Bueckers has famously professed her love for Shirley Temples, a drink combining ginger ale and grenadine that is typically topped with a maraschino cherry. On Wednesday, Nike will release a “Shirley Buckets” colorway for the company’s GT Cut 4 basketball shoe, which is colored bright red and white to mirror the famous drink and features a pair of cherries on the back heel.
The following day, Gatorade will re-release a Shirley Temple flavor of the popular sports drink, which is labeled as “Paige’s Favorite Flavor” — a player edition capsule will also be available for $65 that includes a Shirley Temple Gatorade bottle, co-branded Nike shirt, and a towel. Bueckers signed a groundbreaking NIL deal with Gatorade while at UConn in 2021, and she first debuted the Shirley Temple flavor at a postgame press conference last season, which was later made available as a limited release.
“It’s Shirley Temple, it’s like my favorite drink of all time,” Bueckers said last year after the game. “So they put it in Gatorade flavor. So, pretty fire.”
The drink was popularized in Hollywood during the 1930s and was associated with popular child actress Shirley Temple, who has since expressed her distaste for the non-alcoholic beverage. Bueckers played a role in repopularizing the nearly century-old drink with a message on social media platform X that read, “I know a Shirley Temple hate to see me coming.”
Another drink in Bueckers’ soft-drink rotation will also be represented on Nike shoes in the coming months. The company announced that Paige Bueckers x Nike GT Cut 4 “Baja Blast” will be released Oct. 9.