TikTok. Love it or hate it, the app has been the centerpiece of the latest news cycle, as sports, politics, and pop culture collided once again–even if the app went dark on Saturday.
Users opening TikTok for much of last weekend were unable to scroll or post. Instead, they were greeted with a message stating that “a law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.” along with crediting then-incoming President Donald Trump for its hopeful restoration.
The app’s shutdown prompted quick action in the sports world. Although tennis pro Coco Gauff, who has over 750,000 followers on Tik Tok, was busy competing in the Australian Open, she took the time to voice her thoughts about the app. Following her victory over Belinda Bencic, she wrote “RIP Tik Tok” on a television camera recording the event
Coco Gauff writing “RIP TikTok USA 💔” on the lens after her win 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/u8qbKCCgAW
— Tyler DeLuca (@TylerDeLuca) January 19, 2025
That Gauff has over 750,000 followers on TikTok is extremely relevant to her message, and maybe not for the reasons you think. When it comes to NIL, TikTok is a powerhouse app for women looking to earn money, whether they’re college or professional athletes. Its availability is, in short, an issue in gender equity.
Women in the NIL space thrive on TikTok, including Coco Gauff. Like most female athletes, Gauff’s Tik Tok account is plastered, not with sponsored ads, but with slices of her life.
Of course, there’s tennis, but there are clips of Gauff going out, participating in online trends, traveling, and outlining what a typical day in the life of a professional athlete looks like. Yes, she has her share of sponsored videos featuring brands like American Eagle and Naked juice as well as a pre-election clip encouraging her followers to go vote. But her social media is much less contingent on business or any other personal agenda than it is on her personality. And that’s what makes it so powerful–she’s connecting with her fans in a way that wasn’t possible prior to the advent of social media.
@cocogauff judgement free please, I ‘m still a beginner! 🙏🏾❤️ #cookwithme #foodtiktok #cooking ♬ original sound – Coco Gauff
Female athletes have excelled in the NIL game thanks in no small part to TikTok. Of course there’s Olivia Dunne, the national champion gymnast from LSU who became the poster star for college athlete endorsements since NIL became a thing in 2021.
But women who play sports other than gymnastics–from basketball to volleyball to softball–are also doing quite well in the NIL market. Gauff also fits the NIL model of TikTok success–she’s an elite athlete who knows how to make money because she knows how to 1.) most importantly, play a sport at an elite level, and 2.) give fans an up-close view into her interests–athletic and otherwise–on social media.
Dunne’s appeal is similar. Yes, she’s conventionally attractive, as any internet incel will point out to detract from her success, but she’s also strategic. Like Gauff, Dunne also shares parts of her life in a much more intimate way than most male athletes do, welcoming followers to watch her daily routines, replying directly to haters with clapback videos, and curating her page to fit trends her followers are paying attention to.
@livvy getting my LinkedIn ready #foryou #tiktokban #riptiktok #graduation ♬ original sound – Frankie Bleau
With this in mind, the timing of the threatened TikTok ban is quite interesting, as, in Joe Biden’s final days as president, he sent out several memos addressing Title IX and, importantly, its influence in the college athlete NIL space. Last week, the OCR released a memo stating that third-party NIL payments to college athletes must comply with Title IX.
This isn’t a huge surprise to those of us who have been navigating the NIL space for a while, as the issue has recently come up in court. The memo isn’t a guarantee of anything either, and its enforcement will likely be short-lived under the Trump administration.
But it still sends a powerful message that Gauff’s response to the Tik Tok ban reinforces: Limiting women’s access to business spaces, whether at the university or interweb level, limits their potential success. There’s also the undeniable fact that the issues that impact the public’s access to information also impact women who navigate online spaces well–and particularly those who do business there like plenty of female athletes do.
Title IX, of course, has nothing really to do with Tik Tok. But the spirit of the law arguably does. Title IX prohibits unequal treatment on the basis of sex at educational institutions that receive federal funding. There are still pay gaps between male and female athletes at both the college and pro level, but women have nonetheless excelled in the NIL space since July 1, 2021.
It can even be argued that NIL–and Tik Tok as an extension–has contributed to more progress in gender equity in college sports than the NCAA ever has. Tik Tok has, by and large, been women athletes’ platform of choice in the NIL space and for good reason. It’s the perfect venue for the kind of content that is skyrocketing in popularity these days–trendy, fun, concise, visually appealing, and multimedia-based.
Ban the app and who knows how much progress will have been lost?
And although Tik Tok is back for now, it’s not a guarantee–especially considering Trump’s influence on the ban in the first place. Should it go away permanently, female athletes will have to adjust. At best, they’ll have to pivot, and at worst they’ll lose hard-cultivated audiences overnight, as well as the exposure the app offers them.That’s one of the many reasons a potential TikTok ban matters–when it comes to NIL, TokTok’s accessibility is, at its core, a gender equity issue, and one that Title IX can’t protect.