WNBA Finals: Stewart, Collier Clash as Unrivaled Business Partners

WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are united in their effort to change the landscape of pro women’s basketball with their new venture, Unrivaled, a Miami-based 3-on-3 league set to launch in January. But the business partners are temporarily putting their alliance aside as their teams clash in the 2024 WNBA Finals.

“It goes to show what we’re doing,” Stewart said after practice Wednesday. “It’s amazing for both of us to be in the Finals and in a few months from now having the launch of Unrivaled. It’s going to be competitive in the Finals and it’s going to be competitive in Miami.”

Collier’s Lynx took a 1-0 series lead Thursday night with a thrilling 95-93 overtime victory in Brooklyn, thanks in part to a missed Stewart free throw with 0.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter that kept the game tied at the end of regulation.

The former UConn All-Americans, who helped Team USA win its eight consecutive gold medal this past summer in Paris, are behind the concept of the new alternative league, which will be led by commissioner and former longtime tennis executive Micky Lawler.

“With her being a mom (too), obviously USA Basketball, and now being business partners together, we have rekindled our bond since college,” Stewart said of Collier. “I’m happy to see all the success she’s had on and off the court and expect it to be a battle.”

Stewart and the New York Liberty are looking for their first league title in their 28-year franchise history, while Collier and the Minnesota Lynx aim to capture their first since Maya Moore lifted them to a championship in 2017. This year’s matchup between the two Unrivaled co-founders comes during a banner year for the WNBA that has highlighted the overall growth of women’s sports.

Unrivaled is an extension of this development as sponsors and investors ride the momentum behind women’s basketball. The six-team league provides star players opportunities to remain stateside during the WNBA offseason; in the past, many have needed to play abroad.

“The basketball gods are working,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell said in an interview. “It’s an exciting time. More than anything, it shows the work that the (two) have put in as athletes and the extra work they’ve put in that traditional athletes are not doing which has been more gratifying because they’ve had more on their plate to balance.”

Bazzell, who trains WNBA and NBA players, plans to use his trip to New York to not only support his wife, Collier, but also take meetings and mingle with stakeholders and potential Unrivaled partners. He says the league is planning to announce a slate of new brand partners and investors that have signed on ahead of opening night on Jan. 17.

“You are never done fundraising (but) we have sort of moved on past the active investor stage,” said Bazzell, who envisions the single-entity league eventually moving to a more traditional model and selling franchises to individual owners. “It’s not a vision that happens in a day, but we don’t have to rush the process. It’s just keeping out options for what may lie ahead.”

Unrivaled, which is paying its players six-figure salaries and offering league equity stake, plans to use the Finals as a unique moment to drive attention to the upstart league. There are plans for merchandise rollouts along with marketing promos that will span across social media and other platforms.

The Finals also feature other Unrivaled players in Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot as well as Lnyx guards Courtney Williams and Kayla McBride.

In recent months, Unrivaled has managed to sign other stars like Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner and another UConn All-American in Paige Bueckers, who is expected to join in 2026 because she will be on college basketball duty in January 2025. While the league has also signed Chicago Sky standout rookie Angel Reese, it has yet to get the nod from the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year, Caitlin Clark. The Indiana Fever star is expected to take a break from basketball this offseason but has not publicly announced if she will participate.

“Every player you have to treat differently, and that’s the advantage of not being collectively bargained,” Bazell added. “For us, we have not closed the book on this season but we’re going to respect all of her wishes… It’s not a decision we make on the behalf of any of the players and all we can do is provide what we feel is a favorable package that is hard to turn down.”

Nonetheless, the league is poised to finalize media rights and venue agreements soon while paying close attention to the next development behind the WNBA’s current collective bargaining agreement. The benefits from Unrivaled are expected to be factored into negotiations if the W or the Players Association indeed opts out of the current CBA before the upcoming deadline next month.

The players would enter discussions for a new deal with leverage regardless given the major spike across several business categories since the last deal was ratified in 2020.

With the backdrop of the WNBA Finals, there are key dates coming up for the pro women’s basketball world—including the CBA deadline and opening night for Unrivaled. But for now Stewart and Collier are focused on the most important series of the year. The two business partners stand in each other’s way of padding their trophy cases once more.

Only one of them will go into the preseason press run and inaugural Unrivaled season with bragging rights.