How Unrivaled Won and Lost in Year 1

Year 1 of Unrivaled is in the books, and like any new league, the first season had its ups and downs. 

The groundbreaking professional women’s basketball league—which paid its players an average salary of $220,000, not far from the max WNBA salary of about $249,000 for the 2025 season—lured a ton of WNBA stars, secured more than 20 corporate sponsors, built a state-of-the-art arena in Miami, and agreed to a multiyear TV deal with TNT.

The full-court, 3-on-3 product was fast-paced and its midseason one-on-one tournament received praise for being innovative—especially as it finished the same weekend as the NBA’s highly criticized All-Star weekend.

However, the league also struggled with roster construction as injuries forced teams to sign relief players. Some, like Natisha Hiedeman, were forced to play on multiple teams throughout the season, and a game was even canceled in early February due to “player health and safety.”

“I think we’re proud of what we’ve done,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell said in a press conference after Monday’s final. “But there’s also an even deeper drive to do a bit more. … I think it’s on us to continue to raise the bar with the players.”

Building a Foundation of Viewers

Bazzell told Front Office Sports even before the season began in January that he didn’t expect the league to draw ratings that would rival the WNBA’s. His prediction proved to be true.

Unrivaled announced Thursday that it averaged 221,000 viewers across the regular season and playoffs on games simulcast on TNT and truTV. Its most-watched games were the one-on-one tournament final between league cofounder Napheesa Collier and Aaliyah Edwards on Feb. 14 that averaged 377,000 viewers and the championship game Monday that drew 364,000 viewers.

Those numbers pale in comparison to the WNBA’s, which averaged 1.2 million viewers on ESPN networks last year. It’s even less than the 505,000 average on ABC, ESPN, and CBS in 2023—the year before Caitlin Clark arrived in the WNBA.

But the WNBA is nearly 30 years old. Bazzell believes the early ratings are a decent base for the league.

“I think we’ve built an incredible foundation based on what viewership is. Now it’s our job to figure out how we grow that a bit,” Bazzell said.

TNT Sports chief content officer Craig Barry told FOS he considers the inaugural season “a success” largely because of the quality of the competition and the “consistency of the audience.”

“We’ve had this kind of consistent audience and that for me is foundational,” Barry said. “You can continue to grow that audience, especially if you bring in new talent and make a certain amount of adjustments.”

The addition of more star power—particularly Caitlin Clark, who declined a seven-figure offer from the league to join this year—could be on the table. League execs have indicated the offer to join Unrivaled will always be on the table for Clark, though college stars Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins have already invested in the league and are expected to join once they are eligible.

Unrivaled’s high salaries and abundant perks have both given players a base in labor negotiations, and some leverage against the league. For the top players, a strike becomes far more palatable with an Unrivaled salary looming, and there’s some possibility that Unrivaled is the only domestic product available to women’s basketball fans if the WNBA is mired in a labor fight. A strike is on the table in 2026 if the league and union can’t reach a new collective bargaining agreement—something that WNBPA player representative DiJonai Carrington called “a possibility” on the Unapologetically Angel podcast earlier this month.

Expansion Is Coming—but It’s Unclear How or When

Unrivaled featured six teams this year and all played in the Wayfair Arena in Miami that fit 850 fans. According to league commissioner Micky Lawler, the league will stick to its six teams in Florida, though it will eventually grow.

“We will expand. We will go to other markets,” Lawler said at the press conference Monday.

According to Barry, WBD would welcome expansion and is prepared to support the league if it decides to play games in other markets or in bigger venues. TNT Sports supervisory producer Ann Lutzenkirchen told Sports Business Journal last week that it was a “very repetitive broadcast” and wished the league would go on the road all the time.

However, Lawler and Bazzell said they still need to pinpoint what exactly expansion means and when it can happen. Part of the draw of Unrivaled is that it can pay players significantly more than what they receive in the WNBA, and Bazzell acknowledged that expansion could “dilute” that pool of funds.

But he did confirm the league will attempt to curb its issue on injuries by creating a “developmental pool of players” who will be in Miami throughout the season and can replace those on teams dealing with injuries.