The WNBA has lengthy since been crammed with stars, and if we’re being fully actual, these ladies might have been promoting models within the sneaker house for years. Participant Unique kicks on the court docket had been cool, however not as accessible for the on a regular basis fan like a signature shoe was.
So the manufacturers tailored. With an impeccable roster headlined by Sue Chook, Diana Taurasi and Jewell Loyd, Nike started releasing their participant’s unique colorways to the general public.
Chook and Loyd, every identified for his or her affinity with Kyrie Irving’s former Nike signature footwear, acquired quite a lot of colorways within the market, with Chook headlining the “Preserve Sue Recent” assortment that spanned from the Kyrie 4 Low to the Kyrie Infinity.
Out in Phoenix, DT started repping ‘Bron’s signature sequence, from the LeBron 9 and LeBron X to the LeBron 19—she even had compiled an intensive Mercury-colored assortment of LeBron PEs, together with the LeBron 18 “La Cabra”—which interprets to the GOAT in Spanish.
In Washington, six-time All-Star Elena Delle Donne was paying homage along with her PE rotation, dawning a Swoopes I-inspired colorway of the Nike Hyperdunk 2017 alongside a gentle inflow of KD 12s. However on the tail finish of the 2019 season, Delle Donne flipped the script, electing to put on a lace-less mannequin, the Nike Air Zoom UNVRS. Constructed across the model’s latest expertise, Flyease supplied wearers with a hands-free, easy-access design geared towards these with disabilities. The latter would function a 3 year-long smoke sign of what was to come back.
In October of 2022, Nike and Elena Delle Donne formally launched the Nike Air Deldon. Whereas the high-top mannequin wasn’t particularly marketed as a signature providing, the silhouette was as shut to at least one as you might get. Constructed with Flyease expertise at its basis, the Air Deldon was impressed by the two-time MVP’s youthful sister Lizzie, who’s disabled. The mannequin represented a number of points of Delle Donne’s private journey, detailing her battle with Lyme illness on one colorway whereas becoming a member of Nike’s BE TRUE initiative that heralds the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood with a rainbow-treated installment.
Then there’s Sabrina Ionescu. Earlier than the legend of Caitlin Clark arose, Ionescu captivated the nation in school—breaking nationwide and college data on the College of Oregon with a flashy play fashion and an unstoppable pull-up three.
Whereas standing on the shoulders of the legends that got here earlier than her, Nike introduced Ionescu could be the eighth ladies’s signature athlete in Nike Basketball historical past. After 17 years, The Swoosh had returned in full to the ladies’s sport and so they flooded Sabrina’s enterprise with help. An expansive advertising and marketing marketing campaign, a full launch schedule that includes greater than a dozen colorways, a full unisex attire assortment and complex storytelling that ran all through the mannequin.
Touted because the first-ever unisex signature basketball shoe, the Nike Sabrina 1 offered out the primary handful of colorways through the late summer time. Then it took issues to a different degree when the mannequin was added to Nike’s customizable Nike By You platform. With layers of detailed materials, stitching and panels, the Sabrina 1 introduced out the platforms’ full potential, permitting followers of the already praised silhouette to create their very own 1-of-1 variations.
Customized Nike Sabrina 1s engulfed social media within the following months, with creators drawing inspiration from their favourite colorways of previous signature fashions just like the “Bruce Lee” Kobe 5. Some designs even caught and had been replicated at mass, just like the titular rendition dubbed the “What The” colorway—impressed by Nike Basketball’s mid-2010s run of taking each colorway from one signature shoe and compiling it into one loud, expressive and surprisingly cohesive ensemble.
From the W and the NBA to males’s and ladies’s school basketball and the G-League, the Nike Sabrina 1 exploded in reputation. As quickly because the 2023-24 season tipped, the low-top mannequin shortly turned a go-to for a lot of Nike-endorsed NBA gamers with Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Tyler Herro and others customizing their very own PEs at a frantic tempo.
This time round, Sabrina’s sneaker gained’t be a one-and-done: she confirmed throughout this yr’s New York Liberty coaching camp that her second signature is at present within the works.
After which there’s the lengthy awaited announcement of the Nike A’One. As the primary Black lady to obtain a signature shoe with the model since Sheryl Swoopes, A’ja Wilson continues to cement her legacy as not solely a terrific, however a participant deserving of the utmost recognition and respect. After headlining the Nike Cosmic Unity final season and dawning a regal black and gold LeBron 21 PE through the 2023 Finals, two-time WNBA Champion and New York Occasions Greatest-Promoting Creator A’ja Wilson has been positioned for an insanely brilliant future, and arrival of the A’One within the Spring of 2025 was met with top-tier advertising and marketing: Wilson posted a flick of herself carrying an iconic hoodie that learn, Of Course I Have a Shoe Dot Com with the caption: “The reply to the query.” It was simply as iconic as Wilson and her illustrious profession.
Wilson and Nike aren’t simply solely releasing a signature sneaker although—the two-time WNBA champion and MVP has been working for over a yr now on a full attire assortment and signature slides, too. She’s been closely concerned in every step of the method, persistently checking in with the model and going so far as to counsel satin-lined hoods so ladies wouldn’t must put on a bonnet throughout journey days.
As for different stars, in the summertime of 2021, Jordan Model introduced the biggest ladies’s roster within the model’s historical past, signing Dearica Hamby, Satou Sabally, Jordin Canada, Aerial Powers, Te’a Cooper, Crystal Dangerfield, Arella Guirantes and Chelsea Dungee. Becoming a member of a longtime core of Kia Nurse and Asia Durr, the Jumpman went out and put pen to paper with Rhyne Howard, Dana Evans, Isabelle Harrison and Gabby Williams over the following yr and a half.
Selecting up the legacy of the since-retired Moore, Jordan’s revamped athlete roster has introduced a contemporary perspective to the model’s once-reserved method to the women’ aspect of the sport. Participant Unique colorways have flooded WNBA hardwoods consequently. Kia Nurse’s Toronto Raptors-treated Tatum 1, Satou Sabally’s international-inspired Air Jordan 37 and Isabelle Harrison’s butterfly-coated Jordan Luka 2—in homage to her late sister—have every extrapolated a bit of the respective athletes’ journeys. In flip, sneaker blogs and group social media accounts have begun so as to add one other aspect of storytelling to the WNBA’s environment.
Despite the fact that signature silhouettes and unique colorways proceed to attract headlines, each Nike and Jordan have been cultivating their subsequent technology of companions within the backdrop via the brand new potentialities introduced by NIL. Mirroring the selectivity of their signature lineup, Nike has signed reigning Nationwide Freshman of the 12 months Juju Watkins, former AP Participant of the 12 months Paige Bueckers and prime highschool sophomore Jerzy Williams to NIL offers.
In the identical realm, Jordan Model has signed Rutgers-bound guard Kiyomi McMiller, LSU’s SEC Freshman of the 12 months Mikaylah Williams and UCLA level guard Kiki Rice.
Whereas it’s but to be formally introduced, Caitlin Clark has reportedly signed an endorsement cope with The Swoosh as nicely. Clark was one of many model’s first NIL signings earlier than her senior yr at Iowa.
That is only the start, and with funding, consideration to element, and unwavering help for ladies’s basketball, the renaissance continues.
Feeling nostalgic? Right here’s a historical past lesson on how previous WNBA legends paved the best way within the sneaker sport.
