logo
Caitlin Clark, A'ja Wilson, other WNBA stars get Funko treatment

Caitlin Clark, A'ja Wilson, other WNBA stars get Funko treatment

Yahoo14-05-2025
Caitlin Clark captured fans' attention during her WNBA Rookie of the Year campaign. (Credit: Getty Images)
Funko announced an agreement Wednesday with the WNBA to create Funko Pop! figures, beginning with four featuring A'ja Wilson, Angel Reese, Breanna Stewart and Caitlin Clark.
The brand has previously partnered with the NBA, including for an activation allowing fans to create vinyl figures of themselves using NBA logos during All-Star Weekend, as well as collectible figures of licensed players.
Advertisement
Funko's rise to the top of the collectible world has been swift, with revenue doubling from around $500 million in 2017 to more than $1 billion in 2024.
Likewise, demand for all things WNBA has surged in the past couple of years, spear-headed by Clark but seen league-wide in viewership numbers — 22 regular-season games averaged more than 1 million viewers last year — as well as in the collectible markets.
'At Funko, we believe fandom has no boundaries, and we are incredibly excited about this relationship,' Funko CEO Cynthia Williams said in a statement. 'The recent rapid rise of the WNBA, the power of its players as engaging brand ambassadors, and its passionate fan base are a testament to the power of sports culture.
"Bringing these trailblazing athletes to our Pop! lineup is not just about collectibles — it's about celebrating the energy, talent, and influence of women's basketball.'
Advertisement
PSA, the third-party authenticator largely known for grading cards, began grading Funko figures in 2023.
Orders go on pre-sale May 14 ahead of the WNBA regular-season openers.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Dave Franco reflects on Palo Alto roots, marriage with Alison Brie and their new film ‘Together'
Dave Franco reflects on Palo Alto roots, marriage with Alison Brie and their new film ‘Together'

San Francisco Chronicle​

time3 hours ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Dave Franco reflects on Palo Alto roots, marriage with Alison Brie and their new film ‘Together'

Dave Franco has been in the acting game for two decades, but he was once a sports-obsessed kid growing up in Palo Alto, with posters of heroes such as Giants slugger Barry Bonds and NBA star Vince Carter affixed to his walls. He's reminded of that whenever he visits his mother, author Betsy Franco, and sleeps in his old room. 'She hasn't touched my room since I left,' Franco told the Chronicle during a video interview. 'I still have a bookshelf with my old sports trophies and some of my stuff.' 'And sports cards,' chimed in actress Alison Brie, Franco's wife. 'I can confirm this, as I've spent many nights in Dave's childhood bedroom.' Franco, 40, has left childhood far behind. He and Brie, 42, have been significant others for 13 years and married for eight, and they have put that relationship to the test in ' Together,' a most unusual horror film about a couple whose decade-long relationship is disintegrating — until a spectral force physically propels them together. Michael Shanks' feature directorial debut fits in the body horror genre, but it is a sly commentary on the ups and downs of relationships, dysfunctional and otherwise. In praising the film for the Chronicle, critic Bob Strauss likened it to 'an Ingmar Bergman scenario directed by Sam Raimi.' 'The monster in this movie, if you will, is an internal force,' Brie observed. 'It's not the type of horror movie where we're running away from an axe murderer. It's a push-and-pull within our own bodies. 'So many of the scenes,' she continued, 'the physical side of it for us was creating that internal tension and that pull, and some of it was established by actually tying ropes and wires around our waists or ankles and pulling us.' 'Together,' which Brie and Franco also produced, is the pair's fifth collaboration. They acted together in the 2017 comedies 'The Little Hours' and ' The Disaster Artist,' and Franco directed Brie in the horror film ' The Return ' (2020) and the rom-com ' Somebody I Used to Know ' (2023). In a separate interview, Shanks said the couple's 'passion and enthusiasm' was crucial to keeping the low-budget shoot on track during the 21-day production schedule in Melbourne, Australia, helping him realize a lifelong dream of making feature films. (The filmmaker previously spoke up to blast a copyright infringement lawsuit surrounding the film last month.) 'It's not just what they bring to the table as actors, but also as producers and as champions of independent filmmaking,' Shanks observed. 'Every single day on set, we were torturing them, having them do this intense physical stuff throughout this film, and they just never complained. We had somebody on the crew who's been working in the film industry for 40 years lugging lights around, this crusty old Aussie guy, and he came up to me and said, 'I've never worked with better actors than these guys.' 'If we were running late, struggling to get shots in, and something needed to be moved, like a light or a prop, you'd turn around and Dave would be there lugging one of the lights around, just totally collaborative like that,' he added. Franco's passion for movies began during a stint at a video store in Palo Alto at age 14 while he was a student at Palo Alto High School. The working age in California at the time was 16, so he toiled for free. 'They essentially paid me by allowing me to take home as many movies as I wanted,' Franco recalled fondly. 'It was the year 1999, which is now regarded as one of the best movie years ever. So I was taking home classic films, as well as very seminal films like 'The Matrix,' 'Fight Club,' ' American Beauty,' ' American Pie,' ' Being John Malkovich,' ' The Blair Witch Project.' It was my initial film school.' Around that time, his older brother James Franco was knocking on doors in Hollywood. A few years later, Dave Franco decided to become an actor while at USC. (Another older brother, Tom Franco, has dabbled in acting but is mainly known as the artist founder of Berkeley's Firehouse Art Collective.) Dave Franco had small roles in films such as ' Superbad ' (2007) and 'Milk' (2008) before breaking through with key supporting roles in ' 21 Jump Street ' (2013) and 'Now You See Me' (2013), which launched a pair of sequels (the third film, 'Now You See Me: Now You Don't,' is due in theaters on Nov. 14.). He met Brie at a Mardi Gras party in New Orleans in 2011 when the actor was in the middle of her run as part of the cast of ' Mad Men ' (2007-15), and they have been inseparable ever since — well, not as inseparable as their characters in 'Together.' 'We're very happy to say that our relationship is nothing like the relationship in the movie,' Brie said with a laugh. 'But just having been together over 13 years, having that shared history, being in love, we knew that would naturally find its way into the script. 'I realized afterward that this shoot made us possibly more codependent than we had been going into it.' Franco agreed. 'Yeah, the whole experience has made us analyze our own levels of codependency, which are probably pretty high,' Franco said. 'I think this movie has a way of really holding a mirror up to the audience and reflecting back to them their feelings about relationships,' Brie added. 'It's already been exciting to see audience reactions. They're all walking out with something different depending on how they feel about monogamy.'

