Angel Reese will be keeping busy during the WNBA offseason, with the Chicago Fever rookie joining a 3-on-3 league co-founded by fellow pros Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.
The league, called Unrivaled, has also scored commitments from the likes of Kelsey Plum and Arike Ogunbowale, and will tip of in Miami in January 2025.
Reese and the league announced the news in a joint Instagram post, with a graphic dubbing her the ‘305 Barbie.’ Notably, the league’s players will have equity in it, while the likes of Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Carmelo Anthony and Steve Nash have signed on as backers too.
Unrivaled has also promised ‘historic contract opportunities offering the highest average salary in women’s professional sports history.’
With the WNBA season only running from May to September, Unrivaled will offer top women’s basketball pros a valuable source of income during winter months.
‘For years, women have relied heavily on off-court sponsorships for a majority of their income,’ Stewart said in a May press release. ‘With Unrivaled, we’re revolutionizing the game by prioritizing investments in our stars and ensuring their on-court performance is reflected in their pay.’
Collier added, ‘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.’
The league is set to include 30 players across six 3-on-3 rosters, with Chelsea Gray, Jewell Loyd, Rhyne Howard, Kahleah Copper, and Jackie Young also committing so far.
As Collier touched on, there has been significant growth in the popularity of the WNBA – in large part to the additions of rookies Reese and Caitlin Clark. Last weekend’s WNBA All-Star Game, which saw the WNBA All-Stars beat the USA Olympic squad, drew a record 3.44million viewers on ESPN.
And on Wednesday, the league inked a massive $2.2billion media rights deal with the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC and ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, and NBC Universal.
The deal (which begins for the 2026 season) could be reevaluated at a later point and increased even further, but for context, the W’s current media deal is believed to be around just $60million. The NBA, which owns about 60 percent of the WNBA, negotiated the new deal.
