January 17, 2025
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Talking Unrivaled as the new league heads into opening weekend
By The Next
Host Chelsea Leite: 'It's really raising the standard for the WNBA and for women's basketball as a whole'
On today’s episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, host Chelsea Leite is joined by The Next’s Connecticut Sun beat reporter Gabby Alfveby to talk about Unrivaled, a new 3×3 league founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, as the league’s opening weekend approaches. Alfveby is in Miami covering opening weekend, and Unrivaled will officially tip off on Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. ET.
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First, they went over the league’s origin story and gave some insights pre-season media appearances done by the league’s players.
“Basically, Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier created this offseason league, 3-on-3 league,” Leite said. “They’re going to be playing on a condensed court, there’s a few different rules. But the idea was to give players another option for the offseason, so if they didn’t want to go overseas, or if they have families, stuff like that, they could still play and develop over the offseason without having to go to Europe, or China or Australia. Like they mentioned in media last week, it wasn’t intended to be a replacement for those things, it’s just they deserve to have multiple options. It’s exciting, the pay seems really good. It’s equal to the WNBA max [salary] which is wild for a short amount of time.”
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“Honestly, it’s huge. It’s a movement, like you said,” Alfveby said. “The pay is already higher than the average WNBA salary, and it’s only for eight weeks which is a very short amount of time, especially for the extended amount of time the WNBA season usually is, and they have a lot more games too. But now, players do have that opportunity to stay in the U.S., now they can use Unrivaled to help prepare for the season. Some of them couldn’t even go overseas, even though that was what they had to do. Some of them did still have obligations in the United States, and they don’t have that option [to go overseas], so money is tight. Now they do have that option, and they can bring their whole family with them. They have care facilities for children, they all got individual apartments, it’s really cool.”
“It seems like not only is it a good option for people, but they’re really, the players have been saying, rolling out the red carpet for them,” Leite said. “I saw Angel Reese tweeted … the other day saying that she got a massage and a facial and everything. They’re just treating them so well, I think it’s really raising the standard for the WNBA and for women’s basketball as a whole, which is going to be really important coming up with the [Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)] negotiations.”
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Tune in to hear more from Leite and Alfveby about the upcoming Unrivaled tipoff and what the impacts of the league might be on the women’s basketball space. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more!
