Caitlin Clark becomes Fanatics’ top-selling college athlete in NIL era, by a chasmic margin

Caitlin Clark can do a lot of things. Including sell merchandise.

The same week she broke the NCAA Division I women’s scoring record, Clark became Fanatics’ top-selling college athlete in the NIL era (going back to 2022), the company announced via Front Office Sports on Monday.

Per Fanatics via On3, the company sold more Clark-branded merchandise in the 24 hours after she broke the record than any other individual college athlete across all sports since NIL hit the landscape.

The previous record-holder was Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who led the Buffaloes to a 3-0 start and became the biggest story in college football before falling off heavily on conference play.

There was plenty of merchandising juice behind Clark’s ascension, including Nike’s line of apparel featuring the phrase “You break it, you own it” and Fanatics Collectibles’ line of autographed trading cards, which reportedly sold out in 10 minutes. Her Topps Now base card was apparently among the top 10 sold in that line across all sports.

Clark has been a star among stars in college basketball since reaching Iowa City, but her fame hit a new level last Thursday when she scored a career-high 49 points on her way to breaking the record set by Washington star Kelsey Plum in 2017.

Clark officially passed Plum is the most Caitlin Clark of fashions, pulling up from nearly halfcourt to reach eight points in two minutes and 15 seconds:

That attention isn’t fading since Clark broke the record. Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel reported Tuesday the Big Ten women’s basketball tournament in Minneapolis has nearly sold out, with fewer than 2,000 tickets remaining for an event two weeks away.

A sell-out would be the first in the event’s history.

After that, the college basketball world will be seeing if Clark can finish the job she came one win short of last season, with the WNBA looming.