Sales of women’s soccer merchandise on Fanatics.com were up 3,000% in the 24 hours following the U.S. team’s win over Japan in the '15 FIFA Women’s World Cup final, and “by the next day, the site had recorded almost double the sales of the highest-selling day for men’s gear” during last year’s World Cup, according to Hiroko Tabuchi of the N.Y. TIMES. The “surge in merchandise sales for the United States team reflects intense interest in the women’s victorious World Cup run.” Fanatics noted that 65% of all sales for Team USA merchandise this year “came from mobile devices," including 50% from smartphones, "far higher percentages than seen at most online retailers.” The WWC final is now the “second-most-popular event for mobile shopping on the site,” behind just the Duke men’s basketball team’s national championship earlier this year (NYTIMES.com, 7/7). Fanatics’ top-selling item is the black Nike T-shirt worn by all the team members yesterday during a fan rally in L.A. The shirt has “World Champions” written in gold letters, with the three years the U.S. has won the tournament listed underneath. It also includes three gold stars above the U.S. Soccer logo, symbolic of the three titles (THE DAILY).
