GETTING AN EARLY START

The thriving Unrivaled league is increasing its influence by connecting with players who are still in college

- BY Emma Baccellieri

Johnson (opposite) and Texas forward Madison Booker, the reigning SEC Player of the Year, are among the players who have partnered with the U.S.-based Unrivaled.

FLAU'JAE JOHNSON has always loved a vision board. "I get all the cutouts that I want," she says. "I'm like, This is what I want my life to look like." Now entering her senior season at LSU, preparing for professional hoops, Johnson has never had more choices of just what to cut and paste onto her board.

Her fellow top players may not all be planning their careers in quite the same way. But they're all sharing in the same feeling of possibility. They're watching as the WNBA rides a major growth wave and negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement. They're weighing the opportunity presented by Unrivaled, the 3 × 3 league founded by WNBA players Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, which began play during the W offseason last January and has since announced expansion and a new round of investment to bring its valuation to $340 million. They're looking at how best to convert their NIL deals into ongoing professional sponsorships. In short, they're figuring out how they will navigate a world that did not exist when they entered college.

The changing futures of this group may be the best way to measure the growth of women's basketball. Most who entered college at the dawn of NIL in 2021 or '22 were made to believe that their spotlight and marketability would never be greater than it was under the NCAA. The professional futures that followed could be expected to involve low pay and limited choices. But that has changed enormously over the years they have spent in college.