It makes perfect sense that women’s college hoops legend Caitlin Clark will be one of the first athletes to have a limited edition product drop on Gatorade iD, the brand’s membership platform launched in February.

Clark became NCAA basketball’s all-time scorer earlier this month, and has become the biggest name in college basketball as March Madness gets set to start. The Drop will include a personalized Gx bottle and towel designed by Clark, who signed on with the brand back in December.

“Right now, she’s must see TV,” says Gatorade’s head of sports marketing, Jeff Kearney. How do you describe what’s happening right now? People are tuning in to see what is all the hype about, and she’s delivering.”

Last year, Clark and Iowa lost the NCAA title to LSU. But along the way helped break broadcast audience records for both the semifinals and finals.

This season, there’s been a line-up of brands looking to work with Clark as she rips through her final year in college before heading to the WNBA. Gatorade is no stranger to investing in women’s sports—the brand’s second-ever athlete ambassador (after Michael Jordan) was U.S. soccer star Mia Hamm, and it was a founding sponsor of the WNBA. The brand is also a partner in Athletes Unlimited, Angel City FC, and Overtime Select.

In fact, over the past five years, Gatorade has increased its media spend in women’s sports by nearly 900%, and more than 80% of Gatorade athlete signings over the past five years have been gender and culturally diverse.

When it comes to partnering with individual athletes, Kearney says Gatorade has a criteria, and Clark was no exception. “There’s a list of characteristics that we try to identify that align with our brand vision,” he says. “Is it someone who’s aspirational? Are they championship caliber? Do they have street cred? Do they have good character? We talked to officials coaches, and referees to just learn about the person. And she checked all those boxes.”

Kearney also emphasized that, as often as possible, Gatorade looks to partner with athletes before they’ve hit their peak. It signed Jordan, for example, before he won his first NBA title. That was its pitch to Clark as well. However, one aspect that has evolved over the past few years is how the brand has reacted to a growing requirement from athletes for making an impact off the court or field of play.

“One of the biggest things that we’ve modified is the impact piece. Athletes don’t necessarily just want a deal that is, ‘Hey, it’s going to pay me this amount, and I’m going to show up in this commercial, and I’m going to sign this many products,’” says Kearney. “It’s more like, ‘Hey, I’m having a lot of fun with that brand, what are we doing to drive change?’ For Caitlin Clark, an important part of the partnership was her foundation. What can we do to tell Caitlin’s story.”

Kearney points to the Gatorade ad announcing their partnership. “It focused on, ‘You can do this too,’ to really get girls in the game and get them playing,” he says. “We’re looking at those unique terms, whether it’s doing collaborations together, tied to a drop, or to content and storytelling that’s really unique to that athlete, it needs to mean something to them to help them build their brand. It has to leave an impact beyond just the fact that you’re going to slap a Gatorade logo on your website that we’re a sponsor partner of yours.”

Heading into March Madness, Kearney sees similarities between the hype in women’s college basketball right now and the impact of that a certain men’s final had on the game 45 years ago. With players like Clark, fellow Gatorade athlete Paige Bueckers, as well as stars like LSU’s Angel Reese and USC’s JuJu Watkins, gradually moving from college to the WNBA, Kearney sees the potential for that league’s version of the Bird-Magic effect following their showdown in 1979, that many credit as a turning point for the modern NBA.

“There’s a wave coming, and is this going to carry into the W?” says Kearney. “There are phenomenal athletes [in the WNBA], we have WNBA athletes on our roster, but is this that moment where you’re going to look back and go, and what happens in March Madness here could really put an exclamation point on that? I don’t think it slows it down at all. It could really take it to an even higher level. I think of how the NBA experienced a very similar growth opportunity that started in the college game, and we’re seeing that now.”