Shopping for sports fans can be harder than one might think. Chances are the fan in your life already has a variety of hats, jerseys and who knows what else to rep their favorite teams and players. But there’s a massive array of sports related items out there that the person on your list may not even know about. So to help you find that perfect gift, we’ve enlisted help from around The Athletic’s newsroom to put together a list of ideas and recommendations to consider. Happy holidays!

—Brooks Peck and David Betancourt, The Athletic’s memorabilia and collectibles editors 

(Updated 11/28 with additional items.)

Starting small

Riddell mini football helmets 

Riddell has an extensive selection of mini helmets of both NFL and NCAA teams (the University of Colorado section alone is pretty impressive). There are current looks, alternative styles (such as the Washington Commanders’ Hail Mary Black helmets) and throwbacks (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ creamsicle helmets are always a good look). 

Other minis: Rawlings MLB mini batting helmets, Franklin NHL mini goalie helmets, PWHL mini sticks, NBA mini retro basketballs

Sports art

Landing Pond by Jacob Trouba

Jacob Trouba’s hockey art

There’s beauty in the physicality of hockey. New York Rangers defenseman and captain Jacob Trouba knows that more than most. Trouba, known for his hard hits, is also an artist. But he doesn’t use a paint brush. Instead, he slathers paint all over himself — in his hockey equipment — and charges toward a canvas. The collision results in paintings that portray power and dynamic movement. A small print of some of Trouba’s works can be purchased directly from his website for $150. Larger, signed prints go for $1,000 apiece. —Alex Iniguez, NHL Senior Editor

GO DEEPER

How Jacob Trouba, one of the NHL’s most vicious open-ice hitters, found his artistic side

Advertisement

Other sports art: John Battalgazi’s circular athletes, The Golden Hexagon: Where basketball meets geography, Literally Balling: Very fancy basketball, Shelton Art Company, Triple Play Design Company’s retro prints and more

Sports books

The Basketball 100

A comprehensive look at the greatest players, past and present, in NBA history. From a surprising choice at No. 100 to a sprint to the finish at the top of the list by LeBron James and Michael Jordan, “The Basketball 100” features 100 full-length profiles of the game’s greats. Written by David Aldridge and John Hollinger with The Athletic’s NBA staff and a foreword by Charles Barkley, “The Basketball 100” is “guaaar-uuunnn-teeeed!” to satisfy the basketball fan in your life this holiday season. —Rob Peterson, NBA Deputy Managing Editor

The Basketball 100

The story of the greatest players in NBA history. In 100 riveting profiles, top basketball writers justify their selections and uncover the history of the NBA in the process.

Advertisement

The story of the greatest plays in NBA history.

Buy

Other sports books from The Athletic and its writers: The Football 100 by Mike Sando, Dan Pompei and The NFL Staff; Undeniable: The Kansas City Chiefs’ remarkable 2023 championship season; Garden Party: Inside the Boston Celtics’ run to the 2023-24 NBA Championship; Caitlin Clark: Raising the Game; Extra Time Beckons, Penalties Loom by Adam Hurrey; Who Owns Football? by Nick Miller; The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams by Craig Custance

Did this with BtB and it was really fun, especially when people told me exactly what to write. If you want to give a signed, personalized copy of The Franchise over the holidays as a gift, DM or email me craig [at] theathletic .com and we’ll make it happen. pic.twitter.com/MC3z99vOEv

— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) November 27, 2024

Throwbacks

Homage x Starter jackets

The satin bombers represents ’80s sideline sophistication while the pullovers were the coolest thing on the playground in the ’90s. Nostalgia never goes out of style, right?

Other throwbacks: Ebbets Field Flannels, Mitchell and Ness, Classic Football Shirts

Lionel Messi Inter Miami Archive Jersey

On any given day in any given elementary school there are seemingly dozens of kids wearing the pink and black of Inter Miami with Messi’s name and No. 10 on the back. There is no doubt Messi’s move to MLS has an outsized impact on youth fashion, but the next level look is the minty retro third kit that dropped midway through this season. (The only thing more ubiquitous among kids these days might be Stanley cups, and they have a new Messi “Goat” Collection releasing Dec. 3 — complete with mate mug)

GO DEEPER

Five MLS clubs get retro third kits for the remainder of 2024

San Diego Wave Home Jersey

It was the most popular NWSL jersey in the U.S. this year and it’s a design that will still be talked about for years to come.

