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PHILADELPHIA — For the first time in decades, women’s pro basketball returned to the city Friday night.
Unrivaled showed that demand for the sport is plainly there.
The 3-on-3 league co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart drew a crowd of 21,490, making it the most attended regular season women’s pro basketball game ever and the most attended event ever at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
“It was unbelievable,” Collier said. “I mean, just the energy even when we announced it was crazy. The city is clearly ready for professional women’s basketball.”
Philadelphia hasn’t had a professional women’s basketball team since the Philadelphia Rage, one of the American Basketball League’s eight original franchises. The league launched in 1996 with a traditional basketball season starting in the fall and extending through the winter. In December of 1998 the league abruptly folded.
Dawn Staley was a player on the Rage’s inaugural roster. Sitting courtside at Friday night’s game, she marveled at how the sport has grown in her hometown in the nearly three decades since it last was home to professional women’s basketball.
“When we were here with the Rage it was kind of forced on Philly,” Staley told Front Office Sports. “It makes me sad…But I don’t think this would be happening now if there was no Rage.”
Unrivaled’s eight-week season is played in a small Miami venue with a max capacity of roughly 1,000 fans. Philadelphia was the league’s first tour stop. Collier said the league had to secure Xfinity Mobile Arena about a year in advance. The league is in the process of finalizing plans for multiple tour stops for its third season, but Collier declined to specify the exact number and locations where the league will be headed in 2027.
While Unrivaled has a clear demand for large in-person audiences, the league has struggled to translate that to viewership. The ratings across TNT and TruTV in the first two weeks of the season saw a steep decline year-over-year, further emphasizing the potential value of adding more tour stops in the future.
Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, Robin Roberts, and Kyle Lowry were among those in attendance Friday.
The two-game slate was highlighted by Natasha Cloud and Kahleah Copper’s return to the area. Cloud is from Broomall, Pennsylvania while Copper—like Staley—is a North Philadelphia native. Xfinity Mobile Arena, which is home to the Philadelphia 76ers and the Flyers typically has a max capacity of around 21,000. Unrivaled’s format features a compressed court which allowed for more floor seating, a league spokesperson said.
“My mother showed me the Rage,” Lowry told FOS. “The one word you put in is inspiration. What these women have done and this league has done is inspire the community to come together and support women’s basketball.”
The WNBA announced three new expansion teams—Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia—last June. All are owned by the NBA ownership group in each city and each paid a record $250 million expansion fee. The Cleveland team will debut in 2028, Detroit in 2029, and the Philadelphia team in 2030.
“There’s been years and years of debate,” Staley said. “The debate is over now, Philly has shown up in a big way to let everybody know we’re ready and 2030 can’t get here quick enough.”
The WNBA is expanding to 15 teams in 2026, with the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire joining the fold.
However, the start to the WNBA’s 30th season—which is scheduled for May 8—is at risk of being delayed as the league and union remain deadlocked in CBA negotiations. The sides will meet in person in New York City on Monday. Members of the WNBPA executive leadership, including Collier, Kelsey Plum, and Nneka Ogwumike, will be in attendance marking the first time players and the league are meeting in person since the fall.
When asked about Monday’s meeting, Collier chose to focus on Unrivaled.
“[The record attendance] is just a testament to what we’re building here, and how much people believe in it,” Collier said. “To have the city show out like this and break a record in all of women’s professional basketball here tonight, and it be Unrivaled I think it’s just amazing.”
