Culture
Unrivaled’s an instant hit, but can the new women’s basketball 3×3 league sustain?
MEDLEY, Fla. — Outside a custom-built arena on the outskirts of Miami, a line of fans waited to sit on a throne composed largely of basketballs. They wrote personal answers on a sign asking, “What does Unrivaled mean to you?” Empowerment. Leadership. Community. Future. Not even some evening rain could extinguish the buzz that had been building since 2023, when fans learned about the creation of this new 3×3 women’s basketball league.
As fans filed into the 850-seat Wayfair Arena on Friday night for the opening night of Unrivaled, they sported a tapestry of WNBA gear. But many wanted new apparel, too, crowding into the gift shop an hour before tipoff. The least expensive single ticket cost north of $300, but fans flocked to support their favorite WNBA stars and witness a new chapter of women’s basketball history.
At tip-off before the first game of a doubleheader, co-founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart posed at center court for a photo to capture the moment before they competed against each other.
The nationally televised contests aired back to back on TNT, highlights replayed on SportsCenter, and a clip of Skylar Diggins-Smith sinking the league’s first game-ending shot amassed millions of views across various social media platforms.
In its opening weekend of games, Unrivaled has undoubtedly commanded attention. But to carve out a permanent space in women’s basketball, it needs to accomplish what many other start-up sports leagues have historically failed to do: sustain.
Unrivaled executives say the league’s long-term success has been set up by its stable foundation — signing renowned WNBA stars, attracting big-brand sponsors, capitalizing on lucrative investments and inking a multi-year television deal.
“I think we put ourselves in a great position to be successful right away, but it’s a marathon,” said league president Alex Bazzell, a basketball skills trainer and Collier’s husband. “We’re not running out there from Day 1 trying to get millions of viewers out of the gate. It would be tremendous, but we’re gonna be here for a little while.”
Phee with the steal and Sky got it done 😮💨🔥 pic.twitter.com/CtpkLUnznR
— Unrivaled Basketball (@Unrivaledwbb) January 18, 2025
Before Unrivaled filled its rosters with 22 WNBA All-Stars, it started with just two — Stewart and Collier. Like many of their WNBA peers, the star forwards share a history of spending months overseas during the offseason and competing professionally abroad to supplement their WNBA incomes and sharpen their games.
The routine sparked brainstorming between them. Bazzell first pitched Unrivaled to Stewart in late 2022. “(We were) trying to make women’s basketball continue to be relevant in the offseason from a professional standpoint,” she said.
From the beginning, both players were on constant phone and Zoom calls. They met with investors, relaying their experiences from their years in countries such as Turkey, France, China and Russia. They explained why they believe top women’s basketball players should be marketed in the U.S. during the WNBA offseason and how Unrivaled could offer comparable domestic competition and salaries on par with high-paying overseas clubs.
They wanted to convince stakeholders that Unrivaled wouldn’t be just a novelty but that the league would have staying power. “(Stewart and Collier were) instrumental because when brands come in they act like founders,” Bazzell said.
The two players, alongside other Unrivaled executives, sold their idea to major brands and to deep-pocketed investors, including Gary Vaynerchuk, U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan and NBA legend Carmelo Anthony.
Bazzell said the league already has “far exceeded” the first-year revenue expectations it pitched to initial investors. “We’re focused on building a great business, but for the time being we don’t have to worry about money,” he said.
That is partially because of its media rights deal — a six-year $100 million agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a source with knowledge of the agreement — and a robust sponsorship roster.
The day before tipoff last week, Stewart paused for a moment and pointed out a banner displaying some of Unrivaled’s partners: Ally, Under Armour, Samsung Galaxy, Sephora. “People are walking that walk and also talking that talk,” she said.
The question is: Will they continue?
Unrivaled’s launch comes at a time of unprecedented attention on women’s basketball. Record-breaking viewership, attendance and media deals became commonplace for women’s college basketball and the WNBA over the last two years.
