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Brooklyn’s Barclays Center will host one of the fastest growing women’s sports leagues in the world, as Unrivaled, the three-on-three basketball league, plays its semifinals Monday night.
Breanna Stewart is a fan favorite in the New York borough, as the superstar plays for the New York Liberty during the WNBA season. But she co-founded this special league alongside fellow WNBA star Napheesa Collier, and they’re about to make history Monday night.
The semifinals will be the first time Unrivaled has been played in an arena hosting a WNBA, and the second time it has been held outside of its home base of Miami.
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Li Yueru, Arike Ogunbowale, Breanna Stewart, Alanna Smith and Veronica Burton of the Mist celebrate and pose for a team photo after defeating Vinyl during the Unmatched Match 2026 at Sephora Arena on February 27, 2026 in Medley, Florida. (Leonard Fernández/Getty Images)
The first time was quite historic, as Unrivaled made its first stop in Philadelphia last month, and what happened was an astonishing feat: 21,490 fans showed up for the highest-attended regular-season women’s basketball game of all time.
“We’re both very proud of where this league started, honestly where it was before we even had a plan for where it is now,” Stewart told PK Press Club Digital when asked if she and Collier ever have a chance to reflect on how quickly this league has grown. “Knowing that we had a successful tour stop in Philadelphia, where we broke attendance records.
“It’s more than just hype about what we have at Unrivaled. You really see the product end to end – what you get on the pitch and how the players are treated off the pitch.”
While this product is clearly what fans want to see, Unrivaled is proud to keep players in the United States during the WNBA offseason by offering the highest average salaries of any women’s team sport. It has been reported that an average salary of $222,222 is what players receive in addition to another unique element of this league: fairness.
Unrivaled offers its players a share of the league as well as the $350,000 prize pool for the mid-season head-to-head tournament, which Collier won last year. She gave half of her $200,000 prize to staff members on her team.
“It’s incredibly important,” Stewart said of the big salaries for those who star in Unrivaled. “Having equity in a league that you play in, knowing that we literally grow as the league grows, and vice versa. It really makes the players want to be involved and invest throughout the year. I think what we’re most proud of is that we have the highest average salary of any women’s sports league.
Breanna Stewart and Coco Gauff attend a match between Phantom and Rose at Wayfair Arena on January 31, 2025 in Medley, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
“We pay players what they deserve, pay them adequately and try to make sure that every year that amount increases enormously.”
The game held last month at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia was not only an all-time attendance record for a regular-season professional women’s basketball game, but also the largest mark in a professional basketball game, both men’s and women’s.
The NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers also play at Xfinity Mobile Arena, and their previous record was 21,305 in a 1998 game against the Chicago Bulls – the last game basketball legend Michael Jordan played in the city during his career with the Bulls.
It was even the highest-attended event ever at the arena, which was previously hosted by the Backstreet Boys’ “Into the Millennium” tour on September 29, 1999 (21,424).
In short, momentum is an understatement for this league that sets a new bar for women’s sports, especially in basketball where Stewart and many others are hoping the WNBA and WNBPA can find a new collective bargaining agreement ahead of a crucial 2026 campaign, which begins in May.
Until then, Stewart knows his Liberty fans will show up in Brooklyn on Monday night, where the Barclays Center’s basketball capacity is 17,732. Stewart’s Mist will take on the Breeze at 8:45 p.m., while No. 1 seed Phantom takes on the Vinyl at 7:30 p.m.
New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart (30) warms up before Game 2 of the first round of the 2025 WNBA Playoffs at Barclays Center on September 17, 2025. (Wendell Cruz/Imagn Images)
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But Stewart doesn’t just drink coffee to get her fix: she’s partnered with a brand that’s perfect for the professional athlete she is.
Stewart has joined Thrône SPORT COFFEEbecoming the first female athlete to partner with the brand which prides itself on being much more than just a coffee purveyor.
It feels really natural and fitting to me,” she told FOX Business in an exclusive interview about the partnership. “I think being an athlete, being a mom, there are so many reasons why we constantly need caffeine. But to have it in a healthy way, and also to have protein, every time I walk into the gym I take one. I let everyone know that not only do I drink coffee, but I also get positive protein benefits. »
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