TNT Sports Joins Women's Basketball With Unrivaled Rights Deal

TNT Sports and professional women's basketball league Unrivaled announced on Wednesday that they have reached a multi-year media rights deal to exclusively air live game coverage on TNT and truTV, with all games streamed on Max.

The new league's inaugural season begins in January, and this agreement features more than 45 primetime regular season matchups with doubleheaders three nights a week on TNT Sports platforms, twice-weekly games on TNT on Mondays and Fridays and additional broadcasts on truTV on Saturdays.

Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 women's basketball league co-founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, will feature 30 of the top women's players. The league will have six teams and will offer full court play during the WNBA's offseason.

As The Blast previously reported, the new offseason women's basketball league is not meant to compete with the WNBA, but rather give players another option to play in the United States during the offseason.

The league will consist of 30 of the top women's players competing in 3-on-3 games with the season beginning in January 2025.

In 2023, co-founder Stewart told ESPN, "It's the ability for players to stay home. To be in a market like Miami where we can just be the buzz and create that with the best WNBA players. We can't keep fighting [the WNBA's prioritization rule]. It is a rule that takes away our choices, which should never be a thing, especially as women, but it's still a rule."

She also explained that the players have realized they were "missing a moment" because many of the top players want to continue playing during the WNBA's offseason.

Co-found Collier shared her own personal experience of playing overseas and how that impacted her decision to help create this offseason league.

"I think it just really opened my eyes even more to the problem that we have going overseas," she explained in 2023. "It's really hard to be away from family for so long, but unfortunately, it's like really the only option we have if we wanna make money in the offseason, we want to continue to grow our game, and it just leaves a huge hole marketing wise, so we just saw a lot of issues that we wanted to try to find a solution for."

Unrivaled's season will run January through March, concluding before WNBA training camp begins in April.

In addition to broadcasting, another part of the media rights partnership is that TNT Sports has also agreed to invest an undisclosed amount in Unrivaled.

According to a recently released press release about the partnership, some of the highlights include:

"TNT as the lead network for Unrivaled's inaugural season," "sustained stability and financial security for all players and stakeholders," Unrivaled highlights and content "across all TNT Sports platforms, including Bleacher Report, House of Highlights, HighlightHER, and more."

"TNT Sports is proud to enter a multi-year agreement with Unrivaled and showcase this new women's basketball league and many of the best players in the world in a distinct, fun and compelling way. Our TNT Sports portfolio centers on premium live sports and our media and equity partnership with Unrivaled deepens our commitment to further expanding the depth of content we offer our fans and present an opportunity for us to amplify the continued growth of women's basketball," Luis Silberwasser, Chairman & CEO of TNT Sports said.

"Our TNT Sports portfolio centers on premium live sports and our media and equity partnership with Unrivaled deepens our commitment to further expanding the depth of top tier women's sports programming we offer our fans and presents an opportunity for us to shape and amplify the continued growth of women's basketball."

David Levy, Co-CEO of Horizon Sports & Experiences added, "TNT Sports has a long and storied history of unparalleled coverage and production in both pro and college basketball, and I have witnessed their commitment to excellence firsthand. Together, Unrivaled and TNT Sports are committed to growing the league's brand and engaging fans with this exciting new three-on-three competition. By embracing a shared fan-first approach, we are dedicated to delivering a best-in-class viewing experience for the league’s inaugural season and beyond."

Collier previously explained why they chose a non-traditional route for this new league with a 3-on-3 format.

"Three-on-three is just so fun. It's really fast pace, and it's still gonna be a full court but it's about two-thirds the size of a regular court," she explained.

"So, you still get that up and down, but I think it's gonna be really fun to watch and then you also see, like we said the premise is the 30 best players in the league, so you get to see them playing more offense, doing what they do best and why they became the best that they are so I think it's just gonna be highly entertaining."

 Levy called the 3-on-3 format "exciting." 

"Together, Unrivaled and TNT Sports are committed to growing the league's brand and engaging with this exciting new three-on-three competition," Levy said. "By embracing a shared fan-first approach, we are dedicated to delivering a best-in-class viewing experience for the league's inaugural season and beyond."

Earlier this year, Unrivaled shared their new logo on their Instagram page. They also recently shared that they now have merchandise available for purchase ahead of their inaugural season.

The new league has shared updates on their Instagram page so fans can keep up with all the action leading up to their first game in January 2025.

As each new player signs on with the league, they are highlighted on the social media page.

Also reported on Wednesday, 10-time WNBA All-Star and Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner became the 24th player to join Unrivaled.

For Griner, who was detained by Russian authorities in 2022 for more than nine months after being accused of bringing drugs into the country, this league brings the opportunity to play during the offseason closer to home.

Other players who have already signed on to be part of Unrivaled: Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart, Shakira Austin, DiJonai Carrington, Chelsea Gray, Kahleah Copper, Natasha Cloud, Allisha Gray, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Tiffany Hayes, Jewell Loyd, Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard, Rickea Jackson, Kelsey Plum, Arike Ogunbowale, Angel Reese, Marina Mabrey, Kayla McBride, Jackie Young, Courtney Vandersloot, Satou Sabally, and Brittney Sykes.

There are still six more roster spots open.