In April 2024, Caitlin Clark signed a massive 8-year, $28 million deal with Nike. Nike has recently put more work in with women’s basketball players, creating signature lines for Sabrina Ionescu and A’ja Wilson and using WNBA stars in their ads. Fans expected even more effort when it came to Caitlin Clark. After all, Clark is one of the most electrifying players in the WNBA.
When Clark left college and joined the Indiana Fever, her arrival in the WNBA sent shockwaves through the world of women’s basketball. Fans were desperate to watch her games, leading to viewership and attendance records and games being moved to bigger arenas. While the growth of the WNBA can not be attributed solely to Clark, her presence certainly had a sizeable impact.
By signing her to a long-term deal, Nike won the jackpot. They secured one of the most markable women’s basketball players in the world. And yet, Clark does not have her own signature shoe. Instead, Nike plans to release two Kobe 5 and 6 Protro PEs in June and October.
PEs are “Player Exclusive” shoes, which means that Clark got a chance to create her own version of an already existing shoe—one with a grey, white, and light blue design and one in Indiana Fever colors. Clark fans have been hoping for more, though.
Caitlin Clark’s signature shoe is still in the works
Nike has been busy creating women's player edition shoes. Paige Bueckers got her own version of the G.T. Hustle 3 late last year, JuJu Watkins is slated to have a G.T. Cut 3 Turbo LE release in August, Nike just announced a Jewell Loyd Zoom G.T. Cut 3 that will be released in April, and Clark’s Kobe PEs will come out soon as well.
While that is at least something and a lot more than women’s basketball players had going for them before, this is not what many fans had hoped for. Nike sure is taking its sweet time with Clark’s signature shoe.
In January, Nike CEO Elliott Hill said in an interview with Fortune that they were currently working on the logo for Caitlin Clark’s signature shoe. He did not mention a timeline for the shoe, however, and since then there have been no real updates.
The reason may be simple: A’ja Wilson’s signature shoe is set to launch in May and maybe Nike just does not want to risk interfering with the momentum of that release by announcing when Clark’s shoe will be ready. In that case, the PEs would be a solid option to give fans something but also buy the company time to capitalize on the excitement around Wilson’s line. Wilson is currently the best player in the WNBA, after all.
Nevertheless, Nike should not wait too much longer to announce Clark’s signature shoe. This is something fans have been expecting to get ever since Clark signed her deal with Nike.