Standout stat for Fresno State’s Cavinder twins: 2.9 million TikTok followers

It started as a single account. Hanna Cavinder had downloaded TikTok, the social media app, and loved it.

“I probably shouldn’t be on it as much as I am,” she said.

Haley Cavinder had Instagram and Twitter and all that, but was not as locked onto social media.

“I wasn’t a big fan, to be honest,” she said. “I liked to stay off of it, and focus on basketball.”

But April a year ago, when the twin Fresno State guards were stuck at home in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, Hanna talked Haley into making a TikTok, and it took off about as fast as either of the Bulldogs’ dynamic playmaking guards could get into the paint off a high ball screen and score or find an open teammate.

That’s how it all started. It was fun. It was something to do. And, in building a brand and base of followers that now number 2.9 million on TikTok and 64,000 on YouTube as well as personal accounts on Instagram and Twitter, the Cavinders relied on their greatest strength, which, like on the basketball court, is each other.

“It’s a unique thing,” said Blake Lawrence, co-founder and CEO of Opendorse, a sports-based marketing platform that provides athletes with the tools to build, protect and monetize their brands.

“They’re twins. The two of them together make their content more compelling, and they know that. They lean into it and it’s also very natural, the camaraderie they have. It’s who they are. They’re authentic and the content that they create, the more engaging it is for the audience. The Cavinder twins are solid evidence of that.”

It was that simple.

“In high school, there were a lot of mixtapes that started to come out on Instagram and other social media platforms that kind of started social media for us and a little bit of a following,” Hanna Cavinder said.

“But during quarantine we wanted to make TikToks, kind of like the rest of the world. Everyone was just on there just trying to find something to do and after that it just started growing and growing. It just kind of happened.”

“We thought, why not start dribbling basketballs to a beat and our audience or whoever saw it and loved it,” Haley Cavinder said. “So we continued to make those videos and it kind of grew from there.

“We were just doing it to have fun. I think that’s why everyone starts. Social media or TikTok, it’s something to occupy you. I just think it’s crazy to see how far we’ve come in a year.”

Valuation soars in one year

The Cavinders can’t yet cash in as social media influencers, the Fresno State guards patiently waiting while the NCAA comes to grips with Name, Image, Likeness legislation and rules changes.

That could be very soon, with 10 states having passed NIL bills with laws in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and New Mexico set to go into effect on July 1.

But, they are among the Top 5 most marketable NCAA women’s basketball players in the country, Lawrence said, and they are prepared for the eventuality that the NCAA allows student-athletes to profit off their talents through various endorsement deals.

There is a link now on the TikTok account, businessinquiries@cavindertwins.com. It’s not live yet, but it wasn’t even there at this time a year ago.

In August, when the Fresno State athletics department partnered with Opendorse to prepare its student-athletes for coming NIL opportunities, the Cavinder’s TikTok already had 655,600 followers.

Opendorse estimated the value of a TikTok post to be worth $7,884 and its annual earning potential to be $110,375.

Now, just eight months later and with 2.9 million followers, the value of a post from the account is pegged at $34,874 and its annual earnings potential is estimated at $523,113.

Projections for the Cavinder twins’ YouTube channel also have skyrocketed, and the value of posts from individual Instagram and Twitter accounts have about doubled since August.

Other highly marketable women’s basketball players are UConn guard Paige Bueckers, Louisville guard Hailey Van Lith and Baylor guard Jaden Owens, Lawrence said.

“But Haley and Hanna continue to be the leading example of student-athletes regardless of sport, regardless of school, regardless of conference, regardless of anything, that can invest in themselves and build up an audience that matters, that’s going to drive attention and create a lot of value for themselves.”

The Cavinders’ TikTok has more followers than many of the top men’s basketball players have on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok combined – Gonzaga guard Jalen Suggs, who led the Zags to the championship game of the NCAA Tournament before declaring for the NBA Draft, has about 490,000 followers combined on the three platforms.

And, in this game, the number of followers on social media far outweighs what the Cavinder twins do on the basketball court, even with Haley Cavinder leading the Mountain West in scoring last season and earning conference player of the year honors and Hanna Cavinder ranking third in the league in scoring and an all-conference selection.

Influencing the future on social media

None of that has changed their approach to those TikTok posts. It was fun then, and it is fun now.

“We try to do what our audience and our followers like to see,” Hanna Cavinder said. “There’s not an, ‘Oh, do this, do that.’ We try to have fun with it and focus on basketball and school. We’re not thinking about what we can do and what we can’t do, we’re just having fun with it.”

But they also are preparing for when that email link goes live, which the business marketing majors can parlay into post-basketball careers in any number of spaces including health and fitness, nutrition and apparel.

“We still love making TikToks just for fun,” Haley Cavinder said. “But thinking that it could be a job one day is also extremely exciting, to say the least. I mean, it’s something you started to do for fun and it can turn into a job one day. The link or the email to contact us, that’s just setting us up for the future and preparing ourselves for when we’re allowed to contact companies and people who want to work with us.”

Opendorse, Hanna Cavinder said, has been a source of information and guidance along with the Bulldogs’ coaches and athletics administrators and their parents, Katie and Tom Cavinder.

But their success has come highlighting what makes them different from competitors, what makes them different from others in that space, what makes them stand out.

“As hard as they work on the court and academically, you see them putting that same effort into building their personal brand off the court and they take to coaching, both athletic coaching but also coaching in this area, the same way and that’s with open ears,” said Frank Pucher, senior associate athletics director for external relations.

“They give it all they’ve got and they’re receptive to guidance or education, but they truly are perfect models of what all student-athletes can do. Sure, not all of them are twins, not everyone has their sister on the team with them. That sets them apart. But in terms of figuring out what makes you special and engaging with the right people on social media, putting out content that wants to be viewed, anyone can do those things, so they’ve done a really good job of that.”