With the ladies’s 5×5 and 3×3 basketball competitions on the 2024 Olympic Video games capturing the eye of the ladies’s hoops world, atone for latest information and developments:
Paige is Unequalled
Paige Bueckers has signed an NIL take care of Unequalled, the forthcoming skilled 3×3 league co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, in keeping with The Athletic’s Shams Charania. The rising fifth-year UConn star won’t play in Unequalled till after her first WNBA season, however, like all Unequalled gamers, she is going to acquire possession fairness within the league, changing into the primary school athlete to have such a stake in a professional league.
Blessed and grateful to be part of this wonderful league. To take an energetic position within the development of ladies’s sports activities is a dream come true. Excited for the longer term, it’s just the start! https://t.co/xSCetSsDCH
— Paige Bueckers (@paigebueckers1) August 1, 2024
Unequalled, a 30-player, six-team 3×3 league set to start play in January 2025 in Miami, has up to now introduced 10 collaborating gamers for the inaugural season: Stewart, Collier, Chelsea Grey, Arike Ogunbowale, Jewell Loyd, Kelsey Plum, Rhyne Howard, Kahleah Copper, Jackie Younger and Angel Reese.
It additionally just lately was introduced that Bueckers would be the first school athlete to with a Nike collaboration, with Bueckers’ Nike GT Hustle 3 colorway scheduled to be revealed on Sept. 12.
BG speaks on homecomings for Whelan, Gershkovich
On Thursday, the US, Russia and different international locations agreed to a 24-prisoner trade, the biggest because the Chilly Warfare. The trade allowed wrongfully-detained People Paul Whelan, a former Marine and company safety government, and Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Avenue Journal reporter, to return to the US.
Brittney Griner was thrilled to listen to Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan had been coming house. “It is a fantastic day. … head over heels comfortable for the households. Any day People come house, that is a win.” https://t.co/Yf7ituGpKf
— ESPN Girls’s Hoops (@ESPN_WomenHoop) August 1, 2024
Brittney Griner, who was detained in a Russian jail for 10 months earlier than returning house as a part of a high-profile prisoner swap in December 2022, was requested in regards to the information following Group USA’s victory over Belgium on the Paris Olympics. Griner mentioned:
Nice day. It’s a fantastic day. It’s a fantastic day. We’ll discuss extra about it later. However head over heels comfortable for the households proper now. Any day that People come house, that’s a win. That’s a win.
She added, “I’m positive it’ll be emotional much more slightly bit afterward. Yeah. I’m simply comfortable. Like this can be a massive win. An enormous win.”
Since returning to the US, Griner has been concerned with Deliver Our Households Dwelling, a gaggle fashioned by members of the family of American hostages and wrongful detainees. She additionally has spoken to President Biden on two events, urging him to maintain wrongfully-detained People “on the forefront of everybody’s thoughts.”
The small print on the WNBA’s new media rights offers
The WNBA’s new media rights offers are official. On Wednesday, July 24, the league introduced the renewal of partnerships with Disney and Amazon Prime, together with a brand new settlement with NBC Common (NBCU). The offers will start within the 2026 season and prolong via the 2036 season.
The brand new agreements will lead to greater than 125 regular-season and playoff video games broadcast nationally every season. There will probably be not less than 25 regular-season video games on Disney platforms (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2). These video games additionally will probably be accessible via ESPN’s forthcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service. At the very least 50 regular-season video games will probably be distributed on NBCU platforms (NBC, USA Community, Peacock), and not less than 30 regular-season video games will probably be accessible via Prime Video.
It simply retains gettin’ higher
We have now formally secured a landmark media rights take care of the Walt Disney Firm, Amazon Prime Video, and NBCUniversal! https://t.co/NmWQJdR4WK
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 24, 2024
For the playoffs, Disney platforms will broadcast two first-round collection per 12 months, with NBCU and Prime Video displaying one first-round collection. The semifinals and Finals will rotate over the time period of the agreements; Disney will televise eight semifinals and 5 Finals, whereas Prime Video and NBCU each will distribute seven semifinals and three Finals. Disney will proceed to be the house of the WNBA Draft and WNBA All-Star Recreation. The Commissioner’s Cup Championship will stay with Prime Video. Prime Video additionally will function the worldwide distribution supply for WNBA League Move.
On the agreements, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert mentioned:
Partnering with Disney, Amazon and NBCU marks a monumental chapter in WNBA historical past and clearly demonstrates the numerous rise in worth and the historic degree of curiosity in ladies’s basketball. These agreements permit the league to proceed to construct a long-term and sustainable development mannequin for the way forward for ladies’s basketball and sports activities which is able to profit WNBA gamers, groups and followers.
All eyes on WNBA All-Star
Want extra proof why the WNBA has agreed to new, profitable media rights offers? A record-setting All-Star Recreation. The 2024 WNBA All-Star Recreation attracted the biggest WNBA viewers ever on an ESPN platform. It additionally was the third most-watched WNBA occasion ever.
