There is a mystique with sports collectibles. When a team or athlete delivers a performance that fans cherish, they can bottle up those feelings of elation and pride and relive them through visual items commemorating the moment.

Game-worn memorabilia and framed and autographed photos featuring those types of iconic performances from athletes’ careers have become commonplace in men’s sports. They haven’t been as accessible, however, for fans of women’s sports.

Brandon Steiner, founder and CEO of CollectibleXchange, has set out to shift the paradigm, launching an online platform in August that sells memorabilia and merchandise for athletes exclusively in women’s sports. With The Collective Marketplace on Athlete Direct, he aims to highlight the one-of-a-kind athletes and show that there is a market out there for women’s sports memorabilia.

“I’ve always been a fan of trying to appreciate the greatness,” Steiner tells Just Women’s Sports. “When you look at a Sue Bird, or a [Diana] Taurasi, Mia Hamm, Serena Williams, I mean, these are not athletes that will be easily duplicated, and we may never see talent like this again.

“I want people to see that and appreciate it, and that’s the purpose of putting this collection together.”

The Collective Marketplace on Athlete Direct, backed by Wasserman’s women-focused division, The Collective, is athlete-controlled. That means the athletes Steiner works with can manage the commercial value of their exclusive memorabilia.

Among those currently selling game-worn jerseys, licensed products and autographs on the platform are Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, Nneka Ogwumike, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. Currently, it’s the only online collectible marketplace dedicated solely to women’s sports.

The venture into women’s sports is new for Steiner, who founded Steiner Sports Marketing & Memorabilia in 1987 and worked primarily with men’s teams and athletes for over 32 years. (Steiner is no longer affiliated with Steiner Sports.)

When reflecting on why he made the jump, one specific moment comes to mind. Six years ago, Steiner was set to receive an award for his involvement in women’s sports. He asked his daughter if she would present him with the honor. She refused and told him he should, too.

“My daughter’s like, ‘No, I’m not giving the award. You haven’t done enough. What have you done? All I see you is making money with men and guys. Yeah, you help coach some women’s basketball and you do a couple of things, but you gotta do more,’” Steiner says.

The moment resonated with the career businessman. Realizing his daughter was right, Steiner vowed then and there to do something that would make an impact in the women’s sports space.

“It was a little bit of a wake-up call, a little bit of a push that I needed to get into this thing, and it started with her,” he says.

Fans of women’s sports have grown accustomed to a lack of merchandise for their favorite teams and players. U.S. women’s national soccer team fans have lamented the shortage of jerseys on the team store. In the WNBA, a league of 144 players, the jerseys of only a select few players were labeled as “ready to ship” this season. The league has taken steps to increase supply after agreeing to a multi-year partnership with DICK’S Sporting Goods, but the concerns persist.

Athletes share fans’ frustrations, Steiner says, and recognize that licensing in women’s sports needs to improve.

The influx of sports memorabilia into the retail space helps, with items on Steiner’s platform ranging beyond soccer and basketball. Fans of April Ross and Alix Klineman, who won beach volleyball gold at the Olympics this past summer, can purchase signed memorabilia from their run in Tokyo. WNBA stars like Bird and Stewart have also taken their collections a step further, putting sneakers up for sale.

“I love Breanna Stewart’s sneakers,” Steiner says. “She’s a sneakerhead, and I love the fact that she’s got fashion.”

Steiner sees record-breaking accomplishments in women’s sports, like Bird and Taurasi’s fifth Olympic gold medal with USA Basketball, and wants them to receive the same attention as their male counterparts.

“It’s not a sidebar thing,” Steiner says, adding that he’d like to see women support women through investment.

“Guys are just into every sport, and they think because they watched something 20 years ago that now they’re an expert on women in sports,” he says. “But women should know. We’re going through a special time now in women’s sports.”

Just as increasing access to women’s sports games and coverage helps draw fans and grow the industry, expanding the market for women’s sports products can strengthen the foundation.

“You have an 11-year-old daughter — man, I want to put a picture of Diana Taurasi in her room rather than a picture of Steph Curry,” Steiner says.

Building the ecosystem of women’s sports, Steiner contends, will create a cycle of investment, demand and growth. The Collective Marketplace on Athlete Direct is part of what makes that possible, all in one place.

“It just puts it in a nice bow and a package,” Steiner says. “I think that’s the stuff that we should be celebrating and enjoying. There’s a lot of greatness, a lot of winning going on.

“My goal is to bring that [greatness] out. And I think you can do that a lot with the collectibles.”

(Editor’s note: The Collective Marketplace on Athlete Direct is a sponsor of Just Women’s Sports)

Emma Hruby is an Associate Editor at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @EHruby.

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.