{"id":266804,"date":"2026-01-31T08:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T08:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/266804\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T08:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T08:19:09","slug":"unrivaled-sets-womens-pro-basketball-attendance-mark-of-21490-in-philly-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/266804\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrivaled sets women\u2019s pro basketball attendance mark of 21,490 in Philly | Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natasha Cloud rooted for the 76ers as a kid growing up in suburban Philadelphia<\/a> and \u2013 like so many hoopsters back in the day \u2013 idolized Allen Iverson.<\/p>\n

So when the former WNBA<\/a> champion and current New York Liberty standout hit the same court where Iverson once dazzled, Cloud couldn\u2019t help but look up to his retired No 3 jersey in the rafters and let the moment truly sink in; that women\u2019s professional basketball was back in Philadelphia for the first time in nearly 30 years \u2013 and she was a key figure in the comeback.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, like how crazy it is that I\u2019m standing here about to play for the first time professionally in my home city,\u201d Cloud said.<\/p>\n

Cloud plays for Phantom BC, one of the teams in the burgeoning 3-on-3 women\u2019s professional basketball league, Unrivaled. Unrivaled hit the road for the first time in its brief history, breaking free of its Florida bubble to expand its reach and stage two games on Friday night in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The first tour stop was a smashing success.<\/p>\n

Cloud held an \u201cAbolish Ice\u201d sign as she was introduced to a roaring ovation from a professional women\u2019s basketball regular-season record crowd of 21,490 that included Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, Sixers guard Kyle Lowry, and comedians Leslie Jones and Wanda Sykes.<\/p>\n

The previous regular-season attendance record of 20,711 was set in the WNBA by the Indiana Fever and Washington Mystics on 19 September 2024.<\/p>\n

Kelsey Plum scored 22 points to lead the Phantom to a 71-68 win over the Breeze in the first game. Marina Mabrey then gave the record-setting crowd a record to cheer on \u2013 she scored an Unrivaled-high 47 points to lead the Lunar Owls to an 85-75 win over Philly native Kahleah Copper and league champion Rose.<\/p>\n

Copper, the 2021 WNBA NBA Finals MVP for the Chicago Sky, played her role as both tour guide \u2013 she took her teammates to Dalessandro\u2019s Steaks \u2013 and promoter \u2013 she needed 64 tickets to the event \u2013 to perfection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the city is ready for women\u2019s professional sports,\u201d Copper said. \u201cI\u2019m excited that, one, that it\u2019s here, and two, that I\u2019m a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philly\u2019s rich basketball history is largely comprised of household name Hall of Famers and All-Stars out of the men\u2019s game. Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant played high school basketball in the area. Sixers stars from Iverson to Julius Erving to Joel Embiid have brought fans to their feet for decades.<\/p>\n

Yet no women\u2019s pro game had been played in the city since 1998 when the Philadelphia Rage played for the now-defunct American Basketball<\/a> League. Philly native Dawn Staley, who attended the doubleheader, has carried the banner for women\u2019s basketball out of the city \u2013 her hometown street was named in her honor in 2017 \u2013 but the college teams have largely been immaterial on the national scene.<\/p>\n

Unrivaled\u2019s debut is the expected first step toward Philly basketball breaking into the conversation as a women\u2019s hotbed of hoops. Pep rallies and watch parties sprouted Friday night around Philly and a pair of lower bowl tickets on the secondary markets matched the price and high demand of recent Sixers\u2019 games.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia is planning on a new arena that will be completed hopefully by 2030 and will serve as the new home for the WNBA team set to join the league.<\/p>\n

For all the hype in the city \u2013 Cloud gave a shoutout to a credentialed media member wearing a Philly Loves Women\u2019s Sports sweatshirt \u2013 Unrivaled\u2019s doubleheader also comes at a pivotal moment for a league experiencing growing pains in televised viewership in its second season.<\/p>\n

The eight-team league is averaging 92,000 viewers on TNT and truTV, down 49% from last year through the comparable number of games (183,000 through 26 games). Unrivaled telecasts on TNT in primetime are averaging 68% fewer viewers than primetime programming on TNT the four weeks prior to Unrivaled starting (93,000 viewers v 291,000).<\/p>\n

While ratings matter to prove 3-on-3 is more than a novelty act, Cloud focused more on the packed house later that night as proof of \u201chow hot, booming, [in-]demand, that women\u2019s sports, women\u2019s basketball in general is, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, Unrivaled\u2019s first tour stop in Philadelphia could represent a proving ground on whether taking the product on the road can lead to new revenue and expand the league\u2019s fan base, while recalibrating a business model that was originally rooted in centralization.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to see Unrivaled tour more often,\u201d said Breeze forward Cameron Brink. \u201cWe saw that this is a city that wants to cheer on women\u2019s basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brink flashed a TikTok-worthy moment when she dunked at practice Thursday for the first time since the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks star suffered a torn ACL in her left knee in June.<\/p>\n

Breeze and former UConn star Paige Bueckers \u2013 the 2021 AP Player of the Year \u2013 are just two of the players responsible for packing the place on Friday night. Unrivaled players participated in community events and connected with fans \u2013 especially young girls \u2013 that opened their eyes to how starved the Philly sports scene is for professional women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see the turnout, to see the sold-out arena, to just see the love that they have for women\u2019s sports, it means a lot for the future too in terms of getting a WNBA team,\u201d Bueckers said. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool just for the game to continue to expand and for us to see that turnaround and for us to see that support everywhere we go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell did not specifically take questions Friday but popped into the press room for a brief rah-rah speech and suggested more touring dates could be ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to make the sports world proud by the product we put out,\u201d Bazell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natasha Cloud rooted for the 76ers as a kid growing up in suburban Philadelphia and \u2013 like so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-266804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}