Playing professional sports is not without its struggles. This could not be truer for WNBA players. Their deceptively short season is played across four months (May to September). Each team plays 44 games. The top eight move on to the playoffs, regardless of conference.
The grind never stops for most players in the league, however. Their low salaries force many WNBA players to play overseas basketball to supplement their income. This often involves playing year-round, with no real off-season.
However, the solution to those issues could finally be here.
Unrivaled Is The Women’s 3×3 League Nobody’s Talking About
A Rival Emerges
Unrivaled is the brainchild of two WNBA All-Stars. New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier founded the league in 2023. It provides WNBA players with an alternative to playing overseas in the off-season. Unrivaled’s inaugural year was in 2025, with Stewart being the first signed player of the league.
There are several notable basketball names behind this venture, aside from Collier and Stewart. South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, USC guard JuJu Watkins, and Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo are investors. NBA skills trainer DJ Sackmann, alongside WNBA head coach Teresa Weatherspoon coaches two of Unrivaled’s eight teams. Former overseas pro and a basketball skills trainer who has worked with NBA stars such as Kyrie Irving, Trae Young, and Carmelo Anthony, Alex Bazzell is the league’s president.
A Whole New Game
The games themselves have also been altered slightly. The first three quarters are seven minutes long. However, the fourth quarter has the game clock turned off, but the shot clock is turned on for an Elam Ending. This is something that has been seen in past All-Star games. To determine the winning score, 11 points are added to the score of the leading team. The first team to reach or exceed the winning score will take the game home.
The shot clock in Unrivalled is shortened to 18 seconds of full possession, with resets being 12 seconds. Another interesting change that Unrivaled has made to the game is with regard to free throws. If a player is fouled during a shot attempt, rather than receiving two or three free throws, the player shoots a single free throw. This shot is worth the same number of points as the shot they were fouled on. This is something that the G-League adopted in the 2019-2020 season, and is still used to this day.
Players And The Public
Originally, Unrivaled started with six teams, and recently added two more (Breeze BC and Hive BC). According to Bazzell, the league outperformed financial projections from the previous season, which hastened expansion.
“If we didn’t expand rosters, there were going to be All-Stars [wanting to join] who we didn’t have space for. We want to be the home for all of the best players in the world.”
Unrivaled recently held a game in Xfinity Mobile Arena, the home of the Philadelphia 76ers, that drew more than 21,000 fans. This broke the record for the largest number of people in a women’s basketball game. This has led Unrivaled to move its semi-finals game in March to Brooklyn.
Aside from the unique way in which Unrivaled plays its games, there is another fixture of the league that fans find fascinating: the one-on-one tournament.
Mentioned as something that would make the NBA All-Star Weekend more exciting and competitive, one-on-one basketball has yet to find a home. While the YouTube one-on-one scene thrives, through channels such as TNC, this style of the game has yet to find a permanent home in the big leagues.
However, Unrivaled has changed this. In their latest one-on-one tournament, Chelsea Gray won the finals for $200,000. The one-on-one tournament has been a part of Unrivaled since the league’s inception, with the first one to win the tournament being Collier.
Although some of the WNBA’s biggest stars, such as Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson, have chosen not to participate, Unrivaled still holds significant star power. And with vast amounts of fan support and willing investors, this league may usher in a new era for women’s pro hoops.
Featured Image: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
