Running the game

The GIST: On Monday, Unrivaled shared that after last December’s successful Series A investment round, the league’s recent Series B round brought its valuation to $340M, or almost 10x its initial May 2024 valuation. With investors and sponsors circling the next big thing in women’s basketball, let’s dive into why the league works and what makes it truly unrivaled.

The investment: Bessemer Venture Partners led the funding round, which also included backing from Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures, broadcasting partner Warner Bros. Discovery, and Alex Morgan’s Trybe Ventures. NBA players Trae Young, Franz Wagner, and Moritz Wagner joined on as investors, as did sports exec Sam Rapoport and University of Maryland president Darryll J. Pines.

• These individual backers follow in the footsteps of several prominent athlete investors from the Series A funding round, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph Curry, Coco Gauff, Dawn Staley, and Michael Phelps.

First-season recap: Unrivaled tipped off its first season in January with $35M in capital raised and made an estimated $30M in revenue. This was largely thanks to the league’s multiyear TNT deal and sponsorships with heavy-hitters like Sephora, Ally, and Under Armour. As a result, Unrivaled has expedited its five-year plan to play out across three years, with big changes planned for season two.

What’s next: The basketball league is spending its new funds on expanding its exclusively outfitted Miami arena, which will include a new practice court and 150 additional seats. With its ongoing hype and dedicated fan and sponsor interest, Unrivaled expects to generate a profit this season and boost salary and equity for its players.

• Pay will remain at six figures for athletes, who earned an average salary of $222K last season. While all players who signed on in year one received equity in the league, only select athletes will receive it in the future.

The takeaway: Everyone wants in on Unrivaled, but what exactly makes it special? Aside from it being flexible and creative in a space that typically operates on decades of tradition, it’s uniquely built on athlete-centered storytelling, has a shortened format, and is a true hub for player-driven pop culture. Centering athletes is the league’s lifeblood, and that also gives sponsorship deals life.

• In year one, athletes were happy to brag about brands stepping up and outfitting world-class facilities, which likely resonated with women’s sports fans primed to notice sponsors in the space. And that didn’t just benefit brands: Earning impressions also boosted the value for every athlete with equity in the league. Everybody wins.

The GIST: Athlos — Alexis Ohanian’s elite women-only track competition — entered a multiyear partnership with Scripps Sports yesterday to make its Ion network the domestic linear broadcast partner for this year’s Athlos NYC competition taking place October 10th.

• The partnership highlights the symbiotic relationship between rising sports network Ion and emerging women’s sports leagues: the channel gets content while granting leagues national exposure at a pivotal growth point. On your marks.

The details: After last year’s iteration pulled in 3M viewers without any broadcast TV partner, Ion will air this year’s Athlos NYC event in addition to future Athlos competitions as it eyes expansion in the coming year. Similar to what it’s done for its WNBA and NWSL programming, Ion is creating a pre-show for Athlos NYC this year called Icons on ION.

The impact: Amid its broad interest in acquiring sports rights, Ion has seen success airing WNBA and NWSL games, cementing the network’s strategy to expand in women’s sports. This fall, Ion will broadcast the inaugural SI Women’s Games as well as the Elevance Health Women’s Fort Myers Tip-Off, another women’s college hoops tournament.

• Ion reaches an estimated 128M homes, while Athlos will also continue to air content across X and YouTube. Last year’s meet streamed live on X, Instagram, YouTube, and ESPN+ before re-airing on ESPN2 the next day, with the X stream garnering 2.5M views and YouTube’s drawing 100K.

The landscape: Emerging women’s leagues have benefitted from national broadcast exposure, such as PVF’s deal with CBS, Unrivaled’s TNT agreement , and LOVB and AUSL’s respective deals with ESPN. While streaming exposure helps, it typically only reels in avid fans seeking content — the better way to gain new viewership and convert casual fans is to get it on cable.

Zooming out: Athlos isn’t the only league interested in harnessing the potential of track and field interest outside the Olympic cycle, but the concept isn’t panning out equally for everyone in the market. Ion’s bet on Athlos (and the SI Women’s Games) signals to the broader market that they’re making a big push now for the next Olympic cycle.

• It makes sense for Ion to get in early on what could be an on-ramp to LA28 running hype, but there’s also an opportunity for brands to activate around women track and field athletes, who have proven they can market so much more than apparel. Running the game.

🚨 Attention bracketeers, buzzer-beater believers, and hoops fans: The women’s pro basketball playoffs are right around the corner. And we’re teaming up with FanDuel to bring you our free-to-play Women's Pro Basketball Bracket Challenge.

• That’s right, you’ll get to fill out your very own bracket (or three!), choosing winners for each round until you crown your women’s hoops champ.

• The eight-team bracket will be finalized on September 11th, but you can click here to pre-register. Then, we’ll send you a reminder email to submit your picks before the deadline.

✨ Supporting women in sports? Check. Winning sweet prizes? Check. Having fun with a like-minded community of GISTers? Check, check, check. We can’t wait to see your name on the leaderboard.