"Over the night, over a million on both" - Sophie Cunningham reveals that her social media following went crazy after fighting with Jacy Sheldon
"Over the night, over a million on both" - Sophie Cunningham reveals that her social media following went crazy after fighting with Jacy Sheldon

Yahoo

time3 hours ago

  • Yahoo

"Over the night, over a million on both" - Sophie Cunningham reveals that her social media following went crazy after fighting with Jacy Sheldon

"Over the night, over a million on both" - Sophie Cunningham reveals that her social media following went crazy after fighting with Jacy Sheldon originally appeared on Basketball Network. For the wrong reason, Guard Sophie Cunningham has become one of the most popular players in the WNBA. Cunningham joined the Indiana Fever this season after playing her first six seasons for the Phoenix Mercury. Early on, she was a quiet contributor for the Fever, but after their heated game against the Connecticut Sun last June 17th, she has become a star in her own right. In the 3rd quarter of that game, Fever star Caitlin Clark got involved in a scuffle with Sun guard Jacy Sheldon after the latter poked Clark's eye while trying to defend her. Sheldon was assessed a Flagrant Foul 1 because of that play, while two of her teammates got technical fouls. Sophie became a heroine for starting a fight Then, with less than one minute left in the game and the outcome already settled, Cunningham gave up a hard foul on a driving Sheldon, starting a fight. Sophie was assessed a flagrant 2 and an automatic ejection. But instead of being vilified, Cunningham emerged as a heroine for standing up for Clark and clocking Sheldon as payback for what she did to Caitlin. The WNBA fined Sophie $400 for that unsportsmanlike play, but the fine was nothing compared to the boost the incident gave her social media accounts. "I went from 200,000 on TikTok before the fight, and then I had like 350,000 on Instagram. Over the night, over a million on both. Insane… I've worked my whole life to become a WNBA basketball player. And now people know me as WWE," she said. It's not only her social media following that's increased, but also her scoring average As of July 31, 2025, Cunningham's TikTok account has 1.6 million followers and 13.6 million likes. Meanwhile, her Instagram account has 1.1 million followers. Last April, the Seattle Storm's Skylar Diggins-Smith was the No.10 most followed WNBA player on Instagram. Today, Sophie has overtaken her in the Top 10. "It's unprecedented growth," said Addison Abdo, who represents Cunningham as a senior director at sports management agency PRP. "We work with some pretty big athletes that have gone viral for some pretty big things, but this has been something that I haven't seen before—this type of growth in this short amount of time … was very new territory." But Cunningham's social media following has not only gone up since that unfortunate incident. Her scoring average in her last nine games has increased to 12.7 points per game, significantly higher than her season average of 7.7 points per game. The Fever are 6-2 during that span, including 3-1 since the All-Star break, despite Clark still being injured. At 15-12, Indiana has the sixth-best record in the entire WNBA and the third-best mark in the Eastern Conference, just 2.5 games off the leaders, New York story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 31, 2025, where it first appeared.

Golden State Warriors release Stephen Curry career dunks highlight package
Golden State Warriors release Stephen Curry career dunks highlight package

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Golden State Warriors release Stephen Curry career dunks highlight package

When you think of Stephen Curry, you think of his amazing shooting ability, you think of him turning away as soon as a shot leaves his hands, or, you think of his night-night celebration. Curry has become synonymous with 3-point shooting, and in turn, he's helped lead the Golden State Warriors to four NBA championships. However, Curry is more than just a 3-point assassin. He's also a solid playmaker, an inverted screener, and can get to the rim at will. What you don't think about, though, is the different dunks he's had throughout his career. Curry jamming the rock home is always an afterthought, primarily because of how rarely it happens. On July 23, the Warriors' YouTube account decided to remind the world that Curry can throw the rock down when the time is right. It pieced together footage from every dunk he's made in his career and posted it as a 4-minute and 37-second highlight reel, allowing fans to relive some of the more explosive moments of his career. You can watch the full highlight reel by clicking on the embedded video above. This post originally appeared on Warriors Wire! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! This article originally appeared on Warriors Wire: Warriors release Stephen Curry career dunks highlight package

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store