“You couldn’t have landed this at a better time,” said David Levy, an Unrivaled investor who is the former head of Turner Sports and current co-CEO of Horizon Sports and Entertainment.
Bazzell said Unrivaled operates with a “startup mentality.” Executives might create rules one day and unload boxes the next. The league, of course, is still unproven. But unlike many other short-lived start-up leagues, key to Unrivaled’s early success is that its most important members are verifiable stars.
“A lot of times leagues go away because they don’t have the best of the best playing in them,” Levy said. “Unrivaled didn’t start with names nobody knew or people that didn’t make the WNBA. This is the best of the best.”
Early on, Unrivaled executives recognized attracting top talent would be critical to creating visibility on TV, with partners and on social media. With nearly two-dozen WNBA All-Stars — Stewart, Collier, Brittney Griner, Sabrina Ionescu, Angel Reese among them — and seven No. 1 WNBA Draft picks, name recognition isn’t an issue.
To keep so many stars in the U.S., they knew the importance of paying salaries competitive with top overseas clubs. Unrivaled said it is the highest-paying American women’s sports league in history, with salaries averaging north of $200,000.
Its 36 players are more than just talent in Unrivaled, too. A substantial portion of the league’s equity — around 15 percent — is allocated to players. “We’re proud to be here also as investors,” Diggins-Smith said. “All of us being investors, (we) really care about this product and (it) really doing well… You want it to sustain.”
GO DEEPER
How Unrivaled became a welcome alternative for WNBA players’ overseas offseasons
Three-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and rookie sensation Caitlin Clark are among those not playing in Unrivaled. The league made overtures to rookie Clark, but she elected to sit out the inaugural season, as she recovers from a nonstop last 12 months. Clark’s WNBA salary — around $75,000 — is supplemented by her countless endorsement deals, and she told Time she felt training privately in her own space would be beneficial. Clark, though, didn’t rule out playing in the league in the future. If she does, Levy said, interest in the league will “catapult,” surely propelling its long-term outlook. But he stressed that Unrivaled isn’t built around one person.
Unrivaled already has a high-profile media rights partnership, which is critical to its financial foundation and will be important in its ability to grow.
Initially, Unrivaled executives wondered if the league would need to broker a revenue-sharing deal with a potential TV or streaming partner before getting a licensing deal once the season launched. But they quickly found that multiple parties were interested in a licensing agreement with at least four companies in the final bidding, Levy said.
Bazzell relied on Levy and John Skipper, the former president of ESPN and another early Unrivaled investor, to tap into their professional networks and help find a partner.
Things crystallized this summer when Bazzell met with TNT Sports CEO Luis Silberwasser while in France for the Olympics. Having reach outside of traditional broadcast windows was important to Unrivaled, Bazzell said, as founders recognized the importance — both financially and culturally — of having broad social media reach. Warner Bros. Discovery’s portfolio including Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and HighlightHer (recently renamed B/R W) made it especially appealing.
WBD was ideal, executives said, because of everything it had under one roof: widespread TV distribution (all games will air on TNT or TruTV, and stream on Max), ancillary production, and social media strongholds, a key component of Unrivaled’s business strategy. Warner Bros. also financially invested in Unrivaled, as a sign of its deep commitment to the league’s success.
Getting WBD and Unrivaled founding partner, Ally, on board were critical in the avalanche of partnership deals that followed. (Ally has pledged a 50/50 media spend to support men’s and women’s sports equally.)
Under Armour senior lead for global sports marketing, Tamzin Barroilhet, first met with Bazzell in the summer of 2023. A former college and overseas pro player, Barroilhet said she was “hooked” on the concept and Unrivaled’s deal with WBD helped convince the apparel brand to sign on as the official outfitter. Unrivaled is Under Armour’s highest-profile women’s basketball partnership, and a number of other brands also struck deals in women’s basketball for the first time. Sephora’s agreement with the league is the beauty company’s first partnership with any sports league.
