Unrivaled guide: How to watch, which WNBA stars are playing, learning the rules

Women’s basketball underwent an explosive popularity surge last year. The WNBA and women’s college hoops received more attention than ever with investments increasing across the landscape. Less than three weeks into 2025, the sport is welcoming a new entrant in this growth moment: Unrivaled, a winter 3×3 professional league co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.

Unrivaled hopes to be a domestic alternative for athletes who have historically competed overseas during the WNBA offseason. With an emphasis on high salaries, player development and the convenience of playing domestically, almost all of the WNBA’s top players are on Unrivaled rosters. The most notable exceptions are Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark and Las Vegas Aces MVP A’ja Wilson.

“They’re bringing something new to women’s basketball,” center Brittney Griner said. “They’re making it exciting, they’re doing something different, they’re trying to give us a different look and a different feel on how we can bring everybody together in one spot.”

The nationally televised 3×3 competition will take place at a single facility in Miami, starting Friday and running through mid-March. While this specific format is different from the 3×3 played in the Olympics, 3×3 in Unrivaled should similarly allow stars to show off their skills. With a modified full-court, there will still be two-way action but more space than in five-on-five. Stars like Stewart and Collier who routinely face double-teams in the WNBA won’t see that type of defensive congestion.

Unrivaled has also promised to pay the highest average salary in women’s professional sports history. Players are paid an average salary of more than $200,000 for the 10-week season. By comparison, the WNBA’s mean salary for the 2024 season was about $120,000. Every Unrivaled player in this inaugural season will also receive an equity stake in the league.

“What we’re doing here is really, really special and I think there’s so many things that I love about it,” Stewart said.

The league debuts Friday at 7 p.m. (ET) when Stewart’s Mist Basketball Club takes on Collier’s Lunar Owls Basketball Club. Here’s everything you need to know about the new league ahead of its opening tip:

Who’s playing in Unrivaled?

The league features 36 of the top players in the WNBA, with numerous All-WNBA players, All-Stars and Olympians participating. Unrivaled’s six head coaches and members of the league’s basketball operations staff split the pool of players into six pods — A through F — with each pod featuring guards, wings or bigs. The coaches then selected one player from each pod, assigning them to a club. Coaches collaborated to set rosters without knowing which team would be theirs.

Coach: Teresa Weatherspoon

Coach: Nola Henry

Coach: Phil Handy

Coach: DJ Sackmann

Coach: Adam Harrington

Coach: Andrew Wade

*Brink will not participate as she recovers from an ACL tear.

How and when to watch

Unrivaled spans 10 weeks. Eight weeks will feature a standard slate of competition in which each team plays two games. From Feb. 10-14, the league will hold a one-on-one tournament, breaking up the regular season. That competition will be winner-take-all with a $250,000 bonus for the winner and an additional $10,000 for her 3×3 teammates.

“It is a queen of the court type thing,” Stewart said. “You think about what you do when you go play three-on-three, and sometimes you end up playing one-on-one. This is where we’ll be able to showcase our skills in a number of ways. I’m really excited about it.”

Unrivaled’s playoffs will be on March 16, with the finals on March 17.

Unrivaled is a made-for-TV product as it crafted its own arena experience, refurbishing an existing facility around Miami International Airport. The 130,000 square-foot facility, named Wayfair Arena, will hold only 850 fans as the league seeks to create an intimate experience during its season with the farthest seat just 32 feet from the court. As of Thursday, the least expensive single ticket on Stubhub costs $326 for Friday’s debut, with the most expensive going for more than $2,000.

TNT and TruTV will broadcast Unrivaled games, while Max will offer streaming. Games will air on TNT on Friday and Monday nights, and TruTV will air Saturday games.

Telecasts will feature voices familiar to fans of the NBA and WNBA as Candace Parker, Renee Montgomery and Lisa Leslie will be part of the pre- and postgame analysis teams. Connecticut Sun broadcaster Brendan Glasheen will be the league’s play-by-play voice, with commentary coming from Sarah Kustok and Leslie, as well as sideline reporting from Taylor Rooks, Allie LaForce, Stephanie Ready and Ros Gold-Onwude.

The multi-year partnership between TNT Sports and Unrivaled is also unique in that TNT Sports agreed to financially invest in the league in addition to broadcasting games.

How is Unrivaled different from the WNBA?

While Unrivaled’s rosters will be made up of some of the WNBA’s biggest stars, the gameplay will be different from the summer season. Unrivaled is utilizing a modified 3×3 court that is 72 feet long by 49.2 feet wide. That’s more than 20 feet shorter than a normal WNBA court (and slightly narrower). However, it is also longer than a FIBA 3×3 court, which is 36.1 feet long.

There are also several other rules that are different from the WNBA’s. In Unrivaled, the first three quarters are seven minutes while the fourth is untimed. Teams will end the game by playing to a target “winning score,” which is determined by adding 11 points to the leading team’s total after the third quarter. As a result, there will not be overtimes.

“When you’re playing basketball with your friends you don’t set a timer, you play to a number. So that’s what we’re doing,” said Luke Cooper, Unrivaled’s president of basketball operations. “I would be surprised if more leagues don’t look at that as a way to speed up the end of games and just make it about actual basketball.”

Possessions are 18 seconds and frontcourt resets are 12 seconds, not 14 like the WNBA. Whether a player is fouled on a 2-point or 3-point attempt, it will be handled with a single free throw. However, the single free throw will be the value of the infraction (i.e. a foul on a missed 3-point attempt means an offensive player gets one free throw worth three points. A foul on a missed 2-point attempt means an offensive player gets one free throw worth two points.)

Expect fast-paced and free-flowing competition. Players will be tested constantly defensively, as it’s difficult to help in the format without allowing open shots for others. Although many players have FIBA 3×3 experience, Unrivaled’s format is also different from that forum. Katie Lou Samuelson, who has competed in FIBA, said she doesn’t anticipate Unrivaled to be as physical as international competition because of the modified fullcourt format. FIBA competition also consists of just one 10-minute period and counts its baskets using 1-point and 2-point field goals, while Unrivaled will use 2-point and 3-point field goals.

“We didn’t want to change a lot of things. We’re already reinventing the wheel with how we’re playing the game,” Cooper said. “We want this to be about basketball and about the game in its purest form and we feel we’ve landed in a really good spot there even with the tweaks and changes that we’ve made.”

Are there other offseason leagues?

Unrivaled is not the first U.S. professional offseason league to launch recently. Athletes Unlimited debuted in 2022 with many WNBA players competing. While Athletes Unlimited, which begins Feb. 2 and runs for a month, is a 5×5 league, teams are redrafted each week and participants accumulate points for individual and team performances. Some players — namely Allisha Gray, Lexie Hull, Natasha Cloud and DiJonai Carrington — taking part in Unrivaled have previously participated in AU, but Unrivaled’s roster features significantly more WNBA star power and has gained more traction in the marketplace, even before its launch.

Isabelle Harrison, Elizabeth Williams, Alysha Clark, Jordan Horston, Kia Nurse and Sydney Colson are some of the WNBA players participating in AU this season.

Despite more domestic alternatives, plenty of WNBA players still elected to compete overseas this winter. Among them are Kelsey Mitchell, Kamilla Cardoso, Tina Charles, Bridget Carleton and Natasha Howard.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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