Erica Denhoff/AP
WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier plan to form a women’s basketball league for top players to compete in the offseason, according to ESPN. It will give players the option to stay in the U.S. as opposed to playing overseas to make more money.
The WNBA’s 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement introduced the “prioritization rule,” which states that players must return to their teams by the start of training camp to be eligible for the season. Overseas seasons commonly run through May, meaning WNBA players can’t compete without running the risk of missing the entire season back home.
“It’s the ability for players to stay home, to be in a market like Miami where we can just be the buzz and create that with the best WNBA players,” Stewart said in the ESPN report. “We can’t keep fighting (the WNBA’s prioritization rule). It is a rule that takes away our choices, which should never be a thing, especially as women, but it is still a rule.”
Called Unrivaled, the league will put 30 of the world’s best players on six teams. They’ll compete in three-on-three and one-on-one games on a soundstage in Miami.
Stewart, who plays in Turkey in the offseason, said the idea for the league began to take shape during a dinner with Collier and her husband Alex Bazzell.
“We went to dinner in New York and (Bazzell) was explaining the idea of being a part of this league where it’s like you’re on an all-digital basketball court,” Stewart said, “you’re playing 3-on-3, one-on-one, queen-of-the-court type thing where you hold bragging rights, but also make a salary that’s kind of set in stone but also can always grow bigger.
“We’ve all been talking and realizing that we’re missing a moment, having a lot of our players be overseas or not playing basketball (during the offseason) … I think top players, they want to be playing, right? They want to be home, they want to be playing, but it has to make sense. It has to be right and the money has to be right. And I think that’s what Unrivaled is trying to do.”
The primary reason WNBA players go overseas is because the contracts are often more lucrative than the ones offered in their own league. It’s the reason Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner flew to Russia when things took a disastrous turn and she was imprisoned for 10 months.
To make up for the money players would have made overseas, Unrivaled’s founders will look to raise private funding and secure sponsorships.
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