WAGs love their crocheted, bedazzled NBA merch

UNITED STATES – When Danielle Snyder’s husband got her tickets to her first National Basketball Association (NBA) game, she faced a relatable conundrum: She could not figure out what to wear.

It was 2021, Covid-19 cases were surging and she was still getting used to San Francisco – where she had moved from New York – as well as struggling to make friends and managing postpartum depression after giving birth to her first child. “It was a very disorienting time,” she said. “There was a lot of loneliness.”

Her husband hoped that season tickets for the Golden State Warriors might help. But for Danielle, who has a keen eye for craftsmanship – she runs a jewellery brand with her sister, Jodie Snyder – regular merchandise with standard team logos was simply not going to cut it.

She chopped up one of her husband’s old Warriors jerseys, stitched it to a plain white T-shirt in a patchwork fashion and covered the number 30 on the front and back in crystals.

It was a small creative project, but it “brought me back to life”, she said. “It became a form of self-expression.”

Speaking over breakfast with her sister in the cafe of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Manhattan, Danielle recalled crafting several outfits that first season and catching the notice of her fellow fans.

“Every time I’d go, I was stopped by five to 10 people,” she said. “They’d be like, ‘Where did you get that? That’s so sick.’” People soon began asking if she could make merch for them.

Her do-it-yourself project would become the catalyst for a new business venture for the sisters: a creative sports merchandise brand called DannijoPro.

Only two years in, the brand is sold at about half a dozen stadiums across the country and is worn by celebrities, as well as a host of athletes’ wives and girlfriends (or WAGs, as they are sometimes called), including Ayesha Curry.

The company taps the underserved female consumer base within the US$36 billion (S$46.2 billion) sports merchandise market. According to payments company Klarna, women’s sports merchandise is a US$4 billion market, but 28 per cent of female fans have reported they could not find styles that they liked.

“The merch store is very representative of the male customer,” Jodie said. “There’s just, like, 500 options for hoodies and T-shirts”, but when it comes to women’s products, the standard option is “pink it and shrink it”, she added.

As coach Steve Kerr of the Warriors put it, the typical merch designed for women is “ho-hum”.

DannijoPro “just looks different, you know?” said Kerr, whose wife and daughter wear the brand to Warriors games. “It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s not the usual team gear that you buy at the stadium.’”

Their offerings, which generally cost US$200 to US$400, go beyond standard T-shirts and hoodies and include chambray Oxford shirts with embroidered hand-drawn logos, quarter-zip pullovers and cropped denim jackets with crocheted collars and bedazzled team names on the back.

When the brand released its first licensed collection in 2024 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, it quickly sold out. At Madison Square Garden, where the New York Knicks are wrapping up a conference-topping season, DannijoPro sales are up by 150 per cent compared with 2025’s, though they did not share specific sales figures.

In the last week of May, they shared that multiple Knicks- and San Antonio Spurs-branded items sold out on their website. In May, during the NBA semi-finals, they sold out of their inventory of 800 satin bomber jackets on the online retailer Revolve.

A love affair with athletes

Their success is, in large part, down to great timing. It comes amid a broader fashion-world love affair with athletes. Sports stars across leagues now grace magazine covers and front rows of fashion shows. Even their arrivals to games – known as the tunnel walk – have turned into a kind of runway to flaunt their off-court style.

There are growing numbers of female fans – one study by a women’s sports-focused think tank recently estimated that 75 per cent of women identify as fans of one or more sports – who represent a ballooning consumer base.

The WAGs are front and centre in this convergence. Their meticulously styled courtside looks are drawing the kind of attention that the soccer WAGs of the 2000s era did, and many are creating their own fashion lines or adjacent businesses, like Jordyn Woods’ handbags.

“Fashion and sports have become deeply interconnected because both are ultimately about identity, performance and self-expression,” said Zac Posen, creative director of Gap Inc, who worked with Danielle and Jodie on a limited Gap collaboration in 2024.

DannijoPro, he added, is “carving out a unique place” in that market.

Almost 40 per cent of DannijoPro’s sales come through Instagram direct messages – the favoured channel for celebrities and WAGs, who were among the brand’s earliest customers, to request one-off and customised pieces, which Danielle oversees at their atelier in San Francisco.

Jodie, who lives outside Jacksonville, Florida, handles retail and business strategy.

Before the brand received its NBA licence in 2024, the sisters did not have permission to re-create team logos, so they repurposed some players’ jerseys and merchandise for their spouses.

“You were Rumpelstiltskin-ning it for a little bit,” Jodie said to her sister.

Nicole Curran, wife of the Warriors’ owner Joe Lacob, said she approached Danielle in 2023 to praise her custom jersey.

“The next game she saw me, she had one made for me,” said Curran, who is known for serving high-glam looks at games. “If they can’t see me in the 200s, then I’m not doing my job,” she said, referring to the seats at the top of the arena.

Danielle made Curran an embellished vintage Steph Curry jersey. “She had cropped it, so it was kind of boxy on the top and didn’t look masculine,” Curran said. “I wore it with some high-waisted jeans and some sparkly shoes.”

For Christmas that year, Curran bought all the spouses and partners of Warriors players custom DannijoPro looks, handmade by Danielle.

Woods, who is engaged to Karl-Anthony Towns of the Knicks, and Ali Brunson, who is married to Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, have posted their DannijoPro looks on Instagram.

Brooke Shields and Leslie Jones have also been spotted wearing the brand courtside at a Knicks game, as well as basketball players like Buddy Hield of the Atlanta Hawks and Curry of the Warriors.

The sisters hope to bring their business model to other sport leagues, like football and tennis.

Because ultimately, Danielle added, clothing that expresses one’s love for a team “strikes an emotional chord with people in a way that just a regular beautiful garment does not”. NYTIMES