In the hours that followed the official launch of Unrivaled, a three-on-three league cofounded by the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier, Stewart received plenty of congratulatory messages.
People encouraged her to keep “moving the needle forward.”
Others asked if they could invest, too.
Stewart has been at the center of the league’s fight for charter flights, which was approved earlier this month, and when Unrivaled revealed Thursday that it was targeting a January 2025 start for its 30-player league, Stewart helped address the current reality that many players travel overseas to play basketball in the offseason — but now must return by May 1 or be suspended for the WNBA season, according to the league’s new prioritization rule.
“I think that my entire mindset behind this and really doing things is for the next generation,” Stewart said Friday before the Liberty defeated the Washington Mystics, 90-79, “and making sure that we continue to elevate this game while we’re still here playing.”
So Unrivaled will offer the highest average salary for a women’s professional sports league with six-figure deals.
The three-month season will unfold in Miami on a court that is two-thirds the size of the traditional one, Yahoo! Sports reported.
All 30 players will also receive equity in the league, Stewart said.
“I think that we want Year 1 to be a splash,” Stewart said.
And then there are the investors: soccer stars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe; Basketball Hall of Famer Steve Nash; golfer Michelle Wie West; Knicks great Carmelo Anthony; and Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma, Stewart’s coach at UConn.
Even ex-ESPN president John Skipper and ex-Turner president David Levy are on board to help with landing a media rights deal.
At some point, Unrivaled will announce its participants, which are selected by a committee that doesn’t include Stewart or Collier, according to Yahoo! Sports. Jonquel Jones, a four-time All-Star and an “overseas advocate,” said she “probably won’t do it” if it conflicted with that commitment.
Sabrina Ionescu — a WNBA All-Star and 3-point champion — hasn’t decided about participating if selected, though Stewart suggested that she’d continue trying to convince Ionescu.
“I enjoy my time with my husband, the few months that I get with him in the offseason,” Ionescu said. “So as of now, I’m not really thinking about it too much, but who knows. I mean, I have no idea.”
But, Ionescu said, it’ll “create great exposure.”
It’ll help close the seven-month gap between the WNBA Finals and the start of the following season.
It’ll make strides with salary growth and bring women’s basketball to another market.
There have been conversations about Unrivaled for two years, Stewart said.
And now, with the league approaching what Stewart considered a critical juncture with its growth, there are some tangible details to build on, too.
