Anyone looking into the stands of any stadium or sports bar can see fans wearing kits repping their teams. Until more recently, though, it was much rarer to see merchandise specifically geared to and marketed for the female consumer. In recent years, several sports leagues, such as Formula 1, the NFL, NBA and retailers like American Eagle have begun focusing on this underrepresented market segment. This shift has led brands like Coach and Fenty Beauty to sponsor female athletes, capital
, capitalising on the positive social media traction that athletes like basketball player Angel Reese and gymnast Jordan Chiles are garnering.
It has also led to a rising number of indie and mainstream merchandising players setting their sights on the ever-growing market for female sports-repping apparel.
Underscoring this growth, data from Klarna and the Sports Innovation Lab estimated that the women’s sports merchandise market was worth approximately $4 billion in the US in 2024 alone.
One brand that has been stepping up to the plate to serve this overlooked consumer is Off Season, a label launched in January 2025 and co-founded by fashion designer/social media influencer and WAG Kristin Juszczyk and retail icon Emma Grede, the co-founder of Good American and Skims.
Inside Retail connected with Juszczyk and Off Season’s president Vicky Picca to learn more about how the brand is serving this fashion-savvy, sports-loving community.
What is Off Season, and who is its audience?
For those who are not yet familiar with the brand, Juszczyk described Off Season as a premium sports fashion brand “redefining what fanwear can look and feel like”.
“For so long, women’s fan gear felt like an afterthought,” she said. “We’re changing that. Off Season is made for everyone, but it’s especially exciting to give women options that feel powerful, stylish, and authentic, not shrunken-down versions of men’s styles.”
From stylishly cropped button-downs to game-day-ready corsets to sleek puffer coats sporting the team’s logo and colours, Off Season’s pieces are designed to help the wearer “move effortlessly from game day to every day.”
For Juszczyk, like many successful brand founders before her, the idea for the brand came from one part personal experience, one part serendipitous accident.
As the girlfriend, then-wife, of San Francisco 49ers player Kyle Juszczyk, she often had her game-day attire scanned by fans and media alike.
However, Juszczyk’s wardrobe really started garnering more attention over the past few years as she began regularly sporting customised ensembles on game day, catching the eyes of fellow WAGs and future customers like Simone Biles and Taylor Swift.
The media spotlight helped Juszczyk land an NFL licensing deal, allowing her to use NFL logos in her designs for women’s apparel in January 2024.
By January 2025, in partnership with serial brand founder Emma Grede, Juszczyk officially launched Off Season onto the market.
As Juszczyk told Inside Retail, “It’s been surreal. What started as me designing custom game-day pieces for myself, friends and family grew into something much bigger. Partnering with Emma Grede has allowed us to take that creative energy and build a true brand, one that brings fans the same excitement and individuality my original designs represented, but on a larger, more accessible scale.”
Since launching a debut collection in partnership with the NFL, Off Season has expanded with deals with the WNBA and the NBA.
With each partnership deal, Juszczyk remarked that it reinforces how fans are craving elevated, fashion-forward pieces that let them show team pride in their own way.
A sentiment that Off Season president Vicky Picca, former SVP of licensing and business deals of both merchandising giant Fanatics and the NBA, couldn’t agree with more.
From working with the NBA to leading Off Season’s game plan
It would be near impossible to find anybody more qualified to lead Off Season as its president than Vicky Picca, who joined the brand in February 2025.
Prior to working with Off Season, Picca spent nearly 15 years with the NBA as SVP of licensing and business affairs, and then almost 11 years with merchandising giant Fanatics as SVP of business affairs.
As someone who’d spent the majority of her career at the intersection between sports and culture, signing on to Off Season was an easy decision for Picca to make.
“When I saw what Kristin and Emma were creating, I knew it was a brand positioned right where the market was headed,” she said. “Joining at this moment of momentum felt like a rare opportunity to help define a new category.”
“We’re offering something that hasn’t really existed – true, fashion-forward licenced apparel. There’s a huge gap between luxury collaborations and the traditional fan gear you wear only on game day. Off Season fills that space with elevated pieces for men and women that work any day of the week.”
Juszczyk and Picca both noted that the brand is “just getting started” with its plans for the merchandising apparel space.
“Launching with the NFL, expanding into the WNBA and now partnering with the NBA, all within our first year, has been extraordinary. The challenge is scaling fast without losing our premium feel, but that’s exactly what motivates our team,” said Picca.
“Our goal is to keep expanding across leagues and categories, building Off Season into the go-to destination for premium sports fashion, where style, storytelling and team spirit all come together.”
Further reading: “A feel-great story”: Why American Eagle is teaming up with female athletes
