Why Nike Wanted A’ja Wilson’s New Shoe to Sell Out in Minutes

A’ja Wilson’s signature shoe finally arrived Tuesday morning. Then it was gone.

The Nike A’One sold out within minutes of being released online. The pink shoe and accompanying apparel line for the Las Vegas Aces star have generated tons of hype in recent months, making it one of the most anticipated performance shoe drops in recent years. Fans posted on social media with complaints about Nike, app freezes, and bots keeping them from their A’Ones.

The quick sellout is a big milestone for women’s basketball, but not in the way one might think.

The Swoosh was well aware that fans would be excited about this shoe, and that’s exactly why Nike limited the inventory on the first release. The strategy drives up interest in the shoe, like an hors d’oeuvre can increase appetites, Mike Sykes, author of the newsletter The Kicks You Wear, tells Front Office Sports.

“It says a lot that Nike would make this shoe limited,” Sykes says. “It shows us that Nike believes this shoe is worthy of generating hype and marketing around it.”

But Nike isn’t just giving Wilson’s shoe its special treatment for a standard basketball shoe release. The company has recently deployed this limited release strategy only for streetwear styles like the Air Jordan 1s and Travis Scott collaborations, Sykes says.

“We haven’t seen Nike do anything like this with a performance sneaker in a really long time,” Sykes says. “It speaks to where Nike sees this going, and I think that says a lot more than the shoe actually selling out.”

The company was much more buttoned-up about its tactics in a statement to FOS.

“A’ja Wilson has earned two WNBA rings, two Olympic gold medals, an NCAA championship and three WNBA MVP awards. Her debut shoe selling out in minutes is testament to her extraordinary talent and her impact on and off the court,” the company says. “We’re excited to see the response and look forward to bringing more A’One’s to Nike doors and marketplace partners throughout May.”

Starting Thursday, the A’Ones will be sold at select retailers including Foot Locker, Champs Sports, and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Sykes says this is also pretty unconventional for Nike, which even a few years ago tended to cut out the middleman by making new shoe drops available only online or in its own brick-and-mortar stores.

“I think it’ll actually help and create a bit of a wider release for people, so fans who really want these shoes, I think they’ll have a legitimate shot at getting them on Thursday,” Sykes says. “And even if they don’t get them on Thursday, I think there’s still more to come with various online restocks, and I’m sure we’ll see them pop up in stores, too.”

The Aces are leaning in to their MVP’s big day with an A’One theme at their Tuesday night preseason game against the Phoenix Mercury. Wilson gifted the entire Aces team a pair of A’Ones at practice in time for the game.

The giveaway includes free towels and T-shirts, and also some of the shoe line’s “shoelery”—Wilson-themed charms to decorate the kicks—to 500 fans who wear the A’Ones to the game. But with a primarily online drop, the number of fans who actually have shoes to wear might not reach 500.

FOS called all five Nike stores in the Las Vegas area Tuesday; only the location at Caesars Palace on the Strip had the shoes. “First come, first serve, no size checks, no holds,” said the employee on the phone. Las Vegas was also one of the stops on Nike’s pre-heat tour for the A’Ones, a marketing play where fans in Wilson’s hometown of Columbia, S.C.; Sin City; and Tampa could get their hands on a pair early.

Two more colorways of the A’Ones, the white “OG Pearl” and blue “Indigo Girl” styles, will be released May 15, followed by the pink and black “Leo Lights” and a kids-only “azure-rainbow” colorway on May 29.

Nike announced Wilson’s shoe in February, making her the first Black women’s basketball player to get her own sneaker since Candace Parker in 2010–2011, and one of perhaps fewer than 15 WNBA players known to have their own signature shoe developed. She had previously signed one of the most lucrative deals in women’s hoops history through a six-year extension with Nike in December.