Other gifts for kids: Shohei Ohtani T-shirt, Little People NFL sets, Lego Formula 1 sets, Future Fans — teach kids about sports in a creative new way

Gifts for WNBA fans

Wilson x Caitlin Clark basketballs

The WNBA surged in popularity this year, bringing in a slew of new fans who are likely still getting up to speed in the gear department. Wilson has had a hard time keeping Caitlin Clark’s signature basketball collection in stock, but if you can snag one it would make a good gift for anyone looking to emulate the WNBA Rookie of the Year.

Other gifts for WNBA fans: Reebok Angel Reese Collection, Kate Martin socks, Playa Society x WNBA

Sports…scents?

For the tennis obsessive in your life — or even the friend who can’t stop talking about Challengers — this is a luxury candle that even the pickiest person will fall in love with. Vacation’s Ball Boy candle combines the sweet smells of uncanned tennis balls with sunscreen and cotton sweatbands. And Otherland’s Matchpoint candle takes you straight to Wimbledon with cut grass and cucumber scents. —Jordan Cohen, Executive Director of External Communications

Cool baseball gear

Victus Pencil Bats

The Pencil Bat became a sensation last year when the Philadelphia Phillies’ Bryson Stott used it in an MLB game and remains a wildly popular twist on the standard baseball bat (it’s available in a variety of sizes for different levels of play). But if that’s not colorful enough, Victus also has a collection of Crayon Bats too.

ARiA Sliding Mitts

Sliding mitts have become a regular part of baseball equipment at this point, and Absolutely Ridiculous has turned something that was frankly rather silly looking into an item on the cutting edge of baseball creativity. Their imaginative designs are enough to make you want to lean into a fastball just so you can get on base and put one on.

For sports/movie fans

Grays Sports Almanac prop replic

OK, so Back to the Future Part II isn’t exactly a sports movie, but the Grays Sports Almanac is an iconic cinematic sports items. This prop replica is filled with actual scores and stats from 1950-2000 (which, sadly, is now the distant past) and comes with a futuristic receipt and shopping bag, just like the one Marty McFly pulled it out of after making his purchase in 2015. It even has the dust jacket!

Other sports movie gifts: Penfold Golf: James Bond’s ball of choice in Goldfinger, The Sandlot Babe Ruth Replica Autograph Baseball (after Hercules got to it)

Home decor

25-layer StadiumView lighted end table 

Available for a variety of college and processional stadiums and arenas, these end tables provide a unique way to bring home a favorite team’s home. The tables cost several hundred dollars, but there are also five-layer wall art and 3D coasters available from the same company (YouTheFan) at lower price points.

Other home decor gifts: Golf pencil display cases, NASCAR car hood wall signs

Pickup by Gameflo

If you like Marvel Snap, you will like this. Basketball strategy and chance, as you look to win matchups against your opponent’s weaknesses.

Philters

Non-alcoholic liquor, which we used for cooking, but I’m sure others can find tons of uses for, even just to enjoy alcohol free mixed drinks.

Zora’s Best

Slow-roasted and freeze-dried dog treats. Barkley goes crazy for them, and they’re super nutritious and healthy.

A Very Kelce Christmas

A Philly Special Christmas

Hugely popular among fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, the New Heights podcast, television commercials, breakfast cereal and a dizzying array of other things, the Kelce brothers are everywhere. Perhaps their most endearing endeavor has been Jason’s series of holiday albums that benefit a variety of Philadelphia charities and includes a surprising mix of notable musicians alongside his former Eagles teammates, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata. This year’s edition is the third and supposedly final one they’ll produce and it includes a Jason Kelce and Stevie Nicks duet!

Other Kelce related gifts: McFarlane Toys Super Bowl LVII Kelce brothers figures, Garage Beer Employee of the Month shirtless Jason Kelce chugging T-shirt

eBay insights

The four athletes who were among the 10 most searched on eBay every month so far this year:

So gifts relating to those four should be decent bets.

Other athletes who saw big jumps in searches this year:

• “Anthony Edwards card” had a 1,850 percent increase in searches in May compared to the start of that NBA season as he led the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals.
• Paul Skenes searches increased 620 percent in July, when he was named an MLB All-Star Game starter, compared to when he was called up in April. He remains a hot commodity after being named NL Rookie of the Year and with the Pittsburgh Pirates offering a unique bounty for his Topps Debut Patch card.
• Searches for Freddie Freeman increased almost 1,500 percent the day after his walk-off grand slam to win Game 1 of the World Series for the LA Dodgers on his way to becoming series MVP.

