WNBA trading cards have been around for nearly three decades, but one could argue the most important set to date arrived Wednesday from Panini America.
Anchored by the first flagship rookie cards for stars such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Cameron Brink, 2024 Panini Origins WNBA is the first traditional licensed set released during a renaissance season for the league.
Hobby boxes, which retail for $339.95 directly from Panini, sold out almost instantly Wednesday after being released on the company’s website.
Driven by the popularity of No. 1 pick and Rookie of the Year Clark, the WNBA’s 28th regular season was the most-watched in 24 years, with more than 54 million unique viewers, and the most attended season in 22 years, with more than 2.35 million fans catching games in person.
An iconic rookie class fueled historic interest in the league on the court, and Panini expects that interest to spill into the sports card hobby.
So far, early data points for Panini have been stunning, with Clark’s Panini Instant cards setting records both in sales volume and in price — a Blue Viper 1/1 Autograph from Clark’s Panini Instant Rookie of the Year Collection sold for $97,212 earlier this month, setting a new public record for any Clark card.
“Anticipation for our first physical trading card release of 2024 has been greater than any other release we have ever produced since we were awarded the exclusive [WNBA] agreement in 2019, and it’s not even close ...” Panini’s VP of Product Development Jim Stefano told cllct.
“It’s bigger than what we even thought it would be, by far. You know, 100x might not even be stating the reality of it.”
Truthfully, the internal data from Panini isn’t necessary to see the impact Clark has had on trading cards in recent months. According to third-party grading tracker GemRate, PSA has graded nearly 57,000 cards featuring Clark, which already puts the Fever guard in the top 50 most-graded athletes of all time and the top 15 of basketball players.
“With flagship, licensed WNBA releases such as these about to roll out, we can safely assume Caitlin Clark will be one of the most-graded basketball athletes at PSA in the next year across the entire category, which includes WNBA and NBA,” PSA president Ryan Hoge told cllct. “There has never been a WNBA athlete who has created this much momentum in the category, and I think she's just leading the way, and will elevate collectors' want for cards of the young stars following in her footsteps these next few years."
Clark has also been one of the most popular players on the secondary market with more than 25,000 sales tracked by data tool Market Movers over the last year.
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With the WNBA having a major moment, Panini is well aware it has to create cards to match the occasion. It illustrates that by featuring both Clark and all-time great Maya Moore on the cover of Origins WNBA.
“Our product development team was there looking at it, recognizing that these cards are going to be some of the most iconic in the history of the game,” Panini’s SVP of marketing and athlete relations Jason Howarth told cllct.
So far, much of the WNBA trading card market has been driven by products featuring Clark, Reese and others in their college uniforms. While collectors have warmed to collegiate products in recent years, cards featuring pro uniforms are the top chases for the overwhelming majority of collectors.
Panini has produced professional cards of Clark and others already, but most of those have arrived as part of the Panini Instant program, which largely prints cards to demand during a limited release window. Some have shown strong secondary-market value, but many don’t.
The Origins WNBA release is the first to feature Clark’s rookies in a traditional format, so pairing the right set with the right configuration was a must.
According to Stefano, Origins, which is now in its second year as a WNBA release, was versatile enough to include many of the elements the product development team wanted to launch with first.
Timelines are important to consider before even starting to build the contents of a set, and while chromium releases are fan favorites, the production takes much longer than paper products. Origins, which is produced on a paperstock, could be delivered sooner.
Panini also needed to lead this WNBA cycle with something that was flexible enough to include case hits and other SSPs to chase. In addition to its own SSPs such as Tiger Eyes and the ultra-popular Blank Slate inserts, Origins could accommodate Sneaker Spotlight, which is best known for appearing in Noir Basketball, but didn’t have a home in a WNBA product.
Origins provided a soft landing.
The product team also wanted to deliver a set with a strong lineup of memorabilia. Chrome products such as Select WNBA, which is scheduled to release next week, and Prizm WNBA, which is expected in mid-December, aren’t typically associated with high-quality memorabilia cards.
Then there’s the autograph lineup anchored by 1/1 Logowoman cards, which are expected to be among the most coveted cards for every player featured.
“We wanted a brand that incorporated dual and triple autographs, and Origins had that,” Stefano said. “We didn’t want to come out with a low-end or medium-end brand to start. So, after we looked at everything and put it all on the whiteboard, we decided that Origins would be the best product to go out the door with this year.”
Unlike a number of other products across different sports and manufacturers, exclusive deals with both Clark and Reese allow Panini’s WNBA products to feature autographs from the league’s top two rookies.
“We knew Caitlin was going to be someone that was important to us. We knew that Angel was going to be someone that was important to us, and that’s why we made those decisions to go get them exclusively,” Howarth said.
“When you’re building a flagship set, when we’re putting our flag in the ground to say we’re here for women’s sports, it felt like Caitlin was the right move to make from the athlete point of view, and then to follow with Angel, it showed we’re going to commit to being in the women’s sports space. Caitlin and Angel are the perfect athletes to anchor those brands.”
Though owning the autograph rights to stars such as Clark, Reese and others is helpful, the path to popular WNBA trading cards could still be challenging. So far, the WNBA’s product on the court has won over many NBA fans or fans of other sports, and Panini will have to do the same.
Thoughtful inserts like Sneaker Spotlight are a good place to start.
Featuring basketball’s top players alongside their footwear, Sneaker Spotlight has long appealed to basketball fans and sneakerheads alike. That type of card, which has a wider appeal than most, also leans into the WNBA’s growing sneaker culture — Clark is poised to join Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and A’ja Wilson as active stars with their own signature shoe in 2025.
“I think the DNA of the fanbase has changed … it’s not just a WNBA fan anymore — it’s a basketball fan,” Howarth said. “And I think that’s how we need to build our products, to focus on basketball fans, but still make sure we’re catering to the WNBA fan.”
Beyond Origins WNBA, Panini hopes that the debut of Select WNBA next week will have a major impact, too. Among Panini’s most popular products for the NBA and NFL, Select offers a unique lineup of parallels as well as a tiered system that delivers multiple base cards with varying print runs for select players.
Arriving later this winter, the highlight of this historic cycle will be Prizm WNBA. Little is currently known about the product other than the simple fact Prizm rookie cards are the rookies to own from Panini products.
Alongside Clark’s Prizm Base and Prizm Silver rookie cards, collectors will be hunting for numbered color-matching parallels such as Red, Blue and Yellow in addition to the coveted 1/1s and the ultra-popular Color Blast insert.
When asked if he believed the three-product lineup of Origins, Select and Prizm can successfully launch WNBA trading cards into a new era, Stefano’s answer was simple.
“Absolutely, positively.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.