Contrary to what ESPN might want you to believe, the WNBA and women’s basketball more broadly isn’t very popular.
Caitlin Clark is popular.
But Clark just handed this new “social justice” sports league a rude awakening.
New socialist basketball league set to debut
A new three-on-three women’s basketball league called Unrivaled will be launching in Miami in January 2025.
The founders of the new federation are building around Caitlan Clark’s biggest – certainly not best, but biggest – rival, Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese.
Reese signed on with the league under the promise of huge paydays.
Bounding Into Sports is reporting Unrivaled is banking on woke Diversity Equity & Inclusion marketing to put butts in the seats.
According to Bounding Into Sports, the league is promising the ladies six-figure salaries, which is roughly the same salary the WNBA pays to the one-third or so of players.
Unrivaled is also promoting an “equitable” pay structure for league players.
They haven’t divulged the details, but “equitable” sounds like the gals will all be compensated relatively evenly regardless of their individual contribution to the team or the number of tickets they sell.
Unrivaled is doomed to be DOA
Many WNBA players and sports media members are celebrating Unrivaled for getting the women one step closer to the payouts to their male counterparts.
However, that’s exactly what is likely to sink the league.
Thanks to the Caitlin Clark effect, the WNBA just had the best season in its history.
Despite Caitlin Clark, the WNBA will lose $40 million and NBA owners are not happy @dandakich pic.twitter.com/C7yGpfS6EL
— OutKick (@Outkick) October 21, 2024
But despite that, Outkick Sports is reporting the league still ended the season $40 million in the red.
In fact, the WNBA has only survived as long as it has because it’s been heavily subsidized each year by the NBA and ESPN.
But if the WNBA lost tens of millions of dollars in its best season ever, how will a league that is looking to pay players’ even more possibly hope to turn a profit?
Unless Unrivaled is planning to operate as a non-profit organization.
And the startup association was just dealt a devastating death blow dashing its dreams.
Clark delivers bad news for Unrivaled
Bounding Into Sports is now reporting that Caitlin Clark had declined Unrivaled’s offer to join the league.
Apparently, she’s going to be too busy working on her golf game to be bothered with carrying another start-up league on her back.
Caitlin Clark nearly takes out someone at The Annika Pro-Am😬 pic.twitter.com/VhdhWV8kRA
— OutKick (@Outkick) November 13, 2024
No reason for Clark’s rejection of the contract was offered in the report.
According to Bounding Into Sports, the startup put on the full court press to ink the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year to a contract.
Unrivaled not only offered Clark a $1 million salary – roughly four-times more than the WNBA’s highest paid players – but they also offered her an ownership stake in one of the teams.
All that and the league was only asking her for a three-month commitment.
How that massive offer squared with Unrivaled’s promise of “equitable” payments for the ladies is anyone’s guess.
The rest of the players will be receiving six figure contracts, not seven like Clark was offered.
An outside observer could be excused if they looked at that discrepancy in Clark’s offer compared to the rest of the players as Unrivaled acknowledging that players that will help their team win more and sell more tickets and merchandise are worth paying more money.
Or, in other words, capitalism.
