From pitch to torchbearer: How Playa Society built space for women's sports

When Playa Society founder and creative director Esther Wallace pitched the WNBA on an apparel partnership in 2021, she didn't think they would say yes. Wallace was only three years into business and admits as a young entrepreneur, she had neither planned that far ahead nor was she ready for the league's response. "I thought I needed to have all these things checked off before I could get a partner that big, but when they said yes, it then became this kind of responsibility," Wallace told USA TODAY Sports.

"Now I kind of got this new market to create, essentially, on my shoulders and have to show everybody ... this can be successful. "That everybody else was wrong when they said you couldn't sell women's sports merch or WNBA merch.

I felt all of that pressure kind of in my hands, like I have to carry this torch now. " The former basketball player and coach released her first WNBA collaboration at the end of the 2021 season. By the midway point of the following year, she was at the 2022 WNBA All-Star game in Chicago selling her products.

Wallace says she wasn't overly confident in what she brought to the event ― 100 T-shirts and some shorts ― but an interaction with Hall of Famer Sylvia Fowles changed everything. Fans were clamoring for a Fowles-specific shirt because the center was retiring, and Wallace, though still unsure of where the partnership may take her, obliged. Word of her tribute shirt reached Fowles, who found the apparel designer postgame, hugged her and thanked her for honoring the WNBA and her legacy.