Duluth Native Gianna Kneepkens Signs NIL Deal with Options Travel

Kneepkens is coming off a stellar first year at Utah, earning PAC-12 Freshman of the Year honors this past season.

DULUTH, Minn. – It’s been almost a year since the NCAA has allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness. And one former Duluth Marshall basketball star is taking advantage of that opportunity right in her own backyard.

Utah guard Gianna Kneepkens has agreed to an NIL deal with Options Travel, a company that helps streamline the traveling process for its corporate partners. The Duluth native is coming off a stellar first year with the Utes, earning PAC-12 Freshman of the Year honors in the process.

“I think the biggest thing with NIL is it’s kind of bringing visibility to women’s sports because they’ll see big companies sponsoring these women athletes and then people get interested. So just to be like kind of the start of this new and exciting time is really cool,” Kneepkens said.

“For me, out of all of the qualities that I admire about Gianna that’s probably my favorite is her ability to be a really great teammate and why we wanted a partner with her quite frankly and sponsor her in this new image and likeness sponsorship, because we love working with great partners and teammates and Gianna fit that perfectly for us,” said Andy Kadlec, executive vice president of sales and strategic partnerships at Options Travel.

Kneepkens is open to working with other NIL opportunities and is not exclusively partnered with Options Travel.