Basketball season is kicking off—again.
Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 women’s league founded by WNBA stars and Olympic gold medalists Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, tips off its first season on Friday, and while its courts are smaller than the W’s, the league already has some big brand partners.
In total, Unrivaled has 11 league-wide sponsors, starting with Ally Financial, the league’s first and founding partner.
- Ally is also the official retail banking partner of Unrivaled, a deal that includes jersey patches across all six teams.
- Samsung is the league’s official technology and presenting partner.
- State Farm is the exclusive home and auto insurance sponsor.
- Wilson Sporting Goods Co. is responsible for Unrivaled’s official game ball.
- Under Armour is the official and exclusive uniform partner and performance outfitter.
- Miller Lite will have a presence across the league as its official beer partner.
- Sephora US is the official and exclusive beauty partner, building on the growing presence of beauty sponsors in women’s basketball and across sports.
- VistaPrint is the league’s official print and design partner, as well as the presenting partner and jersey-patch partner of the Mist Basketball Club, Stewart’s team.
- Icy Hot is serving as Unrivaled’s official recovery partner.
- The league has also announced deals with Coca-Cola brands Bodyarmor and Sprite, with Bodyarmor serving as the league’s official sports drink and Sprite serving as the presenting sponsor of its 1-on-1 tournament that will run from Feb. 10 to Feb. 14.
Partnering up with a league in its infancy undoubtedly comes with uncertainty, but some brand execs said the potential upsides of Unrivaled outweigh the risks.
“It’s more than just a basketball league,” Olga Suvorova, VP of mobile experience marketing at Samsung Electronics America, told Marketing Brew. “Maybe there’s a risk with trying something new and different, but I think that if brands don’t [try], then we risk falling behind,” she added later.
Changing the game
Founded by two WNBA stars and backed by other famous athletes including Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Coco Gauff, Unrivaled is offering its players equity, revenue sharing, and, according to the league, the “highest average salary in women’s professional sports league history.”
It’s a major departure when it comes to how women’s pro basketball players are traditionally compensated in the US. WNBA athletes make much less than their NBA counterparts, a fact that was put on display last year when Rookie of the Year and No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark earned $76,535, while Zaccharie Risacher, the first pick in last year’s NBA draft, earned $12.6 million. As a result, many W players compete overseas in the offseason as a way to earn more money.
Multiple Unrivaled partners pointed to the league’s mission of equity as a selling point. “We recognize that Unrivaled is working to change the landscape of women’s basketball by providing an additional platform for these top athletes to compete and make money at home, and that is a mission we wanted to support and be a part of,” Tamzin Barroilhet, senior lead of global sports marketing for basketball and team sports at Under Armour, said in an email.
Can’t win if you don’t play
Since many of Unrivaled’s athletes will still compete in the W, working with the league can give sponsors access to plenty of stars outside of Stewart and Collier. With women’s basketball from the college level to the pros attracting more brands than ever, getting involved with the 3-on-3 format could help some stand out.
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“Most of the Unrivaled player pool is made up of WNBA players, so we felt like it was almost imperative that Unrivaled utilizes Wilson basketballs,” David Picioski, director of global brand partnerships and collaborations for Wilson, also the official ball of the WNBA, told Marketing Brew. “It was a no-brainer for us.”
Mara Schaefer, senior director of marketing for Miller Lite at Molson Coors, also said it was a “no-brainer” for the brand to team up with Unrivaled in its first season, based on the recent growth of women’s sports and basketball.
The league’s distribution plans also helped convince some brands to get on board. Ahead of its inaugural season, Unrivaled has nailed down widespread reach. TNT Sports, an investor in the league, holds Unrivaled’s media rights, including coverage of more than 45 prime-time regular-season games on TNT, truTV, and Max. Mediapro North America is partnering with Unrivaled and TNT Sports on content production, with the aim of expanding the league’s reach beyond broadcast, a strategy that has caught the eye of at least one sponsor.
“For us, it’s the opportunity to engage all audiences and communities and scale, because when we think about how we engage with culture, how we engage with sports, how we engage with content, it’s getting so much more social- and digital-first,” Suvorova said.
Trust the process
While 5-on-5 basketball is still more common in the US than 3-on-3, for some of Unrivaled’s partners, norms exist to be broken. Some see their investments in the league as a long-term effort that will produce results over time, but for the inaugural season, sponsors said they’ll be keeping an eye on metrics like viewership and impressions to get a sense of the returns on their spend. Schaefer said in an email that “genuine engagement with the players and the fans” will also help her team evaluate success.
That being said, there’s still confidence that the first season will draw enough of a fandom to justify the early sponsorship investment.
“They know what they’re doing,” Picioski said. “The best form of partnership is when you have a bit of trust on both sides…With any new opportunity, there’s always a risk, but calculated ones are usually the ones that you want to take, and this one was definitely calculated.”