made an appearance at Paris Fashion Week with Balmain.
Olivia Cochran has amassed hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok for vidoes documenting her life as the wife of Texas Tech University football coach Josh Cochran.
Kaye said some of the college girlfriends she’s worked with have asked her how to become influencers. Her advice is simple.
“Most of them just want to have fun and live their lives,” she said. “I am telling them to post it and see what happens.”
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