Young WAGs are taking over sports culture right now, and they are doing it on their own terms rather than simply standing in the shadow of the athletes they love. The term WAG, short for wives and girlfriends, used to carry a reductive connotation, women defined purely by their relationship to a famous man. That is not the case anymore. The current wave of young WAGs are entrepreneurs, entertainers, and full-blown public figures who happen to also be dating or married to some of the biggest names in sports.
Jordyn Woods is arguably the most visible example of this shift right now. As the fiancée of New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, Woods has become a fixture courtside during every playoff run, but her presence extends far beyond being a supportive partner. She owns her own clothing company, Woods by Jordyn, and her orange handbag from the brand became a viral good luck charm throughout the Knicks’ 2026 championship run, with Towns himself declaring “the bag’s undefeated” after the team’s title win. Woods and Towns got engaged on Christmas Day in 2025 after five years together, and she has built out a full career as a model, entrepreneur, and social media personality with more than 12 million Instagram followers, all while remaining one of the most recognizable faces in the stands at Madison Square Garden.
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Tokyo Jetz represents a different kind of young WAG story, one that started with her own career already in motion. Before she was anyone’s wife, Tokyo Jetz, born Shauntrell Pender, built a name for herself as a rapper out of Jacksonville, Florida, known for hits like “No Problem.” She has since stepped away from music to focus on business and motherhood, founding Bright Beginnings Academy, an early childhood education center. In May 2026, Tokyo Jetz married her longtime partner, cornerback Shaquill Griffin, shortly after he won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. The two share children together, and her story shows how young WAGs are increasingly women who already had their own public identity before their relationship ever entered the picture.
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Ali Brunson brings a similar depth to the conversation. As the wife of Knicks star Jalen Brunson, she has become one of the most visible WAGs in basketball, but her résumé stands entirely on its own. Ali holds a doctorate in physical therapy and is the founder of The AMB Method, a New York-based studio built around bridging physical therapy with modern strength training. She and Jalen met in high school, married in July 2023, and welcomed their daughter, Jordyn James Brunson, in July 2024, all while Ali continued building her own business alongside her husband’s rise to becoming the face of the Knicks franchise.
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Reece Fox, wife of Spurs star De’Aaron Fox, adds an athletic pedigree of her own to the young WAG conversation. Before she was known for supporting her husband from the stands, Fox was a breakout high school basketball star and a former McDonald’s All-American in her own right, giving her a firsthand understanding of the game most WAGs only watch from the outside. That athletic background has made her one of the more respected voices among NBA partners, someone who clearly understands the sport on a technical level rather than just its celebrity orbit.
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Shannon Hart rounds out this new generation of young WAGs with one of the longest-running love stories in the group. She and Josh Hart met in the tenth grade at Sidwell Friends High School in Washington, D.C., and have been together ever since, marrying in August 2021. Shannon played college sports herself and has remained a steady, low-key presence throughout Josh’s NBA career, offering a quieter contrast to some of the more high-profile names on this list while still remaining a fixture of the modern WAG landscape.
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What ties all of these women together is not just proximity to famous athletes but the fact that each of them has built something of her own alongside that relationship, whether it is a fashion brand, a physical therapy practice, a music career turned education business, or a basketball résumé that predates any relationship at all. The old idea of a WAG as someone whose entire identity orbited a man’s career has effectively been replaced by women running their own companies, showing up in their own headlines, and using platforms they built themselves to become cultural figures independent of their partners. Brands have taken notice too, with fashion and lifestyle companies increasingly treating WAGs as influencers and business partners in their own right rather than simply photographing them courtside.
As the 2026 season calendar keeps rolling, from NBA Finals to NFL training camps to the run-up toward the 2026 World Cup, expect this next generation of young WAGs to keep showing up in headlines for reasons that have nothing to do with who they are dating. Jordyn Woods, Tokyo Jetz, Ali Brunson, Reece Fox, and Shannon Hart are proof that the label WAG has evolved into something closer to a compliment than a category, one that increasingly describes women who were already building empires long before the cameras started paying attention.
