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The Barclays Center in Brooklyn will host one of the fastest-growing women’s sports leagues in the world when Unrivaled, the three-on-three basketball league, plays its semifinals Monday night.
Breanna Stewart is a fan favorite in the New York City borough, as the superstar plays for the New York Liberty during the WNBA season. But she co-founded this special league along with fellow WNBA star Napheesa Collier, and they’re ready to make history on Monday night.
The semifinals will be the first time Unrivaled will be played in a stadium that hosts a WNBA, and the second time it will venture outside its base in 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 Unrivaled 2026 game at Sephora Arena on February 27, 2026 in Medley, Florida. (Leonardo Fernández/Getty Images)
The first time was quite historic, as Unrivaled made its first tour stop in Philadelphia last month, and what happened was an astonishing feat: 21,490 fans attended the highest-attended women’s basketball regular-season game in history.
“We’re both very proud of where this league started, honestly, where it was before we had a blueprint for where it is now,” Stewart explained to Pak Gazette Digital when asked if she and Collier ever had a chance to reflect on how quickly this league has grown. “Knowing that we had a successful stop in Philadelphia, where we had a record crowd.
“What we have at Unrivaled is more than just advertising. You’re really seeing the product from start to finish: what you get on the court and how the players are treated off the court.”
While the product is one that fans clearly want to see, Unrivaled prides itself on keeping players in the United States during the WNBA offseason by offering the highest average salaries in all of women’s team sports. An average salary of $222,222 is reportedly what players get in addition to another unique piece of this league: equity.
Unrivaled offers its players a share of the league, as well as a $350,000 prize pool for the midseason one-on-one tournament, which Collier won last year. He gave half of his $200,000 prize to staff members on his team.
“It’s incredibly important,” Stewart said of the big payouts for those playing Unrivaled. “Having equity in a league that you play in, knowing that we literally grow as the league grows, and vice versa. It makes players really want to get involved and invest from a year-round perspective. I think what we’re most proud of is that we have the highest average salary in the entire women’s sports league.
Breanna Stewart and Coco Gauff attend an unmatched match between Phantom and Rose at Wayfair Arena on January 31, 2025 in Medley, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
“We’re paying the players what they deserve, paying them appropriately and trying to make sure that every year it increases by a huge amount.”
The game held at the
The NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers also play at Xfinity Mobile Arena, and their previous high was 21,305 during a 1998 game against the Chicago Bulls, the last contest basketball legend Michael Jordan played in the city during his career with the Bulls.
It was even the most attended event of all time at the arena, which was previously held by the Backstreet Boys’ ‘Into the Millennium’ tour on September 29, 1999 (21,424).
In short, the push is an understatement for this league that is setting a new standard for women’s sports, especially in basketball, where Stewart and many others hope the WNBA and WNBPA can reach a new collective bargaining agreement ahead of a pivotal 2026 campaign, which begins in May.
Before that, Stewart knows his Liberty fans will show up in Brooklyn on Monday night, where the basketball capacity at Barclays Center is 17,732. Team Stewart’s Mist will take on Breeze at 8:45 p.m., while top-seeded Phantom will take on Vinyl at 7:30 p.m.
New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart (30) warms up before game two of the first round of the 2025 WNBA Playoffs at Barclays Center on Sept. 17, 2025. (Wendell Cruz/Image 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 the Throne CAFÉ DEPORTIVObecoming the first female athlete to partner with the brand that prides itself on being much more than just a coffee purveyor.
It seems really natural and appropriate to me,” she told FOX Business in an exclusive interview about the partnership. “I think being an athlete, being a mother, there are a lot of reasons why we constantly need caffeine. But to have it in a healthy way and also have protein, every time I walk in the gym, I take one. “I let everyone know that not only am I drinking coffee, but I’m also getting some positive protein benefits.”
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