A growing legion of women’s basketball fans are wearing a newfound passion for the sport on their sleeve, or rather their shoulder, with WNBA jersey sales up over 500 percent from last year.
According to a report from Sports Business Journal, WNBA jersey manufacturers Fanatics also confirmed that player-specific sales have increased by 1,000 percent since 2023, unsurprisingly driven by this season’s transcendent rookie class — Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark currently leads the league, followed by Chicago’s Angel Reese.
Two of the league’s premier players, current WNBA leading scorer A’ja Wilson and shooting sensation Sabrina Ionescu, feature in the top five as well. But Clark’s tremendous influence also shines through in the No. 4 slot, belonging to former Iowa teammate Kate Martin, who cracks the list despite averaging just 10 minutes per game.
Saturday’s All-Star Game, officially capping the most lucrative half-season in WNBA history, also offered a banner financial evening for the league. With Jordan manufacturing custom All-Star jerseys for the Team USA and Team WNBA squads, the Phoenix event produced the most on-site sales in WNBA history, per TMZ.
It’s part of a sporting revolution that Clark and Reese helped lead from the college game, setting an all-time viewership record for NCAA women’s basketball at 9.9 million during their first-ever meeting in the 2023 national championship game, from which the LSU forward emerged victorious 102-85.
The pair’s rematch in the Elite Eight this spring cleared that lofty plateau, peaking at 16.1 million viewers, and Clark’s appearance in the 2024 title game was the most-watched non-football event on ESPN in half-a-decade.
Concerns about whether this rampant popularity would translate to the professional ranks were squashed weeks later at the WNBA Draft, which attracted 2.4 million viewers, and nationally televised broadcasts have nearly tripled last season’s ratings. These gaudy numbers helped the league negotiate a transformative media deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon, set to pay out $2.2 billion over the next 11 years.
However, this financial windfall has been juxtaposed with the relatively meager salaries of WNBA players, averaging just $102,000 per year. Most notably, players are not paid directly for products of their likeness, like jersey sales, a stated goal for the next round of collective bargaining agreement negotiations in 2025.
“We’re not asking to get paid the same percentage as what men get paid, we’re asking to get paid the same percentage of revenue,” Kelsey Plum told Boardroom before the 2024 season. “In the NBA, they have percentages of revenue shared for the players, so jersey sales, TV contracts, but that’s because their CBA negotiates that, you know, if the owners are making certain types of money, they [the players] get that as well.
“In the WNBA, that’s not the case. I don’t think I should get the same percentage as LeBron [James], just the same percentage of revenue. For example, if they sell my jersey in Mandalay Bay I don’t get a dime. So that’s the stuff we’re talking about.”
