Several professional women’s basketball leagues have emerged since the WNBA’s recent rise. Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull thinks those leagues will merge in the future.
Hull, who has played in Athletes Unlimited and Unrivaled, tells Front Office Sports that the schedule and structure of the different offseason leagues work at the moment because of the WNBA’s limited roster spots and relatively short schedule.
But as the WNBA continues to expand, the Stanford graduate believes other leagues may need to consolidate.
“It is great to have other options in Athletes Unlimited and Unrivaled to give players the opportunity to play in the offseason,” Hull said. “I think down the line, I would envision some of those leagues merging together and giving players the opportunity to actually have a full offseason.”
The WNBA season currently runs from May to September. Both Athletes Unlimited and Unrivaled run near the start of the calendar year. Athletes Unlimited runs for about a month, and Unrivaled lasts for about two months.
“The length of those leagues and the length of those seasons are short in the whole scheme of things that we still do get a good amount of time off,” Hull said. “We get a chance to rest our body and recover … I think in the foreseeable future, they’ll definitely still be around and bringing in a lot more eyes for the offseason people that want to watch.”
The WNBA season can be pushed into late November under the new CBA. After this year’s 44-game season, the schedule can max out at 50 games in 2027 and 2028, and 52 games from 2029 to 2032.
Athletes Unlimited and Unrivaled are inherently different leagues. The former plays a traditional 5-on-5 format, while the latter is 3-on-3 basketball. And they also have differences from two other leagues launching this year: The Upshot League and Project B.
Startup League Boom Continues
The Upshot League is a professional league launching May 15 and will run simultaneously with the WNBA season. The four-team league will play in cities without a WNBA franchise: Jacksonville, Savannah, Greensboro, and Charlotte. It’s already been announced that two expansion teams will be coming next year in Baltimore and Nashville.
The league’s commissioner is Donna Orender, the former president of the WNBA. She told Front Office Sports that Upshot can be a “complementary” league to the WNBA.
“We believe that there is a place for us to be partners in a meaningful and impactful way,” Orender said.
Project B is a global basketball league that will run from December to March and will make seven stops across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It’s already signed more than a dozen players, including Nneka Ogwumike and Kelsey Mitchell.
Bigger Salaries, Different Choices
FOS reported late last year that Project B is offering players salaries starting at $2 million, which is more than the supermax salaries in the WNBA, even under the new CBA.
Salaries will also play a factor in players’ interest in joining offseason leagues. The primary reason players played overseas or in other domestic leagues was to supplement their earnings, given the WNBA’s low salaries.
But increased income may change players’ offseason decisions. For example, WNBA superstars A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark, both of whom have multi-million-dollar shoe deals, have never played in Athletes Unlimited or Unrivaled.
