Mark Cuban-Backed Moolah Kicks Reducing Women's Basketball Player Injuries With Shoes Designed For The Female Frame

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and frequent “Shark Tank” member, is invested in Moolah Kicks, a startup helping women basketball players feel and perform better one shoe at a time.

Poorly fitting shoes are a consistent concern for women’s basketball players, who need shoes with higher arches, slimmer widths, shallow lateral sides and narrow heels that provide protection and performance.

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College Student Launches Successful Shoe Brand

Natalie White, the 25-year-old founder of Moolah Kicks, saw an opportunity for women-specific shoes that could look great while offering injury protection. White, who launched Moolah Kicks in 2020 while she was still a student at Boston College’s Wallace E. Carroll School of Management, said female athletes face a heightened risk of knee, ankle and leg injuries, which are common in women’s basketball when they play in unisex men’s or children’s sneakers. According to experts at Yale Medicine, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, ankle sprains and stress fractures are more prevalent among female athletes, a problem exacerbated by ill-fitting footwear.

Courtney Williams, a star guard for the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, used to follow a lengthy procedure for breaking in new sneakers and would play an entire season with one pair. Since trying some shoes created by Moolah Kicks, Williams changes her shoes weekly, a frequency shared by most NBA players.

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Investment And NIL Partner Deals

Moolah’s innovative approach ensures its sneakers fit women better than any other shoes on the market. In addition to Cuban’s investment support, the company received funding from DSG Ventures, the $50 million investment arm of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc.

Many shoes marketed as women’s are men’s shoes in smaller sizes and are not structurally different to account for women’s different foot anatomy. Male professional basketball players change their shoes frequently because their teams can afford it, and their shoes are custom-fitted from the start, eliminating the need for a lengthy breaking-in process.

Moolah Kicks has experienced remarkable growth, with sneaker sales tripling in 2022 compared to 2021. The brand expanded from 140 stores in 2021 to 450 stores in 2022. The brand counts Williams and Destanni Henderson among the WNBA players to wear its shoes. The firm also has name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with dozens of collegiate players.

White notes the need for more athletic industry marketing strategies to target women as well as a change in the portrayal and endorsement structure in women’s basketball. She questions the impact of ads featuring top women’s basketball players promoting sneakers named after male athletes and suggests that it’s time for brands to focus on the female market, which could pave the way for players and brands to work together to launch signature lines.

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