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Sabrina Ionescu will join Unrivaled for its inaugural season, the league announced Monday.
The WNBA champion fills the final 36th spot on the league’s roster spot, meaning months of creative social-media hints across Unrivaled’s social channels have come to an end. (Not all 36 players will be active; Cameron Brink is on a team, but she’s still recovering from an ACL tear and is set to join her team on the court in 2026, along with Paige Bueckers.)
She will join her New York Liberty teammate Breanna Stewart, a league cofounder with Napheesa Collier, in Miami this winter. The season begins Jan. 17.
Ionescu’s Unrivaled deal is significantly higher than what other players signed to play in the league, ESPN reported. The 3-on-3 league would not say how much Ionescu will be paid, but it was prepared to offer Caitlin Clark seven figures—more than the six-figure deals other players reportedly signed. All players receive equity in the league alongside their salary.
The league recently announced $35 million in total funding, and between that and a multiyear TNT deal, the players are getting paid. ESPN reported Monday the league’s 36 players will share an $8 million salary pool, which would make the average salary more than $200,000. That would be on the high end of the WNBA pay scale, for an eight-week season that requires no travel. The WNBA season typically takes place from May to October. (Both leagues give players free housing.) The Liberty pay Ionescu $205,030 per year, which makes her the league’s 14th-highest-paid player.
Unrivaled drafted players onto its six basketball clubs in November, with a small number of wild-card spots remaining. Ionescu joins Phantom BC, whose players include Natasha Cloud, Brittney Griner, Marina Mabrey, Satou Sabally (Ionescu’s former Oregon teammate), and Katie Lou Samuelson. The team will be coached by Adam Harrington, a former NBA player and coach who most recently served as a Nets assistant from 2016 to 2022.
Ionescu is one of the most popular players in the WNBA, and her addition immediately raises the profile of the league. She has one of the most-worn shoes in the NBA this season, according to Nick DePaula. She’s also a big ratings boost: NBA All-Star Saturday night viewership reached its highest level in four years in 2024, peaking with 5.4 million viewers during the three-point competition between Ionescu and Stephen Curry.
For a league that couldn’t land Clark and lost Kelsey Plum, Ionescu is a great addition for a fan favorite point guard. And the pickup is music to TNT Sports’ ears after the broadcaster both signed a media deal with and invested in the new league.
Ionescu had a poor showing in the end of the WNBA Finals, and it was later revealed she had played through a high-grade UCL tear on her shooting hand that she sustained in Game 4. Ionescu had surgery on her thumb Dec. 6 and was expected to be out for about four weeks, putting her return just before the start of Unrivaled’s season.
