Unrivaled Basketball, the offseason three-on-three league founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, is set to kick off in January 2025. Now, we’re finally getting a glimpse of who will be making up the team’s rosters.
The league, which will include 30 players in total, started announcing players on social media on Tuesday, beginning with founders Stewart and Collier. But on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Unrivaled dropped the first big WNBA names that will be joining its ranks, starting off with a trio of All-Star guards: Las Vegas Aces’ Chelsea Gray, Dallas Wings’ Arike Ogunbowale and Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd.
Unrivaled, the brainchild of former UConn teammates Stewart and Collier, will take place over the course of three months in Miami. The league takes place in the WNBA offseason, which begins after the season’s end in October and before the next season starts in May.
The league said in May that it had agreed to terms with 10 WNBA All-Stars, meaning that there are at least seven big names left to announce, as well as the other 18 that will fill the rosters.
Unrivaled will also offer big salaries to players, with each player receiving a minimum of $100,000 for the season. The total payout for the league will be around $3 million. The six-figure salaries are likely to be the highest average in professional women’s sports.
Unrivaled has strong investor base, with a star-studded list of investors that includes USWNT stars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, retired NBA players Carmelo Anthony and Steve Nash, LPGA’s Michelle Wie West, UConn women’s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma and actor Ashton Kutcher.
Notably, three of Unrivaled announced players — Loyd, Ogunbowale and Stewart — earn more than $200,000 annually with three of the highest-valued contracts in the league. However, Unrivaled’s salaries will, indeed, rival those WNBA contracts with more than half of their value in a season that is half the length.
Offseason play is common among WNBA players, who still make considerably less than some professional athletes. WNBA players currently make an average of around $122,000 per year, with salaries as low as $64,154. (Compare this to the NBA, where the average salary is more than $10 million.)
As a result, players typically use offseason or international leagues as a way to supplement their income. Many players play overseas, where leagues can be incredibly lucrative. Unrivaled, however, offers an opportunity to stay in the United States, which is especially welcome in the wake of Brittney Griner’s 10-month imprisonment in Russia.
Another perk of Unrivaled is that it does not overlap with WNBA training camp — an issue that arose with the addition of a “prioritization clause” in the latest collective bargaining agreement, which went into effect this spring. The clause, which is controversial among players, requires players to arrive to training camp on time or risk suspension for the rest of the season.
Given that the restriction can affect players who spend the offseason overseas, Stewart and Collier announced the creation of Unrivaled ahead of the 2023 WNBA All-Star game in part to offset the new requirement. Unrivaled was originally planned to debut last January, but the ambitious goal fell short.
Now, as the league continues announcing players, Unrivaled is capitalizing on the talent and popularity of their players in order to generate buzz for the new league. With 25 players left to announce this summer, Unrivaled is sure to offer up some more exciting names before the league starts next winter.
Source Agencies
