USA Today via Reuters

It seems like while rewriting history, Caitlin Clark is also repeating it. It is no news that this year’s WNBA draft was unequivocally grand. This factors in the number of tickets sold, viewers at home, and, of course, the number of jerseys sold on a draft night. While many people grabbed their Clark’s Fever jersey within an hour of the call, the rest of the world is reliving the past. Apparently, the No. 22 jerseys are no longer available on the market. The incident takes us back to last year, when something similar happened in MLS.

Jogging the memory back to the time when the football icon Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami and his jerseys were not available until the end of the regular season in mid-October. The reason behind this lag was that Adidas, who is the sponsor of the team, was trying to increase their manufacturing to meet the demand. However, it simply turned into dismay as everyone involved in the deal got slapped with losses, and fans too could not complete their wishes.

An identical situation is transpiring in the case of Caitlin Clark. The Indiana Fever drafting the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer was inevitable. Despite all the hype, it seems like this time Nike did not prepare enough for the sales. Within an hour, fans cleared almost all the stock. Consequently, many now only see a “coming soon” tag on both of Clark’s jerseys at the official WNBA store. As a result, fans are losing their minds trying to get a hold of her uniform.

The frenzy behind the delayed jersey for Caitlin Clark explained

Unlike Lionel Messi, Clark’s move to Indianapolis was quite an expected turn of events. In fact, Indiana got its first lottery pick back in December. Following this, Iowa’s superstar committed to the WNBA a couple of months later. At that point, everyone kind of knew where the generational talent would land. Looking at her popularity, it was quite obvious that the Caitlin Clark effect would shift to the WNBA as well. And so it did.

The sensational hooper brought over 113.1k followers to Fever in just 3 days. This was a whopping 85.40% growth in their Instagram followers. Her effect even boosted ticket sales by an average of 182%, and now it is available at $174 per game. Hence, when the overall difference between the two experiences is observed, Clark’s situation gets additional points for being more contemplated.

So much so, that initially blank jerseys without numbers are sold out, which was the case for every other player. However, for Clark, the No. 22 jerseys were manufactured in the very initial rounds as per the anticipation. But now, her uniform will not be available for the fans to wear during at least half of the regular season, until August. The reason this time around is Nike’s manufacturing timings. This in turn is a huge loss for the fans, Nike, the WNBA, Fanatics, Fever, and Caitlin Clark.

What do you think of this situation?