Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson already has two WNBA MVP awards during her seven-year professional career. She now, as befits a player of her stature, has an exclusive shoe offering.
Wilson and Nike announced the news before the Aces’ preseason game in South Carolina, where she won the 2017 national championship with the Gamecocks and coach Dawn Staley.
The two-time WNBA champion and 2020 Olympic gold medalist posted a photo on social media of herself wearing a sweatshirt that read, “Of course I have a Dot Com shoe.” That web address leads to Official Nike Press Release for Wilson’s shoe.
“We’ve been working on this for a couple of years and I just wanted it to be perfect.” Wilson said Callie Lawson-Freeman of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I didn’t want this to be something like a handout.”
“I wanted people to understand that this is coming from me,” he added. “It took us a long time and a lot of difficult conversations with Nike and my team to get this product.”
Wilson joins the footwear and apparel company’s exclusive roster of athletes, which includes Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe, Naomi Osaka and fellow WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu.
The exclusive shoe will be called “A’One.” according to ESPN. The shoe and the rest of Wilson’s signature collection will release in 2025.
Making the announcement in Columbia, South Carolina, which is Wilson’s hometown as well as the home of his alma mater, who built a statue in his honorIt was an important part of putting his stamp on the entire venture.
“The most important thing for me is to be able to show what I’ve been working on for a couple of years in my home state, in my hometown,” Wilson explained to Andscape’s Aaron Dodson. “A place where people would watch me grow up and I would raise my eyebrows and think, ‘Is she really that good?!’ “Then seeing myself in college and now in the pros.”
Wilson is the first black woman to get her own signature shoe with Nike since Sheryl Swoopes in 2002. (Candace Parker was the last black WNBA player to get a signature shoe, with Adidas in 2010.) She joins Ionescu, Breanna Stewart and soon, Caitlin Clark, as the only active WNBA players on exclusive deals.
