Caitlin Clark continues to rack up notoriety and accolades — on and off the court!
On March 30 a Clark 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl Signed Rookie Card sold for a massive $366,000. This is almost $100,000 more than the previous highest sale for a women's rookie card (Serena Williams' rookie card sold for $266,400).
Clark's impact on the trading card market cannot be understated. With this sale (and the potential sales of her rarest card), she's completely upending the traditional WNBA trading card market, putting cards for women's basketball players on the same level as that of the NBA for the first time.
This isn't the first card of Clark's to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it's likely it won't be the last.
Caitlin Clark's impact on the trading card industry is clear
Though the trading card industry can fly under the radar for some sports fans, the industry is made up of tight-knit communities of people who come together to celebrate their favorite athletes and teams in a way that works for them. The thrill of the hunt is appealing to most of us in some form or fashion, and seeking and obtaining a prized card can offer a sense of euphoria to a collector.
For years the WNBA trading card industry was, to be polite, just limping along. In November 2024 sports marketing professor Annemarie Farrell looked back on her nearly 30-year history of collecting WNBA cards — long before anyone even imagined a single WNBA rookie card could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars — and noted that the surge in interest in such cards has been difficult for longtime collectors to digest.
"Caitlin Clark is quite a somebody, a brilliant basketball player and even more prolific marketing icon," Farrell wrote for the Athletic. "And while her arrival in the WNBA has opened doors to greater visibility and fan interest, her impact on the niche sector of WNBA collecting feels more like a door slamming shut to those who built inclusive WNBA card communities and promoted products when everyone told us nobody cared."
Like many, the industry of card collecting is based on two factors, Farrell also wrote: reach and revenue. The first is "about growing your audience," and the second is all about bringing in money after that audience has been secured. Like entrepreneurs everywhere, those who work in the trading card industry are doing what they can to ensure their longterm viability in the industry, but potentially at the expense of the people who helped build them up in the first place.