Women’s basketball is on a steep upward trajectory, but with growth comes growing pains.
For the athletes, one of those pain factors is the low pay in the WNBA that’s forced many players — including some of the league’s top stars — to play overseas during the offseason.
A new venture is coming in 2025 that will hopefully change that issue for the WNBA’s best.
Unrivaled is a professional basketball league that will feature 3-on-3 style competition for women’s players set to launch in January, the company announced on Thursday, May 30.
The league is being co-founded by two of the WNBA’s stars, last year’s MVP Breanna Stewart and three-time WNBA All-Star Napheesa Collier. It’s also got a slew of high profile investors such as Alex Morgan, Steve Nash, and Michelle Wie West.
John Skipper and David Levy, the former presidents of ESPN and Turner, respectively, have also joined in as investors who will likely spearhead Unrivaled’s quest to secure a television deal with one or more top sports networks.
One of the unique components about Unrivaled’s entry into the sports scene is that the company is not viewing the WNBA as competition, at least according to its president Alex Bazzell.
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Bazzell, who is Collier’s husband and has worked as a basketball coach in both the NBA and WNBA, told Front Office Sports that he has been in talks with the WNBA about how the two leagues can work together.
“They’ve been extremely supportive,” Bazzell said. “[WNBA Commissioner] Cathy [Engelbert], we talk to her fairly often and we both want the same things. We both want the stars to grow and be more visible. And I think by us existing, we help. And certainly, them continuing to grow and prosper helps us as well.”
Unlike the NBA, the WNBA allows it’s players to play professionally outside of the game. As Bazzell pointed out, there are plenty of reasons for doing that, rooted largely in the nascency of the WNBA.
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But that timing gives the players the opportunity to create opportunities like Unrivaled.
“The reality is, when you look at the NBA, how they operate cause that’s where I came from, these players were playing in the offseason,” Bazzell said. “They’re playing pick up, they’re working out, they’re doing content, they’re building a brand. Guess what, if the players can get paid for that, they would 1000% sign up to do that. But they’re just so far down this road where it doesn’t make sense to ruffle the feathers whereas the women are playing in the offseason, traditionally. It’s what they’ve always done. So I think it’s actually perfect timing for that.”
Because Unrivaled is not a 5-on-5 league nor is it played during the same schedule as the WNBA, Bazzell believes the two leagues can work together in a way that isn’t seen in other sports with multiple professional leagues.
“We’re not LIV Golf,” Bazzell said. “We’re not coming in trying to steal [WNBA players] away. I think, inevitably if something’s working, you don’t want to take that spotlight away from your players even if you don’t want them getting injured … inevitably we just want the game to keep growing and that’s what the WNBA wants as well and we’ll kind of see what unfolds as both of us continue to try to trek along.”
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