INDIANAPOLIS — Caitlin Clark’s favorite color is blue. Outside of the gym, she’s happiest being on the water or a golf course. She says the same thing to teammate Aliyah Boston before every Indiana Fever game.
When you buy one of the basketballs in Clark’s new line from Wilson, you’re not just getting a ball. You’re getting a glimpse of Clark herself.
The colors, the patterns, the detailing — all are the result of months-long conversations between Clark and Wilson’s design team about who she is, what she likes and what messages she wants to send to young fans.
“It was a really fun process for me to go through,” Clark told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s things that are super important to me and all very different things, too, throughout my life. So hopefully they can make an impact on whoever’s going to pick the ball up.”
Clark joined Michael Jordan as the only athletes with full basketball collections for Wilson, signing a multiyear sponsorship deal in May 2024 with the official manufacturer of basketballs for the WNBA, NBA and NCAA. In part because of the short turnaround time before the release of her first signature ball last October, Clark’s first line leaned heavily into history. The records she broke at Iowa. Her historic rookie season with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.
But Clark and Wilson knew they wanted future lines to be more personal, reflecting who Clark is as a person as much as a player.
“She’s actually influencing this. It’s not just people at Wilson picking the design,” Hudson Vantrease, director of product design at Wilson, said.
“We never wanted to just put her name on a ball and call it a day,” he added. “We want to tell the most compelling story, and having her as part of that is a positive to it.”
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Wilson invited USA TODAY Sports to attend the design team meeting in April where Clark saw the finished basketballs for the first time. The design team also gave USA TODAY Sports a behind-the-scenes look at the collaboration process with Clark for the latest collection, which will be released June 23.
There are four balls in the collection, and they differ in both purpose (one is an indoor-only ball, one is outdoor-only and two can be used either indoors or outdoors) and price point. One, the Embrace, is an Evo NXT basketball, meaning it has the same construction as a regulation W ball and could be used in official games.
“Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome,” Clark said when she walked into the Indiana Fever’s practice gym and saw the four new basketballs. “You guys killed it.”
The team responsible for developing Clark’s line has about a dozen core members. They met with Clark at last year’s All-Star Game and got her initial thoughts about the collection, including what a young Caitlin Clark would have wanted.
“I think she said a blue ball,” said Haley Reines, the product line manager at Wilson.
Afterward, Reines and product designer Julia Muscarello sent Clark a detailed questionnaire, asking her everything from her favorite color (blue) to her hobbies outside of basketball (golf, being on the water) to what she’d be if she wasn’t a basketball player (chef). They also monitored social media, taking note of Clark’s clothes — there’s an Instagram account devoted to her fits — and what she does off the court.
“I don’t want to say borderline stalking, but yeah,” Muscarello said with a laugh. “I was trying to stay on the Caitlin pulse.”
Those answers and details drove the design process, which involved “hundreds” of hours.
Christopher Rickert, the senior director of global production at Wilson, said the team began with 50 design ideas and whittled them down. Sometimes the color wasn’t right. Sometimes the pattern didn’t work. Sometimes what seemed like a great idea on paper didn’t quite translate into reality.
When the team had 10 ideas, they sent the designs to Clark for her thoughts. There were further tweaks, and prototypes were made to make sure the designs looked the same on an actual basketball as they did in drawings.
The four designs ultimately chosen for this year’s line all have very different looks, but there’s a commonality to all of them.
Clark.
“Whenever I do something, I want to make it the best product possible for people. But also I feel like this is an easy way for me to connect with my fans,” Clark said of being so involved in the design process.
“I want it to feel very personal for them, too. They can connect with me, not just by watching me on TV or coming and buying a ticket to a game.”
Take the Oasis ball, which can be used indoors and outdoors. Clark told Reines and Muscarello that her favorite color is blue, she likes pastels and her happy places are the water and golf course. So the panels of the Oasis ball are white and light blue, and the light blue panels have what looks like pink and green splashes of paint but is actually an abstract drawing of a golf course.
Clark picked up on it right away when she saw the ball.
“That looks like a hole on a golf course!” she exclaimed.
Light blue is also the shade used for the pattern on the Envision, an outdoor ball. At first glance, it looks like a maze, but it’s really the words “DREAM BIG.” That phrase is also on the Aspire, an indoor/outdoor ball that at first appears to be white or grey. Put it in the sunlight, however, and the phrases “Dream Big,” “Keep Going” and “You’re Going to Be Amazing Because You Are Amazing” emerge in bold, Fever-red letters.
That last phrase is what Clark says to Boston before every game.
“See, she loves it!” Clark said, pointing to a picture of her and Boston on the bench that was on the design team’s planning whiteboard. “We’ll get her a free basketball. She’ll love it. I’m going to put it in her locker.”
Because the Embrace is an official basketball, it cannot have any obvious detailing. Look closely, though, and you can see a pattern — again, light blue — within the Wilson logo and in what looks like a sunburst around the airhole. Both are the visual representation of the decibel level at a Fever game; the Wilson team took an audio file of the sound and made a graphic out of it.
“Fans really admire how she just plays so well under pressure,” Muscarello said. “Sometimes it’s OK to embrace the noise.”
Though Clark had been involved in every step of the design process, seeing the basketballs on a computer screen is very different than holding the finished product. Clark picked up each of the basketballs and examined it, taking note of the different details. She spun each ball and shifted it from one hand to the other.
She also studied the design team’s white boards, pointing to some of the notes and photos.
Though she initially seemed most taken by the Oasis ball, she was fascinated with the Envision’s UV technology and said she’d have loved to have had a basketball that revealed “secret” messages when she was a kid.
She also was impressed that Wilson’s design team was able to turn a decibel meter reading into a design.
“They’re all unique in their own way. They all have different things I love about them,” Clark said. “I think they each serve their own purpose and are different.
“So I guess you have to buy ’em all!” she added, laughing.
While there will be some fans who buy the whole collection, whether to use or keep as memorabilia, Clark was conscious of not pricing any fans out of the new line. Two of the balls are less than $50, with the outdoor Envision ball costing $27.95 and the Oasis indoor ball priced at $49.95, while the Aspire outdoor ball is $54.95.
The Embrace, which is Wilson’s premium Evo NXT basketball, costs $124.95.
All the balls will be available on Wilson’s website and at retail sporting goods stores. Last year’s collection sold out almost immediately and, given the appetite for all things Clark, it’s a good bet this one will, too.
“It’s kind of cool to see how the balls came back and they feel very `me,’” Clark told USA TODAY Sports. “That’s what I love about it. I feel like I’m sharing part of my life and my journey with people.
‘I could have never dreamed (as a child) to have something like this,’ she added. ‘It’s pretty special.’
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.