Many college athletes view NIL deals as opportunities to support good causes.
Indiana women’s basketball player Malia Samuels’ new NIL deal with World’s Finest Chocolate is one of those feel-good stories of giving back.
World’s Finest Chocolate is a fundraising company that helps schools, sports teams, clubs, and community organizations raise money by giving youth the opportunity to sell chocolate. From third to fifth grade, Samuels sold WFC’s chocolate to fund travel basketball opportunities and follow her dream.
Now she is a “Reign Maker” for the company’s “Let Them Reign” campaign.
She is the first female college athlete to partner with the brand.
As explained by the CEO of World’s Finest Chocolate , Eddie Opler, in a press release:
“Let Them Reign” was created to celebrate the ambition behind fundraising and the experiences it can help make possible. Having Malia join us as our first female NIL partner marks an important chapter for the campaign. We’re proud to have her represent what can happen when determination, opportunity, and support come together.
The campaign focuses on encouraging youth to develop confidence, communication skills, resilience and entrepreneurial thinking while selling the chocolate.
Samuels herself used her childhood experience with World’s Finest Chocolates to break out of her shell and improve her communication skills.
The basketball it allowed her to play led to her becoming the No. 1 recruit from her home state of Washington in 2023. In high school in Seattle, she won two state championships and received the 3A Washington State Player of the Year award as a junior in 2022. After three years at USC, she is excited to suit up for the Hoosiers in 2026-27.
Samuels took the time to speak with Swish Appeal about the deal.
Back when you were in third to fifth grade, was it gratifying to know that you were in control and that your hard work selling chocolate was allowing you to play travel basketball?
Yeah for sure, it was definitely gratifying, kind of to help my parents out. And I think it was more so fun for me to do than thinking about, “Oh I have to do this to play travel basketball.” It was just something that me and my teammates would kind of try to compete and see who could sell the most chocolate and stuff like that. But looking back, it was definitely gratifying.
And now that you’re a Division I college basketball player and basketball is such a huge part of your life, do you look back with extra gratitude toward World’s Finest Chocolate for getting you started on this path?
Yeah for sure. I think basketball has always been such a big part of my life. And without the travel basketball piece from when I was really young, I wouldn’t be where I’m at now. So I do have a lot of gratitude toward World’s Finest Chocolate for making that happen for me.
What does it mean to you to be using NIL for a good cause and one that is so important to you personally?
I think I’ve always tried to use my NIL for a good cause, whether that be my camps that I did last year or finding a good cause to give back to my community. Just because the high school that I went to was in a kind of rough area of the city. I want kids to kind of like see themselves in me and want to do this when they get to my age and give back to kids. I want the generations to just keep building on each other and giving back to each other.
For you, selling the chocolate helped you improve your communication skills, which is something you need on the court. What does it mean to you to not only be helping give kids opportunities in the moment, but also helping them build skills they’ll need later in life?
I think for me, it taught me skills that I didn’t realize were so valuable. Like communication, confidence and resilience. Being ok with some nos because ultimately some nos will lead to some yeses. I think it’s very important to teach kids those skills at such a young age. I think COVID kind of messed that up for some kids and their development. So I think it’s important to really hone in and focus on the fundamental skills that kids need now.
Can you speak to the significance of you being the first female athlete to have an NIL deal with World’s Finest Chocolate and what that means for getting more girls involved in sports and giving them the same opportunities as boys?
I think it’s super significant, and I think for me it has even more significance because I was on a boys’ basketball team when I did sell chocolate. There weren’t like a ton of girls around playing sports. There weren’t a lot of girls that took basketball seriously at that age. So I had to play with the boys.
So it’s super significant for girls to get more opportunities, for women’s basketball to get more popular. Having the opportunity to travel and do all these things with basketball, it kind of shows girls all around the world that, “Oh this is really something.” And that’s kind of my basketball story. Like, “Oh I can go to college and play basketball?” Like, I never knew that. So I think that’s kind of what I want to be for the next generation of girls by doing this.