Serena Williams has lengthy stood because the gold normal in ladies’s sports activities, however now, one other celebrity is rising as a record-breaking power in a special area.
That rising icon is Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever rookie and NCAA record-smasher who has not solely reignited curiosity in ladies’s basketball however has additionally eclipsed Williams herself within the high-stakes world of sports activities memorabilia.
And whereas most may count on Serena’s camp to take the information with a aggressive edge, her husband-Reddit co-founder and investor Alexis Ohanian-is as an alternative main the applause.
Ohanian, a vocal supporter of ladies’s sports activities and a collector of high-value buying and selling playing cards, has acknowledged that Clark is “a HUGE half” of the exponential development in ladies’s basketball, and extra broadly, in different sports activities property.
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After beforehand praising Clark‘s affect on viewership-like when the 2024 NCAA ladies’s title sport outdrew the lads’s sport by greater than 4 million viewers-Ohanian is now turning heads together with his daring comparability of Clark’s newest card to a few of the most legendary collectibles in sports activities historical past.
Clark dethrones Serena with record-breaking rookie card
In 2022, a 2003 NetPro Serena Williams rookie card bought for a then-record $266,400, changing into essentially the most helpful ladies’s buying and selling card in historical past. That mark stood for almost three years-until Clark entered the collectibles area.
This March, Caitlin Clark‘s 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl rookie card shattered the report by promoting for $366,000. That wasn’t even her first second within the buying and selling card highlight.
Months earlier, one other Clark card had already commanded $234,850, displaying that demand for the Iowa legend turned WNBA star wasn’t a one-off spike, however a full-blown development.
Now, Alexis Ohanian owns what he calls the “second most essential Caitlin Clark rookie card in existence”-a 2024 Panini Prizm Gold Vinyl “1 of 1” numbered card (#145). In an Instagram publish, Ohanian did not maintain again on the importance.
“This card reveals simply how a lot ladies’s sports activities has grown. Like I have been telling y’all for the final 5 years, the hype of Caitlin Clark is trickling into each side of social life-including different property,” he stated.
At present up for public sale on ALT, the cardboard has already drawn a bid nearing $100,000 ($96,399)-and Ohanian believes it is simply getting began.
“This explicit card has the potential to develop into that iconic card of an period. Suppose ’52 Mantle or ’86 Jordan,” he added, invoking names tied to sports activities memorabilia royalty.
