New York
CNN
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Caitlin Clark is reportedly set to put on her personal signature Nike sneaker within the WNBA.
Clark helped carry girls’s school basketball to new heights, grew to become the main scorer in NCAA basketball historical past and was taken as first decide within the WNBA draft. Now she’s set to signal an eight-year deal price as much as $28 million with Nike, in response to the Wall Street Journal. The Athletic has reported that Clark’s deal features a signature Nike shoe.
Nike didn’t reply to CNN’s requests for remark. CNN has not independently confirmed a deal between Clark and Nike.
Clark has been extremely wanted by manufacturers. State Farm, Gatorade, Panini and others have endorsement offers with Clark, valued at round $3 million.
These endorsement offers will assist Clark complement her $76,535 rookie wage within the WNBA. The highest NBA decide will make a $10.5 million wage — 137 times more than Clark.
Endorsement offers are vital for each manufacturers and athletes, and no athletic firm spends extra on participant endorsements than Nike. In 2023, Nike spent $4 billion on advertising, together with endorsements with stars like LeBron James, Serena Williams and Derek Jeter.
Almost all main stars within the NBA have sneaker offers, together with James, Kevin Durant and Luka Doncic with Nike and Stephen Curry with Beneath Armour. However sneaker offers are nonetheless uncommon within the WNBA.
Clark is simply the third energetic WNBA participant to have a shoe cope with a significant model, in response to Brian Nagel, a retail analyst at Oppenheimer.
Nike signed 2020 WNBA first general decide Sabrina Ionescu to a $24 million endorsement deal final 12 months. Nike’s cope with the New York Liberty star contains Ionescu’s personal signature shoe line.
Nike’s transfer to signal Clark comes because it focuses on increasing its girls’s enterprise, which makes up simply 22% of its gross sales.
The deal “marks half of a bigger effort [from Nike] to drive higher curiosity to beforehand neglected areas similar to girls’s workforce sports activities,” Brian Nagel stated in a observe to purchasers Thursday.