The result of those conversations was made official Thursday morning: Unrivaled, a new professional women's basketball league co-founded by Collier and reigning WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart, is set to debut in January 2025.
“Obviously, it sounds crazy at first,” Collier told The Washington Post. “'Let's start a league' isn't just, 'Let's go get ice cream tonight.'”
“So, yeah, it was just a random conversation that started after the game and it crystallized into this: we have the power to make a big difference, why wait for someone else to do it for us when we can do it ourselves?”
Unrivaled aims to feature six teams and 30 elite players in a three-on-three match in Miami. Investors include US soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, 10-time NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, actor Ashton Kutcher, former ESPN president John Skipper and former Turner president David Levy. Bazzell will serve as league chairman. The business model gives players equity and a vested interest in the league, which the league said in a statement would offer “the highest average salary in the history of a women's professional sports league.”
“Women's basketball is at a critical juncture right now, but unfortunately, most of the money we make is made off the court,” Collier said. “So we want to change that. We make money playing basketball.”
“Even now, women's basketball is on the rise, but there's a decline in viewership, marketability of players and competition between the college and professional levels. So it's amazing to see that right now, the college game is so popular and the viewership and marketability are going up as stars emerge, especially rookies. But we wanted to bring that to the professional level as well.”
The goal is to create a product that is easy to watch and features the best players in the world. The three-on-three format is expected to showcase players' skills in a more free-flowing game, with players running the full court, but shorter than the regulation 94 feet. Games will last about an hour and will be played on an LED court. Participants will be announced in the summer and will include several WNBA All-Stars. Multi-year contracts are expected to allow players to sign on for more than one-year increments.
The league has been in planning and development for two years, but the timing is right as the WNBA and NCAA women's basketball tournaments are drawing record viewership. Crowds tuned in to watch young stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, whose name, image and likeness (NIL) rules allowed them to grow their brands in college. WNBA teams like the Washington Mystics moved their games against Clark's Indiana Fever and Reese's Chicago Sky to larger capacity arenas to accommodate expected increased attendance.
““There are a lot of examples of new leagues that have started and not been successful,” Levy says, “whether it's administrative issues or just on-field talent issues. But remember, these aren't brand names that nobody knows. These are the best women's basketball players in the world, competing against each other in a three-on-three game.”
“If you close your eyes and ask, 'If this was the NBA, would I be interested?' the answer is obviously yes. I get to see LeBron play in the NBA. [James] Steph [Curry] And then there are the other players playing on the 3-on-3 tour. The best of the WNBA brand is here. I don't think this is a so-called upstart in terms of the quality of the sport and the brand name.”
The league's founders hope there will be benefits to playing during the WNBA offseason and not competing directly with the existing league, with Bazzell arguing that the 3-on-3 format will be a quality development opportunity for WNBA players who want to develop their game during the offseason.
Many of the details are still being worked out — partnerships with brands are still being finalized — and the biggest challenge remaining is evaluating and negotiating media deals with linear, digital and streaming platforms. Bazzell said he wants to be as accessible and visible as any product in the sports world, and not have fans “have to work hard to find us.”
That post-match conversation a few years ago seemed perfectly paced to capitalize on interest in women's soccer, which is perhaps at an all-time high.
“There's an old saying that everything you predict happens more slowly than you expect,” Skipper said, “and then there's a tipping point and it accelerates at a rate you never expected. I think we've hit the sweet spot.”
