The concept of women as sports fans is nothing new. What is changing is the number of fashion and beauty brands finally treating that fandom as a powerful consumer category, and designing for how women actually express it.

Fanatics has become an important conduit for that shift. In 2025, it partnered with Emma Grede and Kristin Juszczyk to launch fashion-driven NFL apparel brand Off Season. Glamnetic and Fanatics have also created press-on nail sets inspired by NFL, NCAA and MLB teams. Both allow women to express their personal style and support their favorite teams at the same time.

Now, Los Angeles jewelry brand Luv AJ is making its biggest play for that customer yet.

This month, founder Amanda Thomas is expanding Bijoux Sport, the licensed sports-jewelry category she launched after securing Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer licenses in late 2023, into the NFL. The collection will cover all 32 teams and be sold through LuvAJ.com, NFL.com and Fanatics, as well as in most NFL stadiums.

For Thomas, who founded Luv AJ at age 14, the NFL launch is the next stage of a licensing strategy that has delivered 72% year-over-year growth since Bijoux Sport launched, according to the company. The category now accounts for 28% of total revenue and 50% of direct-to-consumer revenue. It also helped turn a 57-store Target test into a broader collaboration and collection expected to reach roughly 1,800 stores this October.

Immersed in stadium culture, Thomas saw a gap: Little licensed jewelry felt refined enough for the rest of women’s lives.

“There wasn’t really 24/7, everyday jewelry for the sports girl,” Thomas told me over Zoom. “It was very game-day focused, so we wanted to create something that felt way more lifestyle.”

Luv AJ took its cues from fine jewelry: subtle proportions, polished finishes and pieces that layer with what a customer already owns. Thomas’s design test was simple: “What would I wear with my tennis necklace?” The answer might be a Dodgers logo charm, featuring diamond studs and oval charm hoops.

Those accessible, layerable pieces have consistently become the strongest sellers across retailers, teams and markets, Thomas shared. Dodgers and Yankees styles have occupied more than half of Luv AJ’s top 10 product slots on the site over the past year. To Thomas, their appeal transcends baseball: The insignia have become fashion symbols and expressions of city pride.

“It goes beyond fandom,” she said. “It goes to show pride for your city.”

The strategy proved itself quickly. After securing its initial MLB and MLS licenses in November 2023, Luv AJ began showing buyers the collections. The company surpassed its first-year sales target in four weeks.

The response to Bijoux Sport confirmed that fashion and fandom could coexist. More importantly, sports began introducing the brand to a largely new audience.

“They find us through the sports, and then they come to this whole world of everyday jewelry,” Thomas said. While existing customers also shop their hometown teams, “it’s definitely very much expanding our new customer audience.”

Sanja Komljenovic, founder and CEO of award-winning creative, brand strategy and production agency ONA Creative , has spent years working across sports, fashion and culture. She argues that the opportunity begins with recognizing something the market long overlooked.

Before founding ONA Creative, Komljenovic spent more than five years with the LA Clippers and nearly three years leading global digital marketing for Nike Basketball—experience that gave her a front-row view of how sports brands spoke to fans, and which audiences they overlooked.

“Historically, brands treated the male fan as the default fan, yet women have always been sports fans,” Komljenovic said. Social media, she added, has helped democratize sports media and increased the visibility of women throughout sports.

Sports fandom intersects with fashion, music, identity, family, city pride and community.

“Most people (male or female) aren’t necessarily building their entire identity around a team or knowing every statistic,” Komljenovic said. “They’re participating because sports gives them a sense of belonging.”

Women engage with sports in different ways: as former athletes, lifelong supporters, casual viewers or fans connected through family, city pride or a particular player. Komljenovic believes brands should begin by understanding how those women already dress, shop and express themselves.

“Instead of asking, ‘Where can we put the team mark?’ brands should ask, ‘What would she genuinely want to wear or own, and how can fandom become part of that?’” Komljenovic said.

The bigger opportunity is taking fandom beyond game day and creating pieces women want to wear year-round.

“What brands underestimate is the frequency opportunity. If fandom only lives on game day, you’re designing for a handful of moments,” Komljenovic said. “If fandom becomes part of personal style, it can live with someone every day."

Bijoux Sport is no longer limited to stadiums and sports retailers. Revolve and Anthropologie carry the line, and Nordstrom recently picked it up, bringing licensed jewelry into Luv AJ’s existing fashion network. Thomas’s goal is to build “a place for fashion-forward fandom,” supported by multiple leagues rather than one sport or season.

Licensing also created the relationship behind Luv AJ’s largest retail expansion. Target began carrying Bijoux Sport MLB jewelry in 57 stores in September 2024. When the retailer decided to bring more national names into its jewelry department, Thomas had already established a track record with its team.

In June 2026, Luv AJ for Target launched its Vacation Edit in 300 stores.

A second collection will arrive at the end of October, when Luv AJ is set to expand to all of Target’s roughly 1,800 stores. The holiday assortment will include fashion jewelry, gift boxes and the brand’s first ornaments.

The NFL chapter carries a more personal meaning. Thomas spent more than two years pursuing the license, but her connection to football began much earlier. Growing up in Los Angeles, she watched games on Sunday mornings with her father.

An art director at Chiat/Day in the 1980s, he created NFL print advertising and later worked with Apple, including as an art director alongside Ridley Scott on its landmark “1984” commercial.

Her father passed away before Thomas secured the NFL license. For the NFL launch, she returned to his archives, using the fonts, composition, kerning and type treatments from his work as a visual tribute.

He helped shape Luv AJ long before it could land national licenses. When Thomas started the brand as a high-school sophomore in 2004, her father gave her his home office, built her a jewelry bench and photographed her early designs.

He taught her graphic design—and the importance of communicating a clear idea. “At the end of the day, all you have is marketing,” Thomas recalled him saying. “Everyone has a product. What’s different about yours, and how are you going to say it?”

Her mother provided the operational education, teaching her accounts payable and receivable, invoicing, banking and the mechanics of forming an LLC.

That early foundation gave Thomas the confidence to continue taking bigger swings. While discussing the uncertainty that comes with each new stage of growth, she offered a mantra of her own: “It’s so easy to just ruminate in what is the worst possible scenario—but what happens if it does work out?”

The NFL collection may be Luv AJ’s newest growth engine, but for Thomas, it also brings the business back to one of its earliest creative influences. After more than two decades of figuring out each new stage as it arrives, she is choosing a different question: “What if it all goes right?”