Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson already has two WNBA MVP awards during her seven-year professional career. Now, befitting a player of her stature, she has a signature shoe deal.
Wilson and Nike announced the news before the Aces’ preseason game at 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 of herself wearing a sweatshirt that said “Of Course I Have A Shoe Dot Com” to social media. That web address leads to Nike’s official press release for Wilson’s shoe.
“We’ve been working on this for a couple of years now, and I just wanted it to be perfect,” Wilson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Callie Lawson-Freeman. “I didn’t want this to be something that was just like a handout.”
“I wanted for people to understand that this is coming from me,” she added. “It took a lot of time, a lot of hard conversations with Nike and my team in order for us to get this product.”
Wilson joins the footwear and apparel company’s signature roster of athletes which includes Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe, Naomi Osaka and fellow WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu.
The signature shoe will be called the “A’One,” according to ESPN. The shoe and the rest of Wilson’s signature collection will launch in 2025.
Making the announcement in Columbia, South Carolina, which is Wilson’s hometown in addition to the home of her alma mater, which built a statue in her honor, was an important part of putting her stamp on the entire venture.
“The biggest thing for me is I get to showcase what I’ve been working on for a couple of years now in my home state, in my home city,” Wilson explained to Andscape’s Aaron Dodson. “A place where people watched me grow and I raised eyebrows like, ‘Is she really that good?!’ To then seeing me 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 with signature deals.
Source Agencies
