The ABA Moment of Women’s Basketball
Why the WNBA suddenly has competition, leverage, and a lot of people sitting up straighter
Women’s basketball is having the kind of glow-up that makes you stop mid-scroll and think,
“Wait… were you always this iconic, or did I just finally start paying attention?”
The WNBA is rising. Stars are everywhere. The culture is loud. Jerseys are selling. Games are trending.
And while everyone’s celebrating (as they should), here’s the plot twist:
The WNBA is no longer the only default lane.
That’s not panic. That’s power shifting.
Enter three new forces: Unrivaled, Athletes Unlimited, and Project B, not as cartoon villains, but as competitors doing exactly what the ABA once did to the NBA: creating leverage that forces evolution.
This isn’t about destruction. It’s about modernization, with receipts.
Step one: the “customer” changed (and they’re wearing suits)
David Halberstam nailed this decades ago: once basketball becomes a television product, the customer isn’t just fans in the stands trying not to spill their drink in Row 12.
It’s advertisers. Networks. Ratings. Distribution. Inventory.
Suddenly, the audience includes people who don’t know what a box-out is, but can tell you exactly which time slot is “underperforming” — and why it’s somehow your fault.
That shift changes everything:
expansion logic
ownership incentives
labor negotiations
What the league optimizes for
How much power players can realistically claim
Translation: when the money arrives, competitors arrive. And everyone’s leverage changes.
The WNBA’s tension: massive growth, very reasonable questions
The WNBA is growing fast! And that’s the good news.
The complicated news is that growth doesn’t automatically mean players are paid in proportion to the value they generate, especially in a league with layered ownership and revenue structures.
So players are asking the question that always shows up at this stage of the story:
“If the league is worth more, why doesn’t our share reflect that?”
This is where Napheesa Collier becomes more than a quote.
She’s not “where’s my paycheck?” energy.
She’s leadership-with-receipts energy.
She’s the person who walks into the group chat and says,
“Accountability is not optional.”
And once that happens publicly, you don’t get to move on quietly. The toothpaste is out. It’s signed a lease. It’s not going back in the tube.
Athletes Unlimited: the league that said “what if we stayed home?”
For years, women’s pro basketball came with an unspoken subscription plan:
WNBA in the summer → overseas in the winter (if you wanted real income).
Athletes Unlimited helped break that binary.
It offers:
a U.S.-based offseason option
flexibility
a structure that doesn’t require “international basketball nomad” as a job requirement
Think of AU as the league that said,
“How about overseas basketball is not a mandatory winter internship… especially one with no HR department?”
AU doesn’t need to be bigger than the WNBA to be a competitor.
It just needs to be real enough that players have options.
And options create leverage.
Unrivaled: the innovation lab and the power shift
If Athletes Unlimited cracked the offseason model, Unrivaled goes straight at the design and power structure.
Unrivaled; co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, is built like an innovation lab:
3-on-3 as the core product
a standalone 1-on-1 tournament
faster, TV-friendly pacing
club-style identity
social-native distribution
This is classic ABA behavior: experiment with format and spectacle until the incumbent has to pay attention.
But here’s the part that actually changes the game:
The players aren’t just the talent. They’re the builders.
That means the conversation isn’t only “how do we play?”
It’s “who owns the product, the identity, and the future?”
That’s not rebellion.
That’s redesign.
Project B: the salary bazooka (even if it never fires)
Then there’s Project B, the bold newcomer casually floating seven-figure salary numbers like they’re ordering coffee.
It’s the equivalent of bringing a bazooka to a water-balloon fight.
You don’t even have to fire it.
You just have to set it on the table and watch everyone suddenly sit up straighter.
Here’s the key point: Project B doesn’t need to fully succeed to work.
It just needs to exist — loudly — while negotiations are happening.
Once those numbers are in the air, every conversation changes:
pay expectations
leverage in the next CBA
What “market value” even means
This isn’t about morality.
It’s basic economics in sneakers.
And Halberstam warned us what happens next: when money rises, and contracts become more secure, authority shifts. Leadership becomes persuasion, not command. Organizations can’t just tell stars what to do — they have to convince them.
Sound familiar?
What this means for the WNBA (spoiler: it’s not doom)
Competition isn’t destruction. It’s modernization.
The ABA didn’t kill the NBA — it forced it to evolve, adopt innovations, raise pay, and take the product more seriously.
Women’s basketball now has pressure hitting the WNBA from three directions — like a triple espresso shot for a league that can’t afford to hit snooze:
Flexibility pressure — Athletes Unlimited proves domestic offseason options can work.
Innovation + ownership pressure — Unrivaled shows players can build and own new formats and IP.
Money + equity pressure — Project B resets expectations, even by threat alone.
Competition is evolution wearing a different jersey.
The warning label: growth can sand down the edges
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: growth can be a blessing and a trap.
Expansion can mean more teams and games — but less identity.
More inventory, fewer rivalries.
More “product,” less story.
A beloved thing grows, gets scaled, gets optimized… and suddenly the charm that made it special starts getting sanded down for efficiency.
And in sports, the product is people.
So when leagues chase volume without protecting player experience, players stop being polite.
They demand change.
Or they build alternatives.
Which is precisely what’s happening.
Bottom line
The WNBA is still the flagship. It has history, legitimacy, and the biggest stage.
But the era of one lane is over.
Athletes Unlimited, Unrivaled, and Project B aren’t side quests.
They’re competitors mainly because they create options.
And options create leverage.
Leverage creates change.
And change is already here.
Unrivaled Season 2 kicks off tonight!