{"id":513994,"date":"2026-03-04T15:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T15:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513994\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T15:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T15:47:10","slug":"unrivaled-ceo-shares-post-championship-plans-amid-wnba-cba-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513994\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrivaled CEO Shares Post-Championship Plans Amid WNBA CBA Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMist Basketball Club and Phantom BC will play for Unrivaled<\/a>\u2019s championship Wednesday to conclude the 3-on-3 league\u2019s second season. After that, it\u2019s unclear when women\u2019s basketball\u2019s biggest names will face off next.<\/p>\n

\n\tUsually, players would be about to turn their attention to WNBA<\/a> preparations around this time. But if negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement don\u2019t lead to a pact before March 10, the beginning of the WNBA season could be delayed, the league said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf there is a work stoppage or missed games, Unrivaled is unlikely to spin up its own alternative, even though player Natasha Cloud\u00a0hinted<\/a>\u00a0at that possibility earlier this year, and the league has proven the ability to put on events on short notice. Monday\u2019s sellout of Brooklyn\u2019s Barclay\u2019s Center, the home of the WNBA\u2019s New York Liberty, for semifinal games came together in a matter of weeks after a January sellout in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe winners of Wednesday\u2019s championship (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT\/truTV) will earn $600,000 to be split among the roster of 6-7 players.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell said before Monday\u2019s games that potential pop-up contests would distract from the league\u2019s longer-term growth plans. And a CBA could come at any time, eliminating the need for alternate action.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe get asked a lot by players, naturally,\u201d Bazzell said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t focus any of our time on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPhantom guard and WNBPA first vice-president Kelsey Plum spent much of her pregame media availability period before Monday\u2019s semifinal contest answering questions about where players stood amid CBA talks. The same was true for Unrivaled co-founder, Mist forward and WNBPA VP Breanna Stewart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe biggest priority right now is to come to an agreement,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cBoth sides need to see the wins that we do have, and then we really have to kind of collab on this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInternal CBA talks were scheduled for Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday\u2019s final. According to ESPN, Plum and Stewart recently wrote a three-page letter to union executive director Terri Jackson expressing \u201cserious concerns\u201d about how the PA has handled negotiations to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Unrivaled finale, Plum and Stewart will transition back to 5-on-5 play with a USA Basketball training camp ahead of the FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico next week.\u00a0Stewart has also committed to play a short stint for EuroLeague team Fenerbahce Opet in April.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn paper, training camp is scheduled to start April 19. But that\u2019s just on paper.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe WNBA sent its latest proposal to union leaders on Sunday. It included changes to rookie pay that would allow the best newcomers\u2014think Caitlin Clark or Paige Bueckers\u2014to earn a max salary earlier in their careers. The league has proposed a 2026 salary cap of $5.75 million in 2026 (up 280% from last year\u2019s roughly $1.5 million) and growing from there.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe union is pushing for hundreds of millions of dollars more for athletes over the course of the multiyear agreement compared to W proposals. Players voted in December to authorize a strike, though on Monday Plum and Stewart emphasized the downside ramifications of that tactic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBoth sides aren\u2019t moving,\u201d Bueckers, the 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year, said Monday. \u201cWe need to continue to have these conversations, continue to actually have change implemented for us to move on our stance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnrivaled executives, meanwhile, will soon turn their attention to making tweaks for Season 3. TV ratings dropped<\/a> at the start of the 2026 season, in part because schedule changes led to a larger overlap with college football and NFL playoffs, though Bazzell said \u201cour viewership has been growing week over week\u201d since then.<\/p>\n

\n\tTNT Sports EVP and chief content officer Craig Barry said the games in bigger, packed venues had a clear impact on the broadcast at home as well. Throughout the season, Unrivaled also brought a comparatively high ratio of female viewers to the company\u2019s channels. TNT will cover Wednesday\u2019s final starting with a pregame show from Miami\u2019s Sephora Arena, directly following a U.S.-Canada women\u2019s soccer match.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c(Unrivaled) has proven time and time again that it drives a large, bespoke audience,\u201d Barry said. \u201cIt\u2019s a highly sustainable product.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnrivaled commissioner Micky Lawler said the league made roughly $45 million in revenue this year, up 67% over the league\u2019s first year as it began embracing a touring model, with eyes on visiting even more locations next season. It is also considering expanding the capacity in its Miami home base.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, rather than trying to capitalize on WNBA labor<\/a> drama, Bazzell sounds as eager as anyone for the back-and-forth to conclude. \u201cHopefully, there\u2019s a CBA signed,\u201d he said, \u201cso I can stop getting asked this question.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mist Basketball Club and Phantom BC will play for Unrivaled\u2019s championship Wednesday to conclude the 3-on-3 league\u2019s second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,1571,82,4646,630],"class_list":["post-513994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-labor","tag-sports","tag-unrivaled","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513994","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=513994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}