Also, “PSA 10” searches increased 30 percent in October compared to the same time last year, perhaps showing a growing focus for trading card collectors on cards deemed to be in gem-mint condition by the industry largest grading company.

Offbeat sports gifts: 

A patron holds a Masters Gnome during the first round of the 2024 Masters Tournament. (Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Interest in The Masters annual garden gnome continues to grow — the only item in the official Masters gift shop to carry a purchase limit. The only place to buy them at their retail price of $50 is on site at the tournament each year, but on eBay the full-size 2024 edition is selling for around $250-$300.

Searches for vintage NFL gear spiked after Taylor Swift wore an old Chiefs jacket that was bought on eBay to a game in early November.

The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and Decoy bobblehead giveaway was arguably one of the most coveted (and cutest) sports-related items of the year — the day after the giveaway eBay users searched for “Shohei Ohtani bobblehead” at a rate of more than 1,750 times per hour. There’s even a rare gold variation.

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.

Follow our sports memorabilia and collectibles coverage for more gift ideas (even if they’re gifts for yourself). 

(Top photo: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images)

It was in the tunnel at the Coliseum last year after a loss in the Southern Section Division 1 football final when St. John Bosco’s 11-year-old ball boy, Ryu Sanchez, went up to coach Jason Negro and told him, “When I play for you, we’re never going to lose.”

Fast-forward to Friday night at Veterans Stadium. Sanchez, a year older, was the ball boy again. The Braves lost to Mater Dei in the Division 1 final. He’s still not retreating from his promise. Negro, though, will have to wait until 2027 for his arrival because he’s in sixth grade.

His older brother, Caleb, was St. John Bosco’s quarterback last season and ended up the starter for Columbia, helping the team earn a share of the Ivy League title. Ryu already is closing in on 6 feet tall. He’s another quarterback in the making. …

Rio Hondo Prep won its 16th Southern Section football title by beating Warren in the Division 7 final. What’s amazing is that Rio Hondo has a student body of 140 compared to Warren’s more than 3,500. …

Playoff pairings will be announced Sunday afternoon for the CIF state championship football playoffs. There will be 15 state championship games Dec. 13 and 14 after this week’s regional championships. The Open Division final is expected to match Mater Dei against De La Salle on Dec. 14 at Saddleback College.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

They’re not going to tell you things are off the rails. But you have eyes.

You can see how wrong it’s gone for the New York Rangers. Eight days ago they were hitting the ice in Calgary, a 12-4-1 team that had gotten some incredible goaltending and timely scoring to get out to a fast start on the season.

Eight days later and it’s not only gone wrong on the ice and in the standings but in the executive suite and in the locker room. Friday’s 3-1 loss to the Flyers was the Rangers’ fifth straight regulation loss, something they haven’t done since the end of the 2020-21 season — a stretch of defeats that included the Tom Wilson-Artemi Panarin incident, Madison Square Garden’s subsequent public criticism of the NHL and the firings of president John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gorton.

That they haven’t had as bad a week in four years is a window into how good the Rangers have been since then. That the second bad week in four years has brought almost as much turmoil to this organization as the last one did is a window into how this team and its bosses seemingly get tossed into a full-blown panic when things start to snowball.

And this time there’s not the previous three seasons of rebuilding to blame for the pent-up frustration. The bad eight days in November still have left the current Rangers in a playoff spot, still with one of the best goalies in the league and a collection of pretty good talent all around.

The past eight days for the Rangers:

Thursday: Lose 3-2 in Calgary
Saturday: Blown out in Edmonton
Monday morning: Word leaks that Drury is open to trades and mentions Kreider, Trouba to league GMs
Monday: Lose 5-2 to STL
Wednesday: Lose 4-3 in Carolina
Friday: Lose 3-1 in PHI

— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) November 29, 2024

So this chaos, these incredibly bad vibes, are all self-inflicted. And you can see what Chris Drury’s overreaction last weekend has wrought.

A first period on Friday so thoroughly lifeless and borderline embarrassing that only Igor Shesterkin stood between the Flyers and a 5-0 or 6-0 lead. Panarin getting into it with an entire five-man Flyers crew after a whistle with zero teammates coming in to back him up. An entire team, one that’s played decently in its own end before, seemingly allergic to the space between the hash marks in the Rangers end, where the Flyers produced about a dozen high-danger scoring chances in the first 40 minutes.

