IOWA CITY, Iowa — On any given game day inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, black-and-gold T-shirts for nearly every Iowa women’s basketball player are as visible as the No. 22 that reigns supreme throughout the college sports landscape.
Midwest T-shirt company RayGun mass produces athlete-specific apparel, but it doesn’t touch superstar Caitlin Clark — except for her “Damn It” quip that got her T’ed up last season. Arguably, no collegiate athlete has more appeal nationally than Clark, who has her shirts manufactured through her Nike contract. RayGun markets the rest of Iowa’s women’s basketball players, from which players also profit, and sales have soared beyond any rational expectation.
“We’ve worked with other teams that (have) great basketball players or great sports players in general,” RayGun owner Mike Draper said. “But there’s not the same level of charisma, which isn’t a requirement, obviously, to be good at basketball, but charisma, I think, helps for selling merchandise. … Women’s basketball at Iowa has been by far our best NIL project of all the teams we worked.”
Women, meet moment. Business, meet product. The top-seeded Iowa women’s basketball team is more than just Clark, and that was proven again in a 91-65 win against Holy Cross in…
