Unparalleled women's 3-on-3 basketball league
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Unrivaled, a new women's 3-on-3 professional basketball league, kicks off Friday, offering both a big test and an opportunity for the women's game to boost its growing profile in the United States.
The league, co-founded by WNBA superstars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, has already announced deals with a dozen sponsors and raised $35 million in funding. Collier told CNBC that the league has already shown it has “immense” potential and opportunity.
“If you invest in the players and in the women's game, I think we're already seeing the returns,” she said. “This is just the beginning for us. It's the first year and we've already been able to do this, so we're very excited about the future.”
Games are broadcast Warner Bros. Discovery Property TNT Sportplatforms in a multi-year media rights deal. TV ratings will matter not only in terms of total viewers, but also in demographic terms, said Lee Berke, president and CEO of sports consultancy LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media.
“You look for an audience that is younger, men and women watching, you look for the size of the audience,” Berke told CNBC. “There's obviously a lot of hype on day one. You want to see that audience expand and grow over the course of the season.”
Here's what you need to know about Unrivaled before the first tip:
How the competition works
In the first season of Unrivaled, six teams play against each other for two months. The season will conclude with a four-team playoff tournament, with the championship taking place on March 17. There is also a 1-on-1 player tournament mid-season.
The games are played in a 3-on-3 format and take place on a smaller field than WNBA courts. They last one hour and are broadcast on Friday and Monday on TNT and on Saturday on TruTV. Games are also available to stream on WBD's Max.
All matches will be played at the Mediapro US location in Medley, Florida, a suburb of Miami. The season takes place during the WNBA offseason and is intended as an alternative to playing abroad.
Many WNBA players spend their offseasons playing for teams in Russia, China and other countries to supplement their income. However, the WNBA collective bargaining agreement signed in 2020 now suspends players without pay for the season if they do not return from their overseas teams in time for training camp. WNBA training camp begins April 27.
“It's trying to fill a gap in the calendar for these players. It's extending the runway for professional basketball,” Alex Bazzell, president of Unrivaled and Collier's husband, previously told CNBC.
How players get paid
Unrivaled will also pay many players a higher salary than the WNBA. The total salary pool is well over $8 million, Bazzell told SB Nation, which averages about $242,000 per player this season. Players will also receive stock and revenue shares from the league, which says it offers the highest average salary in the history of the women's professional sports league.
WNBA annual salaries currently range from the minimum of $66,079 to the core player maximum of $249,244. Only one player per WNBA team can be designated as a core player and earn that amount.
Unmatched Basketball Competition: Rae Burrell
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Who is involved
The league has 36 participants for the first season, all of whom played in the WNBA last year. There are 15 2024 WNBA All Stars on the rosters, headlined by Collier, Stewart and Alyssa Thomas on the All-WNBA first team. Other notable players include Sabrina Ionescu, Brittney Griner and Angel Reese.
Unrivaled has raised $35 million from seed and Series A rounds from a host of leading investors. Donors include basketball stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Carmelo Anthony, as well as Olympians like Alex Morgan and Michael Phelps. Tennis great Coco Gauff was announced as a new investor on January 6.
Collier said that while everyone is now noticing the rise of women's sports, sports figures recognized the value of the industry early on.
“I think people in the sport have known this for a long time,” Collier said. “It's really encouraging to see the support from other athletes. They believe in us so much, so that was really nice to see.”
Unrivaled's business partners, Collier added, are aligned with their vision to grow the sport.
“We've said for a long time, this is not a charity. This is a great business opportunity, and those brands recognize that,” Collier said. “Not only are they doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they believe in the growth of women's sports. But they're also doing it because they know this is something that has a lot of potential to be profitable.”
About a dozen companies have signed sponsorship deals with Unrivaled, including Sephora, State Farm, Wilson, Ally Financial and Samsung. Unrivaled recently appointed Sprite as a presentation partner for the 1-on-1 tournament and Bodyarmor as the official sports drink.
“It's extremely impressive, both in terms of the number of sponsors, the quality of the sponsors and the fact that these are non-traditional sports sponsors,” Berke said.
TNT Sports' team of announcers and studio hosts for unparalleled coverage includes Basketball Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie and two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker.
Why it matters
Unrivaled's debut comes amid a spike in national interest in women's sports, especially basketball.
The WNBA in particular saw a surge, as former college stars Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and Reese led a standout rookie class. The league said it broke an all-time record with more than 54 million unique viewers during the season and had its best personal attendance in 22 years.
Last year's WNBA Finals, in which the New York Liberty defeated the Minnesota Lynx in five games, was the league's most-watched championship series in 25 years, according to ESPN.
The WNBA will expand the Finals from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven series starting next year. It will also debut a 13th franchise next season, the Golden State Valkyries, and will add teams in Toronto and Portland, Oregon, in 2026.
Both the WNBA and its players are poised to capitalize on the momentum.
The league may reevaluate its current 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal after 2028, CNBC previously reported, and the WNBA players' union withdrew from the current collective bargaining agreement in October. A new deal, which would take effect after next season, could offer players higher wages and more benefits, and the increasing focus on WNBA athletes gives them greater leverage at the bargaining table.
Unrivaled will have a major impact on women's basketball operations, Collier told CNBC.
“We're already seeing the landscape expanding. Overseas contracts are going up, other domestic league contracts are going up,” Collier said. “We're trying to expand what the normal thinking is around women's sports, and you'll definitely see us pushing for the same things in the CBA.”
— CNBC's Lillian Rizzo, Jake Piazza and Alex Sherman contributed to this report.