Stewart + Collier Unveil Historic New Professional Women’s League

NEW YORK – Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier announced Thursday that their 3-on-3 women’s league Unrivaled is set to begin its inaugural season in January 2025. The debut was announced in a short video shared to social media.

The league, which was first announced last June, will run for eight weeks from January to March and will feature 30 players on six teams. Games are to be played on a court approximately two-thirds the size of a WNBA court and will feature four quarters shorter than WNBA quarters.

While no official rosters or commitments have been announced at this time, Stewart and Collier have said some WNBA have already signed with the new league.

Unrivaled will take place in Miami, Florida where they are currently in the process of having facilities built. 

“With Unrivaled, we’re revolutionizing the game by prioritizing investments in our stars and ensuring their on-court performance is reflected in their pay,” Stewart said in a statement. 

“With the growing popularity of women’s basketball and the WNBA, this is an opportunity for us to extend our visibility into the traditional basketball season,” Collier said. “Breanna and I set out to create a league that would change the way women’s sports are viewed and ultimately how sports leagues operate. We may have had the vision, but this isn’t just our league – it belongs to the players, and the Unrivaled model reflects that.”

Stewart and Collier said the idea for Unrivaled came in response to the WNBA’s new rules after the 2020 collective bargaining agreement. The rules require WNBA players to return from international play by the start of training camp, cutting into their time to earn more money in the offseason. 

To remedy this, Unrivaled aims to provide athletes an opportunity to keep playing during the WNBA offseason without having to go overseas in the first place. With this adjustment, players will have the opportunity to increase their earning potential while remaining in the country. 

To achieve this goal, Unrivaled said players will have equity in the brand and will feature contract opportunities to offer the highest average salary in women’s professional sports league history.

“It’s really important to us,” Collier told The Associated Press. “Compensation is a huge part of Unrivaled as a league and a business. All the players in this first year will have equity in the league. For players to have a piece of the pie essentially to grow their generational wealth is something we’re really excited about.”

Unrivaled has secured many big-name investors including U.S. Soccer co-captain Alex Morgan, two-time Women’s World Cup Champion Megan Rapinoe, eight-time all-star Steve Nash, five-time LPGA Champion Michelle Wie West, former ESPN president John Skipper and Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman to name a few.