The debut date for a 3-on-3 basketball league led by two-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier is coming into clearer focus.
Gamers are set to start competing within the Unequalled league in round eight months. Athletes within the league are anticipated to earn the highest average salary in ladies’s skilled sports activities league historical past. Gamers within the league will earn at least six figures, in line with Collier and Stewart.
Athletes will even have the distinctive alternative to make the most of an fairness stake within the new league.
“It’s actually essential to us,” Collier advised The Related Press. “Compensation is a large a part of Unequalled as a league and a enterprise. All of the gamers on this first 12 months could have fairness within the league. For gamers to have a bit of the pie primarily to develop their generational wealth is one thing we’re actually enthusiastic about.”
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Breanna Stewart, #30 of the New York Liberty, smiles after the sport in opposition to the Washington Mystics in the course of the 2023 WNBA Playoffs on September 15, 2023, in Brooklyn, New York. (Evan Yu/NBAE by way of Getty Photographs)
Many WNBA players resort to touring abroad in the course of the offseason so as to earn extra. The common WNBA base wage is about $130,000, with the highest stars in a position to earn greater than $500,000 by wage, advertising agreements, an in-season match and bonuses.
Caitlin Clark is scheduled to earn simply over $338,000 in pay base over 4 years, in line with the phrases of her WNBA rookie contract.
“It’s superb, not just for the salaries to be related or greater than your WNBA wage, however to have the ability to construct model partnerships that may’t come into the W or the NBA,” Stewart mentioned. “It’s extra than simply an preliminary wage, however displaying these corporations who you’re as a participant.”
New York Liberty ahead Breanna Stewart (30) fast-breaks throughout a WNBA sport between New York Liberty and Connecticut Solar on June 27, 2023, at Mohegan Solar Area in Uncasville, CT. (M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photographs)
The league, which was first introduced final summer time, will run for eight weeks with the 30 gamers divided into six groups. The squads will play two video games every week with the contests happening on a courtroom about two-thirds the dimensions of a WNBA one. The groups will keep the identical all through the season.
Video games will probably be 4 quarters lengthy with much less time in every quarter than a WNBA contest. Unequalled President Alex Bazzell mentioned that the principles will probably be launched at a later date.
Napheesa Collier, #24 of the Minnesota Lynx, shoots a free throw in the course of the sport in opposition to the Las Vegas Aces on Might 29, 2024, at Goal Middle in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Jordan Johnson/NBAE by way of Getty Photographs)
The league lined up a star-studded group of traders to assist fund the launch. Former NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Steve Nash and American soccer stars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe are part of the group. Actor Ashton Kutcher and 11-time ladies’s faculty basketball profitable coach Geno Auriemma have additionally invested.
“It’s not simply concerning the {dollars}, however the relationships they’ve. We’ve been very chosen with the folks we introduced in,” Bazzell mentioned. “Investing in ladies’s sports activities there’s a ROI for it now. We wished to have a bunch of individuals we might name up and say ‘Hey are you able to assist on this space?’”
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Stewart mentioned that the league has come a great distance because the preliminary dinner two years in the past when the concept of the league was first hatched.
“There’s nothing to not like about it, the one factor persons are terrified of is that it’s in its first 12 months,” Stewart mentioned.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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