{"id":323726,"date":"2025-12-01T07:39:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323726\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T07:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T07:39:05","slug":"sophie-cunningham-signs-with-project-b-basketball-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323726\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham signs with Project B basketball league"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Cunningham has become the eighth WNBA player<\/a> — and perhaps most marquee name — to sign with the fledgling overseas league Project B in another move that lends credibility to the venture.<\/p>\n

Considering Cunningham has 1.6 million followers on TikTok and 1.3 million on Instagram — and played with Caitlin Clark on the Fever last season — her arrival follows the apparent Project B blueprint: Bring in the most talented players available who can drum up global interest on social media. <\/p>\n

When talking about exposure for the league\u2019s inaugural season beginning November 2026, co-founder Grady Burnett — a former sales and operations executive at Facebook and Google — said player storytelling through digital outlets will be tantamount for growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at Facebook when we bought Instagram and I was running global sales and I went to Mark [Zuckerberg] on the Tuesday after we closed the deal,\u201d Burnett told SBJ. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Mark, we\u2019re going to get so much more money. Zuck, this is awesome.\u2019 And he\u2019s like, \u2018Grady, we\u2019re not going to make a dollar of revenue on Instagram for five years.\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018All I care about is the dynamics of distribution and engagement. I want eyeballs and I want the network built and the flywheel going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnett went on to explain how player exposure — though not mentioning Cunningham specifically — will drive leaguewide growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere could be a deep dive on stories that will be told by the players as well,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cI mean somebody goes to Japan and they\u2019re really interested in anime, and they do a deep dive on anime. Or somebody\u2019s really interested in wine and they do a deep dive because we\u2019re in France or somewhere else. We want those types of stories to be told.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cunningham\u2019s contract terms were undisclosed, but reports have had annual salaries as high as $2M, plus an equity stake in the league. \u201cOur game is exploding in popularity, and I\u2019m all in on carrying that momentum forward in any way I can, both at home in the US and beyond,\u201d Cunningham wrote<\/a> on the Project B website.<\/p>\n

With the WNBA collective bargaining agreement in limbo, Project B has gained expedited attention and traction. The other W players to have signed are WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike<\/a>, Alyssa Thomas, Jonquel Jones, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Mitchell, Kamilla Cardoso and Janelle Salaun. By launch, Project B intends to have six teams and a total of 66 players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Cunningham has become the eighth WNBA player — and perhaps most marquee name — to sign with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-323726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}