Russell Westbrook is following up his iconic NBA playing career by getting involved in a new global basketball league.<\/p>\n
Westbrook is joining Project B as co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, the organization announced<\/a> Wednesday.<\/p>\n The nine-time NBA All-Star “will take an active role in shaping the company’s basketball strategy and long-term vision,” according to Project B.<\/p>\n Westbrook also holds an ownership stake in Project B. The men’s and women’s basketball league set to compete in Asia, Europe and the Americas after tipping off its inaugural season in January 2027.<\/p>\n The new role will involve creating collaborations with companies that Westbrook has been previously been involved with “across media, consumer products and community programming,” according to Project B.<\/p>\n Since founding his investment company Russell Westbrook Enterprises, Westbrook has been involved in investment opportunities ranging from auto part manufacturing<\/a> to artificial intelligence startups<\/a>. He told Forbes’ Matt Craig<\/a> in 2023 his goal was to someday be a billionaire.<\/p>\n Spotrac<\/a> reports Westbrook earned almost $350 million in salary through his 18-season NBA career, which ended<\/a> Aug. 12 when he announced his retirement from playing.<\/p>\n Westbrook isn’t the only current or former professional athlete to get involved in Project B since the league was first founded by tech executives Geoff Prentice and Grady Burnett.<\/p>\n The company is also led by former Atlanta Hawks general manager Landry Fields, who is serving as head of men’s basketball, and former WNBA star Alana Beard, who has been hired as chief basketball officer.<\/p>\n Other investors have included former NFL quarterback Steve Young, women’s basketball icons Candace Parker, Lauren Jackson and Cheryl Miller, and tennis stars Novak Djokovic and Sloane Stephens, per Front Office Sports’ Ben Horney and Daniel Roberts<\/a> and Forbes’ Allison Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n The league has already signed<\/a> current WNBA players including Azzi Fudd, Nneka Ogwumike, Alyssa Thomas, Jonquel Jones, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Mitchell and Sophie Cunningham.<\/p>\n Stops on Project’s B first season are set to include Valencia, Spain<\/a> and Tokyo, Japan<\/a>. The league has previously said each city is expected to host a 10-day tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Westbrook is following up his iconic NBA playing career by getting involved in a new global basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-880907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880907","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=880907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}