{"id":280289,"date":"2025-11-12T20:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/280289\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T20:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:51:13","slug":"unrivaled-tnt-sports-add-fourth-night-of-games-for-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/280289\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrivaled, TNT Sports Add Fourth Night of Games for 2026 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWomen\u2019s basketball<\/a> league Unrivaled is expanding in its second season \u2014 both in its number of teams and its TV footprint.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 3-on-3 league, co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, is adding a fourth night of games on TNT Sports<\/a> for the coming season, which tips off Jan. 5. The league is also expanding to eight teams, up from six for its inaugural season earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tGames will air on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday throughout the eight-week season; TNT, TruTV and HBO Max will have the Friday and Monday contests, and Saturday and Sunday games will run on TruTV and HBO Max. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe additional night \u2014 last season didn\u2019t have games on Sundays \u2014 allows Unrivaled to eliminate back-to-back games for its players. In the coming season, four teams will play on Friday and Sunday each week, and the other four will play on Saturday and Monday. <\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the things that I think our players credit us with the most is actually listening to them, and we want to keep them as healthy as humanly possible \u2014 not for not just for our league, but for the [WNBA] as well,\u201d Unrivaled chief content officer John Learing told The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cSo when they did come to us and say that they would like us to consider ways to find some some some more [breaks in the schedule], it\u2019s what our basketball ops team focused on probably more than anything in the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTNT Sports\u2019 Unrivaled telecasts will look somewhat different this season. Learing and TNT Sports executive vp and chief content officer Craig Barry told THR that the league\u2019s purpose-built arena in Miami will feature more fans in the primary camera shots (last season, those shots were mostly of a large video wall) and bringing some more of TNT Sports\u2019 long history televising basketball into the mix.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re making a significantly larger contribution to the overall production presentation, because we want parity across all of our sports properties,\u201d Barry told THR. \u201cNot that it wasn\u2019t good before \u2014 it just had room to grow and evolve.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe changes to the arena setup are part of that, Barry noted: \u201cThe interesting thing about a small venue \u2014 especially a venue like that, where you have control of [the layout], the energy really is part of the primary driver of the presentation of the event. If you\u2019ve been to that venue, the live energy is totally different while you\u2019re there. The conversations that we\u2019ve had [have focused on] the translation of that energy \u2014 we need to see it and feel it more through the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnrivaled games averaged 221,000 viewers for TNT and TruTV simulcasts last season \u2014\u00a0a fraction of NBA or WNBA games on cable but a solid start for an entirely new league with a significantly different format (3-on-3 vs. 5-on-5) from other basketball leagues. Barry said the audience on TNT skewed about 60 percent female, significantly higher than for other women\u2019s sports across linear TV.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re finding their own audience, and they have a voice,\u201d Barry said. \u201cPeople are liking this product, and they\u2019re going to find this league. That\u2019s very reassuring when you\u2019re creating something and looking for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnrivaled played all of its games in the 850-seat arena built for the league (and for TV production) last season, but it will on the road for one night in the coming season. On Jan. 30, two games (Breeze vs. Phantom and Rose vs. Lunar Owls) will take place at Philadelphia\u2019s Xfinity Mobile Arena, home of the NBA\u2019s 76ers. \u201cI think it will be fascinating to see what this looks like in a giant arena,\u201d said Learing.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also said staying with TNT Sports for season two of Unrivaled was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d for the league. \u201cWe always wanted to stay. It made the most sense,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a brand new league. We\u2019re entering our second season, and I just think that we wanted to uncomplicate the search for our content as much as possible. And we already had the best partner we could imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s basketball league Unrivaled is expanding in its second season \u2014 both in its number of teams and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85,152885],"class_list":{"0":"post-280289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tnt-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}