{"id":101339,"date":"2026-01-31T03:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/101339\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:46:11","slug":"philadelphia-shows-the-love-for-unrivaled-with-21000-seat-sellout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/101339\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia shows the love for Unrivaled with 21,000-seat sellout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ninety minutes before tipoff, Unrivaled received a warm welcome from Philadelphia before a ball was even dribbled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A swarm of fans entered Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday night to take in the 3-on-3, Miami-based league\u2019s first tour stop amid its second season after it was co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Liberty star Breanna Stewart<\/a> in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One fan entering the venue immediately said, \u201cAlright, where\u2019s the merch?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another, seeing the lines that grew to look endless, said \u201cOh my god, maybe not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a positive start to the barnstorming stop that was announced in October and was announced Jan. 14 as a 21,000-seat sellout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paige Bueckers of the Breeze controls the ball ahead of Jackie Young of the Laces during the first half at Sephora Arena on January 26, 2026 in Medley, Florida. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Paige Bueckers fan Annabelle and mother, Roslyn, from New York, booked resale tickets this week after the latter said she wanted to go to Philly one day. <\/p>\n

That instantly gave Annabelle a reason to go see for a fourth time her favorite player, whom she started to follow after seeing UConn highlights on social media a year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew since it\u2019s the one time it\u2019s not in Miami, people are going to take this opportunity, but I didn\u2019t think it was going to be this crazy,\u201d Annabelle told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Annabelle (right), who is a huge Paige Bueckers fan, with mother, Roselyn. Bridget Reilly\/New York Post<\/p>\n

Outside of the merchandise store, Unrivaled set up photo ops similar to their media photo shoots, a DJ booth and basketball hoops to get in some practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was easier to get food or a drink than a jersey or take a jump shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But basketball fans in the building didn\u2019t mind, and those from the city have waited 28 years for professional women\u2019s basketball.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lauren and her husband, Steve, of Bensalem, Pa., came because of her love for women\u2019s sports, especially college basketball, and she has followed Unrivaled since the start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as it was announced, we were on that day getting tickets,\u201d Lauren said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lauren and her husband Steve, who live in Pennsylvania Bridget Reilly\/New York Post<\/p>\n

According to a report from Just Women\u2019s Sports<\/a>, the ticket demand for Unrivaled\u2019s one-night-only event was higher than the demand for the 76ers. <\/p>\n

The average ticket price was $165 compared to $85 for the city\u2019s NBA team, the outlet reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Liberty guard and Philadelphia-area native Natasha Cloud reposted it to her Instagram account.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI posted it mainly because I think there has been this question of, do we invest into women\u2019s sports? Do people watch women\u2019s sports? And yes, everyone watches women\u2019s sports,\u201d she said Friday morning at Phantom\u2019s shootaround. \u201cI think that ticket price is a prime example of how high, booming, demanding that women\u2019s basketball and women\u2019s sports in general is right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ninety minutes before tipoff, Unrivaled received a warm welcome from Philadelphia before a ball was even dribbled.\u00a0 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49024,69,71,70,726,49025,37281],"class_list":["post-101339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-sports","tag-unrivaled","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}