Unrivaled’s scarcity was also intriguing to prospective investors. The league runs only 10 weeks. Its $8 million salary pool is one of its two largest categorical allocation of funds. As a single-site operation, it has a lower operational cost than many other start-up leagues, which Bazzell said minimizes its burn rate.
“(When you) keep the product at a premium level and ultra-competitive, you have some opportunities to pique interest,” he said.
The league announced in December it had raised an additional $28 million (on top of the $7 million in its seed round) from investors, including Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, tennis star Coco Gauff, swimmer Michael Phelps, and South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley. A number of its initial investors, including Anthony, Morgan and UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, committed additional capital.
“We have new people trying to rush in and now we’re getting to a point where you have to be selective,” Bazzell said.
Fans flocked to buy merchandise before Unrivaled’s inaugural games in Florida. (Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
How Unrivaled engages and grows its audience is paramount to its future.
League officials stress TV ratings will be just one aspect of that answer. “It’s part of a puzzle,” Levy said. “How many people are following (on social media)? What are they doing? How many people are sharing? How much is the fan base interacting with it? How much is merchandise going up? There are going to be so many different metrics that I think are going to play into this.”
Part of their build involves recruiting the next generation. Aliyah Boston, the Indiana Fever center and 2023 No. 1 pick, said college players she’s talked to aim to play in the WNBA and Unrivaled. LSU star Flau’jae Johnson has an NIL deal with Unrivaled, and UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who is the presumed No. 1 pick in this April’s WNBA Draft, has an NIL deal and equity in the league. Bueckers plans to play in Unrivaled when she turns pro.
USC’s JuJu Watkins won’t enter the WNBA until 2027, but when she enters the pro ranks, Unrivaled will have a spot for her. She was among the December investors and is optimistic about the league’s future and sustainability.
When those players set foot in Unrivaled, the league will almost assuredly be different. This season, all 10 weeks of action take place at the Florida facility, but a tour model for competition is planned for next year.
GO DEEPER
Can Unrivaled’s 3×3 style benefit WNBA players?
The locations are yet to be determined but Unrivaled is targeting non-WNBA cities and college towns. Bazzell said it wouldn’t visit more than four cities and the league will still have a home base. The operational cost, Bazzell said, would be similar as it’s likely only four teams would travel to a given stop. Important to maintaining a premier player experience, the league would use charter airfare to transport its players.
“We want to go to different markets to help grow the game and bring a touch point to hopefully a lot of young girls around the country that are looking up to these players and haven’t been able to see them play in person,” Bazzell said.
Taking the league on the road will bring logistic challenges, but league executives believe it will help grow Unrivaled’s business and open it to even more fan opportunities. Barroilhet, the Under Armour executive, foresees potential youth clinics and camps in conjunction with Unrivaled’s tour. Brands could produce activations at different venues, furthering engagement and reach.
Ensuring the WNBA’s top players participate will be critical to Unrivaled’s sustainability, and perhaps some are less interested in any travel necessary for touring. WNBA salaries drastically increasing in the next CBA — the league is negotiating a new agreement with the WNBPA — could also diminish part of a player’s financial lure to the new league. Plus, while TV ratings aren’t fully indicative of overall fan interest, they still remain a datapoint that will impact the league’s viability, especially when media rights conversations begin for a second time.
Yet for now, the stars seem delighted to be in the new venture. Throughout Friday and Saturday’s action, Unrivaled athletes from other teams sat around the arena and watched their peers, enjoying the moment. Fans approached players like Jackie Young, Rhyne Howard and Natasha Cloud for selfies. Onlookers cheered not only for athletes playing, but for those wandering the aisles. “It’s a very intimate setting,” Jewell Loyd said.
Maintaining that connection will build fan loyalty. But for television audiences, the game — the appeal of watching the best players in the world perform — will have to remain at the forefront.
“At the end of the day, the product needs to be great for fans to continue to want to watch it,” Bazzell said. “You can capture people’s attention, but how do you keep people’s attention? It’s done through the most competitive product possible, which is really what we’re adamant on, day in and day out.”
(Top photo of Kahleah Copper: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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