Probably right, with Green Eyeshade Englebert in charge. But what if the W actually had marketing management. They might even lower the price for a year or two to build volume, establish a broad, loyal fanbase…. I know, not likely with current “management”.
I agree. As you probably know, the NBA is basically the manager/owner of the WNBA while controlling about 60% of it. And they'll milk every last dollar out of it.
You have to wonder if Unrivaled survives this new contract in the W. I have no doubt that the ownership in the W hope the new contract kills the 3x3 league.
Yes, and the NBA doesn't want competition for viewership, especially in January and February. I'm waiting to see how long it will be before they attempt to "buy out" that potential competition.
I think that Unrivaled understands consumer marketing much more than the W. They put a good product on display. The seasons don’t overlap. The players have a personal financial stake in the success of the league. All of that bodes well.
With full, sincere respect, I disagree. I think the market, defined as the fanbase, for the two leagues has little overlap. Where we may find common ground is IN the willingness of sports media to pay the W more. That may have some small effect on what they have available to pay the NBA..
I agree. It's unclear whether the players received a percentage of the gross or net. I suspect the owners were able to impose revenue sharing based on that which as you indicate allows the owners to completely control how much the players will receive
Yes, I agree on the separate fan bases. I meant buy it out to control and maximize/reap profits from that fan base, not get rid of it. I should have called it competition for potential profits.
The opportunity for the current owners of Unrivaled to get paid for their share in the league is intriguing. It’s a pretty diverse group with Hollywood personalities, other sports stars like Coco Gauff & Megan Rapinoe, players like Stewie, Pheesa and Paige, as well as college coaches like Geno & Dawn. The current valuation of Unrivaled is estimated at $340 million.
Not only that, is the WNBA able to define gross or net however they g-ddam please? And the pith of the matter, have they opened the books to the Players' Association? I'll be truly shocked if that is revealed to be the case. I'm still skeptical how they were "losing money" hand-over-fist every single year then mysteriously when they were in the midst of a negotiation with the union, they suddenly had a profit of which they could distribute a small percentage to the players.
Unrivaled is meant &1 to be a development platform (that pays) to prepare for the WNBA:
Not sure what &1 is meant to signify, but that statement is otherwise totally wrong. Who are the players in the Unrivaled league?
Thanks for the explanation.
That is still absolutely missing the point. It assumes, wrongly, that Unrivaled exists to support the WNBA. It exists to serves its players and equity owners.
Yes, but with FAR less overall cost since the games are in one arena and the players are all in one location; so there is no travel. So, they can understand marketing and put more $$ into it since the two biggest costs on W teams are location and travel, or at least I think those are probably the two
Below, from same article &1 above.
The Unrivaled league pays for all of the player's housing, rental cars, and personal chefs for the two months of the schedule in addition to their 6 figure salaries that average $220K.