Then, finally, Shesterkin — you know, the guy the Rangers need to pay to be able to keep even a faint chance of being a Stanley Cup contender — skating off on his own, acknowledging no one, after yet another loss.

“That can’t happen to a team that’s sitting here, looking for ways to win hockey games,” Peter Laviolette said afterward.

As we outlined earlier on Friday, the reverberations of Drury’s leaguewide “come and get it” memo to the other 31 GMs on Sunday are still being felt. Chris Kreider, one of the two Rangers veterans mentioned by name in Drury’s note, is still out with the back spasms he so carefully noted in Raleigh a couple of days ago you’d have thought he had one of those anatomy charts next to him.

That may have been the longest-tenured Ranger’s way of telling the hockey world that he’s not feeling so hot and trading for him might not be in their best interest.

Jacob Trouba, the other named party in the note, hasn’t been hitting much lately. He hasn’t been talking much to the media, except when he has to answer for the GM trying to trade him for the second time in about four months. The idea of Trouba tossing his helmet and yelling at his own bench to wake (the f—) up, as he did around this time two seasons ago after a huge hit and fight, seems absurd at the moment.

You can call that indifferent behavior unprofessional. Unbecoming of an $8-million-a-year guy who wears the C. All true. But think about how we got here — Drury tried to put the cart before the horse in June, attempting to force Trouba into a move before the player was ready and before any other team, the Red Wings included, had even given much thought to acquiring him. That poisoned the situation.

Now it seems irreparable. No one is trading for Trouba with him playing like this, not now and maybe not this summer without a decent sweetener in the deal.

And there is a domino effect. Trouba was named captain despite not being a Ranger as long as some teammates because he did all the things you need to do as a leader. Fans may have wanted Kreider or Mika Zibanejad or Adam Fox, but it’s Trouba who has wrangled the team behind the scenes, has gone to coaching and management with player requests and has been an intermediary on sensitive issues between the front office and the locker room.

Kreider prefers to do his leadership work one-on-one with younger players. Zibanejad and Fox are lead-by-example types, very soft-spoken otherwise. It’s not a boisterous room filled with outsize personalities and Trouba was the guy they all looked to for leadership. Now, he’s adrift; it’s not that surprising the ship is listing too.

In such a crucial year, with Shesterkin due for big money, Alexis Lafrenière already cashing in (and not doing a whole lot since securing the bag) and K’Andre Miller mounting a very curious campaign to earn a big extension, the Rangers needed calm. They needed a steady hand.

They’ve got a snow globe getting worked over by a jackhammer at the moment. All in just eight days — off-ice turmoil, on-ice disinterest, you name it.

It’s some kind of world record for how fast this thing has fallen apart. The Rangers were within two games of a Stanley Cup Final back in June, a team that had flaws but enough skill in net and up front to feel like a contender for at least a little while.

The Barclay Goodrow saga, with Drury informing the alternate captain and well-liked teammate that he’d be on the 2 p.m. waiver wire at about 1:45, didn’t get the offseason going in the right direction. The Trouba thing hamstrung Drury’s attempts to remake the top four of his defense and also had the effect outlined above.

Now, at the first sign of real trouble this season, it’s a tire fire.

What will Saturday bring? The Canadiens, another young, fast team, come to the Garden. The Rangers have missed Filip Chytil, sure, as well as Kreider, but even at full strength this season they’ve looked painfully slow — either to react to teams counterattacking off turnovers or simply tracking back on a regular old rush. During this losing streak, they’ve stopped defending off O-zone possessions by opposing teams, leading to situations like Friday’s three-on-Shesterkin down low off a faceoff.

So what’s next? Do you strip Trouba of the C? Put him or someone else on waivers? All that does is further humiliate a core player, one of the reasons the Rangers are in this mess. Is Laviolette next? That would mark three coaching searches for Drury in four years. What about Drury? There’s no indication the president/GM is on the hot seat here, but remember what happened the last time the Rangers lost five in a row.

The Rangers do need something to change and they are getting older a lot faster than you would have thought watching them play deep into the postseason two of the last three playoffs. They’re playing poorly. They’ve gone from a comfortable spot near the top of the Metro Division to peering nervously below to all the mediocre teams bunched up close behind them.

But all that’s really changed for the Rangers is their own boss making them more and more miserable. Hard to see how that helps — or how it gets fixed soon.

(Photo: Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)