{"id":277487,"date":"2025-11-12T01:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T01:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277487\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T01:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T01:29:10","slug":"alyssa-thomas-second-wnba-player-to-join-startup-league-project-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277487\/","title":{"rendered":"Alyssa Thomas second WNBA player to join startup league Project B"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Players demand fair pay as WNBA hits record highs<\/p>\n

The WNBA broke records in 2025 \u2014 but players say their pay hasn\u2019t caught up. Inside the fight for fair salaries and a stronger future for the league.<\/p>\n

Phoenix Mercury<\/a> All-Star forward Alyssa Thomas<\/a> is the latest WNBA All-Star to sign with Project B,<\/a> a women’s basketball startup league that is expected to tip off in Europe, Asia and Latin America in November 2026.<\/p>\n

Project B announced<\/a> Tuesday that Thomas will join the league as a “player,” “partner” and “owner,” emphasizing the league’s pledge to offer unprecedented salaries and an equity stake in the startup. In a social media video shared on the league’s platform, Thomas said<\/a> she’s “looking forward to joining Project B.”<\/p>\n

Thomas is the second player to sign on with the startup league founded by former Facebook executive Grady Burnett and Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice.\u00a0Seattle Storm forward and WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike<\/a>\u00a0was the first.<\/p>\n

Project B, which will be made up of six teams of 11, will be played on a traveling circuit, similar to F1 racing, golf and tennis. The league’s main selling point is a promise to dish out salaries larger than the WNBA ($66,079- $249,244 per season) and Unrivaled ($220,000 per season). Front Office Sports reported<\/a>\u00a0that player deals will reach seven-figures and start at $2 million annually.<\/p>\n

PROJECT B: Nneka Ogwumike signs to startup league, set to launch in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Project B is the latest basketball league created in addition to WNBA, following 3-on-3 Unrivaled which played its first season last winter. Like Unrivaled, Project B has put an emphasis on player compensation, which remains a point of contention as WNBA players continue to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the WNBA.<\/p>\n

Thomas led the Mercury to the 2025 WNBA Finals in her first season in Phoenix after posting a league-high eight triple-doubles in the regular season. Thomas signed on to participate in the second season of Unrivaled, which tips off in January. She will be a member of the Laces.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN<\/a>, Project B season will run through April 2027 and will not overlap with the WNBA season.<\/p>\n

Contributing: Heather Burns<\/p>\n

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news \u2014 fast.\u00a0Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players demand fair pay as WNBA hits record highs The WNBA broke records in 2025 \u2014 but players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[26676,4652,5806,461,49,48,3456,2096,8456,44,1333,1345,8455,3461,1334,123086,82,865,25542,630,4134,4143],"class_list":["post-277487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alyssa","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-asia","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-europe","tag-facebook","tag-mercury","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-positive","tag-skype","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-thomas","tag-wnba","tag-womens","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}