Unmatched, the brand new 3×3 basketball league co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, has a TV rights deal. It reached a multi-year take care of TNT Sports activities, and could have its video games broadcast on TNT and TruTV and streamed on Max, the community introduced Wednesday.
TNT Sports activities additionally invested within the league and has taken an fairness stake.
Unmatched is about to tip off on Jan. 17, 2025 and has already attracted a few of the finest girls’s basketball gamers on the planet. Together with its co-founders, Unmatched has gotten commitments from Angel Reese, Chelsea Grey, Kelsey Plum, Jewell Loyd, Kahleah Copper, Rhyne Howard and Arike Ogunbowale.
The league is taking a collaborative strategy to its enterprise mannequin by giving fairness to high gamers who’ve agreed to affix. It has additionally promised to pay the very best common wage in girls’s skilled sports activities league historical past.
The league could have 30 gamers and 6 groups in whole. The groups will play within the winter throughout the WNBA’s offseason.
The deal will give Unmatched two broadcast home windows throughout the week on TNT — Monday and Friday nights — in addition to a Saturday evening TruTV broadcast.
This will even permit TNT Sports activities to proceed carrying skilled basketball. It had been one of many NBA’s rights companions for greater than 30 years, however is getting into the final season of its present media rights settlement with the league. The corporate is suing the NBA to retain these rights and claims it has matching rights that permit it to take action. The NBA disputes that and reached a deal earlier this yr with Disney, NBC and Amazon for its subsequent media deal.
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(Picture: Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE through Getty Photos)
