{"id":412968,"date":"2026-01-14T19:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/412968\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T19:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T19:38:09","slug":"can-unrivaled-drive-womens-basketball-growth-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/412968\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Unrivaled Drive Women\u2019s Basketball Growth Higher?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The second season of Unrivaled tipped off a few weeks ago. For those who are unfamiliar, Unrivaled is 3-on-3 pro women\u2019s basketball with a short season playing from early January through early March. Games take place during the WNBA offseason, and all players also play in the WNBA.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s launch arrived at a watershed moment for women\u2019s basketball. Sports Poll data showed unprecedented fan base gains for both the WNBA and women\u2019s college basketball in 2024, driven by the emergence of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ssrs.com\/?attachment_id=14323\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Womens-Basketball-Fans-by-Year.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What does Unrivaled add to the women\u2019s basketball landscape? The WNBA and women\u2019s college basketball have the two largest fan bases of any women\u2019s leagues in the US today. While most Unrivaled fans (those at least a little bit interested) are already fans of either the WNBA or women\u2019s college basketball, early signs show that Unrivaled can extend the reach of women\u2019s basketball. Sports Poll data showed that 13% of fans were only fans of Unrivaled in 2025. Among AVID fans (very interested), it\u2019s even higher. Over 1\/3 were only AVID fans of Unrivaled last year. The Unrivaled fan base skews younger and more female than WNBA or women\u2019s college basketball fans. It\u2019s also more diverse.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ssrs.com\/?attachment_id=14322\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Overlap-of-Womens-Basketball-Fans.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ssrs.com\/?attachment_id=14324\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Composition-of-Womens-Basketball-Fans.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a>Fandom doesn\u2019t always translate to engagement, though. One challenge is that Unrivaled fans are bigger sports fans (nearly half identify as AVID sports fans). That means there is more competition for their free time \u2013 especially during a window when the NFL, college football, NBA, college basketball, NHL, and the Olympics (soon) are all in action.<\/p>\n<p>Another challenge is the lack of star power. Although notable players for this season include Paige Bueckers and Breanna Stewart, Unrivaled doesn\u2019t have Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese (the two accounted for 60% of all favorite WNBA player mentions in Sports Poll in 2025). We\u2019ll be watching to see if Unrivaled can add to the momentum for women\u2019s basketball or if the greater competition limits fan engagement in its second season.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on women\u2019s basketball and our 30+ years of sports intelligence, please contact <a href=\"https:\/\/ssrs.com\/ssrs-solutions\/sports-poll\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Sports Poll team.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second season of Unrivaled tipped off a few weeks ago. For those who are unfamiliar, Unrivaled is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-412968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412968","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=412968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}