Unrivaled, the new 3×3 winter basketball league co-founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, is expanding before ever playing its first game.
As a sign of its significant interest among current WNBA players, the league is growing its player participant pool to 36 players, up from 30, which was its previously announced cap. There will still be six teams, with six players now participating on each.
“We’re able to do this because we outperformed our financial projections,” Collier said in a video Thursday. “So now we get to do something that we wanted to do in the future which is give more people spots in Unrivaled.”
A special announcement from our co-founder 🚨
We’re expanding to 36✅ pic.twitter.com/HaAKUn30gA
— Unrivaled Basketball (@Unrivaledwbb) October 31, 2024
That the league, slated to begin play in Jan. 2025, is already growing in size is a further reflection of the legitimate foothold it is trying to carve out in the women’s basketball marketplace. In mid-October, the league announced it had reached a multi-year deal with TNT Sports, and will have its games broadcast on TNT, TruTV and streamed on Max.
Games will air on TNT on Monday and Friday nights, as well as Saturday night on TruTV. The deal will allow TNT Sports to continue carrying professional basketball beyond this season, as it is entering the last season of its current media rights agreement with the NBA.
Last week, the league unveiled the names and branding of its six clubs — the Laces, Mist, Rose, Lunar Owls, Phantom and Vinyl.
Angel Reese, Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum, Jewell Loyd, Kahleah Copper, Rhyne Howard and Arike Ogunbowale are among the others who have committed to joining the league, which has promised to pay the highest average salary in women’s professional sports league history.
Players joining in the inaugural season will also all receive equity in the league.
“Women’s sports is on such a rise, and it feels like everyone is benefiting from that except the women in the sport, and obviously that’s something we’re trying to change and then also create generational wealth for these women,” Collier told The Athletic last spring. “From the beginning, (Stewart) and I really set out to create a league that was founded on that principle that players deserve compensation and ownership that reflect their value.”
Based out of Miami, the league will tip off on Jan. 17 and is expected to run for eight weeks.
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(Photo: Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)