The lion’s share

The GIST: Ahead of yesterday’s thrilling championship game, a rematch of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup (WWC) final between England and Spain, UEFA published impressive metrics measuring the tournament’s growth. Let’s check the replay.

🏟️ The tournament sold out 29 of 31 matches and shattered attendance records: A record 623,088 fans attended games leading up to the final, with another 34,203 showing up to see England win it all for a grand total of 657,291.

• Not only was total attendance unprecedented and far past the previous record (574,875 in 2022), but it broke records in the group stage and the quarter-finals. And it wasn’t just hometown fans: About 35% of tournament attendees traveled from abroad.

🇨🇭 Switzerland says “thank you”: The host country enjoyed major benefits as these international fans streamed into its venues. The tournament drove a 12% visitor increase in the country and a 27% spending jump through the first week, with match attendees representing 160 different nationalities.

• Back in May, UEFA predicted that if 600K fans attended the tournament, it would generate $242.7M for the Swiss economy. Then there’s the economy surrounding the matches, such as the 95K-plus people who joined fan walks and the more than 1M who attended fan zones.

📺 Global viewership is off the charts: UEFA expects this to be its most-watched women’s tournament ever, with over 400M watching live and more than 500M tuning into match programming overall. The soccer governing body expects that over 45M streamed the final globally, with official numbers to come soon.

• U.S. broadcaster Fox Sports — which was targeting 50% viewership growth for the tourney — averaged over 90% growth in the group stage with an average of 306K. In the quarter-finals, Fox averaged 776K, far beyond 2022’s 283K average, a compelling sign as the U.S. prepares to drum up even more soccer interest before it hosts the 2031 FIFA WWC.

• A whopping 925K U.S. viewers and more than 10M in Germany tuned in for the quarter-final matchup between France vs. Germany, while French audiences topped 2M for matches against England and the Netherlands.

📱 Everyone’s following along on social: The women’s Euro had over 20.7M engagement and half a billion views overall, significantly higher than 2022. Plus, over 500K new followers subscribed to UEFA across all platforms during the tourney.

• And UEFA was smart to invest in its website and proprietary app, which garnered more than 12M views in the knockout stage and more than 49M views since the tournament began. That’s telling, because while casual fans may encounter social media posts, avid fans seek out games online and on the app. Playing to their base.

The GIST: The Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark has shattered records once again — or at least her likeness has. Last Thursday, a signed one-of-one Panini trading card depicting Clark sold for $660K, beating the previous $366K record set by another of Clark’s Panini cards in March. Let’s explore how Clark has recalibrated the memorabilia market with her unparalleled WNBA stardom.

The Caitlin Clark effect: Clark’s arrival has transformed the trading card market for women’s basketball, starting with her exclusive multiyear Panini deal that made her the first woman athlete to sign with the brand. With Panini cornering the Clark market from the get-go, the brand has been able to rake it in.

• There’s been an overall boost to the WNBA trading card marketplace — PSA graded 62% more WNBA cards YoY in March — but the Fever star’s cards are leaving all others in the dust. Over 105K Clark cards were graded by PSA in that timespan compared to 7.2K for runner-up Angel Reese and 6.4K for third-place Paige Bueckers.

• Clark’s cards are also outperforming NBA athletes: She was the first woman athlete to break the PSA’s top 10 most-collected basketball athletes in 2024, and in May, only NBA star Victor Wembanyama produced more sales than Clark within a 30-day period. Ballin’.

The market effect: While Panini directly profits from these sales, other platforms in the ecosystem are benefiting as well. Clark was the third most-searched athlete on eBay in April, and two of her Panini Prizm cards were among the four most-transacted sports cards online.

• In the year between May 2024 and 2025, only four WNBA or women’s college basketball athletes cracked the top 80 most-purchased basketball player cards. But in the 30-day span before this year’s WNBA Draft, nine W players appeared in the top 80 with Clark ranking third overall.

Lingering thoughts: According to Just Women’s Sports, 10 of Clark’s official trading cards have surpassed $100K at auction, while 14 have sold for more than her $78K WNBA salary this year. In fact, the most recent sale is worth more than her entire four-year, $338K contract with Indiana.

• That observation further inflames the league’s discussions around pay, especially when it’s unclear exactly how much Clark earns from all of this. But with her cards holding their own among basketball legends like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, it seems Clark could have quite the leverage in negotiations next time around. Stacked in her favor.