The WNBA's growing popularity is resulting in some seriously historic merchandise numbers for the organization ... and Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese deserve a ton of credit, 'cause the two superstars lead the entire league in sales.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome back to TMZ Sports, where the triumvirate hath returned.
00:10Moje Mutati, Lucas Whitman, and Edward Lewis, and everybody, you're going to want to pay
00:14close attention to this segment because we have the WNBA merch sales numbers in officially,
00:25and they are staggering.
00:27Lucas Whitman, you got the scoop.
00:29Yeah, so we're about halfway through the WNBA season, and this is by far the biggest the
00:34organization has ever had, and large in part thanks to Indiana superstar Kaitlyn Clark and
00:39Chicago Sky star Angel Reese.
00:42Well, we reached out to Fanatics, the official online retailer for the WNBA, and got some
00:48eye-popping stats on what that has done for their merchandise sales throughout the entire
00:53league this year, and they actually told us that sales are up 500% from the same time
00:59period last year, but even more shocking, maybe not actually because of how popular
01:04these two stars are, player-specific merchandise is up 1,000%.
01:09So they broke it all down to us, and the top five highest-selling jerseys and t-shirts,
01:15shirzies, or anything related to players, these guys are the top five.
01:21Kaitlyn Clark, obviously, Angel Reese, but then you have Sabrina Ionescu, Kate Martin,
01:26and Asia Wilson to round out the top five.
01:29This just goes to show the WNBA has never been bigger, and you've got to give thanks
01:33to those two up top.
01:34Yeah, I really do think it says so much about Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese.
01:39You see the NFL has some superstar rookies coming in.
01:43Every year there's some big-name quarterbacks, some big-name running backs that come in,
01:46and you're like, oh my goodness, this guy is a fan-favorite immediately, but you always
01:48see Patrick Holmes and Travis Kelsey and Dak Prescott, and all the big names leading the
01:53jersey numbers, and those guys are just a short time behind.
01:55To see Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese be dominating names like Sabrina Ionescu, Asia Wilson, even
02:00girls like Breonna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Brittany Greiner, legends of the sport, to
02:05have Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese be above them at this time frame, it makes sense, obviously,
02:09they're new superstars and stuff like that, but it blows my mind that all of these legends
02:14of the sport are behind them at the moment.
02:16I think it just goes to show just really what they're doing to the league and how much the
02:21league owes them for the boon in subscribers they've had this year.
02:26It's a lot.
02:27I'm very blown away by this list.
02:29Blown away is the right way to say it.
02:331,000%.
02:34Merch sales are up 1,000%.
02:41Being up 50% is a massive increase, but 1,000, my goodness, the pressure is on the WNBA now
02:49more so than ever.
02:51Look, let's be real.
02:53Kaitlyn Clark, Angel Reese, we're having a lot of fun with this rivalry.
02:57Those girls are going out there and killing it.
03:00I'll be it not on two very good teams, but they are still getting it done.
03:05The pressure is on the WNBA to map out the future of this league for the next 10 years.
03:12Who knows if they're still going to be this hot next year, right?
03:14Who knows if they start to fizzle out or people get used to it.
03:17It's not as, I mean, you know how it goes.
03:19No one stays that hot for that long, right?
03:22So it's on the WNBA to bankroll this as much as they possibly can.
03:27They have a real opportunity here to change the way that the women are paid in this sport
03:34for the very long-term future here.
03:37I mean, this is an absolute game changer.
03:40They have everything they need to bring in these sponsorship dollars.
03:45Obviously, we already know about the TV rights situation, but there's so much money in,
03:50and this is a game changer for the league and how it's received.
03:54So I hope they're doing all that they can here because, again, I can't stop saying it.
03:581,000% is obscene.