Former UConn teammates and WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are launching a new women’s basketball league to give top players an option to play domestically in the WNBA offseason.
Stewart and Collier announced the 3-on-3 league, called Unrivaled, on social platforms and in an exclusive article with ESPN on Thursday. The league is set to combat the WNBA’s new prioritization rules, which go into full effect next season.
Unrivaled would target 30 of the top players in the WNBA, with six teams made up of five players, and run 10 weeks from January through March. Games would be played at a soundstage in Miami, with 1-on-1 competition in addition to the 3-on-3 play.
Stewart and Collier told ESPN their goal is raise enough money in private funding and sponsorships so that players can make pay proportionate to what they make during the WNBA season, which would help offset the big contracts they would be giving up overseas.
“It’s the ability for players to stay home, to be in a market like Miami where we can just be the buzz and create that with the best WNBA players,” Stewart told ESPN. “We can’t keep fighting [the WNBA’s prioritization rule]. It is a rule that takes away our choices, which should never be a thing, especially as women, but it is still a rule.”
The WNBA’s prioritization rule stipulates that players must return from overseas to their WNBA teams by the start of training camp to be eligible for the season. However, the timeline for many international leagues and other competitions conflict with the start of the WNBA season, creating an issue for many players, especially with salary considerations. This was part of the 2020 collective bargaining agreement, but started to be enacted for the first time this season and goes into full effect next year.
Stewart told ESPN that she had already had “numerous calls with potential business partners for the new Unrivaled league.” She and Collier told ESPN that they’ve partnered with a team of business and sports industry leaders from companies including Twitter DAZN, the WTA and WWE to help launch the league next January.
Though targeting a different group of players with a different format, Unrivaled joins joins Athletes Unlimited as another offseason women’s basketball league to be started in recent years. Athletes Unlimited launched its first basketball season in 2022 in Las Vegas and held its second season in Dallas this past offseason.
