Montana Fouts Joins H&R Block’s “A Fair Shot” Initiative
Alabama softball pitcher Montana Fouts is joining a program to help female athletes receive more opportunities for sponsorships, as well as helping female athletes receive the same pay as male athletes for sponsorships.
According to a press release from H&R Block, "A Fair Shot" was first established with Caitlin Clark and Zia Cooke, basketball players for the University of Iowa and the University of South Carolina respectively.
Fouts joins a list of athletes that includes Jaiden Fields from the University of Georgia, Trinity Thomas from the University of Florida, and Sarah Fuller from the University of North Texas, who most may remember from her time at Vanderbilt.
In the press release, data is mentioned by H&R Block shows "female athletes are receiving fewer sponsorship opportunities and lower compensation than their male peers." H&R Block is also offering "tax preparation services to help sponsored athletes manage key tax decisions that result from this new income."
H&R Block President and CEO Jeff Jones elaborated on the program saying “When we first saw the news allowing college athletes to profit from their NIL, we knew that new income would create new tax questions for student-athletes that they had never had to think about before."
Jones went on to say that "As we looked at this closely, we saw the disparity between sponsorships for women and men and took action to provide help to close that gap. We created the H&R Block A Fair Shot program to not only sponsor female college athletes across sports and schools, but also provide tax help.”
For those wanting to learn more about "A Fair Shot" click here.