On Thursday, the WNBA creatively unveiled a huge collaboration with Nike on new uniforms that sent social media over the edge in a very good way. As the WNBA prepares for its 25th season, the uniform collection will help set the league’s foundation for the next 25 years and beyond.
Nike has partnered with the WNBA for its game uniforms since 2018, but there was clearly more to be done — more personalization, more options, more storytelling, and more attention to the careful dialing-in of performance features.
Sharper creative expression and refined-fit insights directly from players guide the new Nike uniform system and apparel offering for the WNBA as the league embarks on its 25th season.
The new WNBA uniform system from Nike feature three game uniform editions for each of the 12 teams in the league, bringing stories from their cities and communities to life through the muse of female archetypes in storytelling and film: the WNBA Nike Heroine Edition, the WNBA Nike Explorer Edition and the WNBA Nike Rebel Edition.
Inside the Uniforms:
- Each WNBA game jersey is numbered 1/144, honoring the 144 elite athletes who earned their place in the world’s premier women’s basketball league.
- Athlete numbers are returning to the front of the game jersey.
- The game shorts have more room in the thighs and the glutes, and the game jerseys add more room across the chest plus overall proportion adjustments. The game jerseys also feature an assortment of three necklines: a round-neck, a V-neck and the wishbone neckline exclusive to the WNBA.
“The basketball uniform is an important representation of the brand of WNBA players and teams, and a point of pride for fans,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “In partnership with Nike, unveiling new and exciting adaptations of the WNBA uniforms is a dynamic way to build on the foundation of the league’s first 25 years.”
Excitement is an understatement. When the uniforms dropped, the internet went wild. According to the analytics team at Zoomph, the release of the new designs resulted in over 17K posts, 646K engagements, and 69 million impressions across social media.
Here is a look back at some of the reactions and posts: