Unrivaled has hit the ground running in an impressive debut season.
The new women’s basketball league has enjoyed success beyond expectations and after the disaster of the NBA’s All-Star weekend, fans believe the women’s game is building a better product.
3
Angel Reese has been one of the stars of Unrivaled
College basketball and the WNBA have been growing at exponential pace over the last few years and the creation of Unrivaled – founded by WNBA superstars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier – has grown the game even more.
The league is based in Miami and centers on a 3-on-3 format that was born out of the desire to give players a domestic opportunity to compete during the offseason.
Since the WNBA’s first season in 1997, most athletes have headed abroad to play in the offseason, primarily because they needed to supplement their income and keep playing competitively.
The arrival of Unrivaled has been welcomed by players as not only is it played in the US but compensates players well, with an average salary of $222,222.
Furthermore, stars like Angel Reese, who previously said she did not want to play abroad, have now been vindicated in their decision to play in the league as a result of the recent success.
When it debuted last month, Unrivaled averaged 313,000 viewers in its opening game between Mist Basketball Club and Lunar Owls Basketball Club,
The second game between Rhyne Howard’s Vinyl Basketball Club and Chelsea Gray’s Rose Basketball Club averaged 311,000 viewers. Both games are the most-watched women’s basketball games ever to air on TNT Sports.
According to Sports Media Watch, the opening games outpaced last year’s average WNBA regular-season game on cable by 50 percent, excluding games involving Caitlin Clark.
Recently, the league has enjoyed even more success after it’s 1-on-1 tournament took social media storm coming just before a poor All-Star weekend by the NBA.
The women’s league incorporated a contest that embodies basketball culture, as the 1-on-1 variant is one of the most common forms of the sport that is played and fans could not get enough of it.
3
Brenna Stewart is one of the co-founders of the off-season league
3
Angel Reese will play her second season for the Chicago Sky next season
Such success was reflected in the recent ratings released by Sports Media Watch.
The semifinals and final of the Unrivaled 1-on-1 tournament averaged 377,000 viewers across TNT and truTV Friday night, marking the largest audience yet for the first-year women’s basketball league.
It peaked at 398,000 viewers during the Napheesa Collier-Aaliyah Edwards final, increased 21% from the previous high of 312,000 for the debut telecast in January
However, Unrivaled officials stressed that TV ratings were not the only data point they were looking for regarding fan engagement.
“It’s not fully indicative of what is the overall fan interest because there’s so many ways to consume leagues and teams and highlights,” league president Alex Bazzell told The Athletic.
Something that was backed up by David Levy, an Unrivaled investor who is the former head of Turner Sports and current co-CEO of Horizon Sports and Entertainment.
“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?” Levy said.
“How much is merchandise going up? There are going to be so many different metrics that I think are going to play into this,” Levy said.
Ultimately, while the NBA All-Star weekend still captured a larger market than Unrivaled 1-on-1 contest, the women’s league is full of optimism while fans cannot stop criticising the men’s game.
Mac McClung’s success in the Dunk Contest has been overshadowing by a lack of big-name participants, while plenty of names have also suggested a men’s 1-on-1 tournament might be a way to give All Star Weekend more juice.
Kevin Durant went so far as to suggest he would be happy to play in any competition, any named the players he thought would have the best chance of winning.
“Of course, I would have to go with myself,” Durant told NBA TV when asked who may win it.
“There’s so many great 1-on-1 players in our league. I don’t think it would be easy to predict who would come out on top. But if I had to say one guy, it’d probably be Wemby. I’d add Tatum in there too.”
