Alyssa Thomas Joins Project B: Impact on Women's Leagues

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00:00Meanwhile, WNBA star Alyssa Thomas is now the second major signing for Project B, the new

00:05Women's International League, joining former WNBA MVP Nneka Agumake, who's also the union

00:11president for the WNBA, and with more players expected to join, does this put at risk other

00:17leagues like Unrivaled. Let's bring in women's sports reporter Annie Costable. So how big of a

00:21threat now is Project B to Unrivaled? I mean, in the immediate, it looks like a direct threat to

00:26Unrivaled because their seasons occupy the same window, which we know is at the end of the WNBA

00:32season leading up to training camp and the preseason. And so there's questions to be answered

00:40regarding exclusivity. We know that Unrivaled has exclusivity for its players during its 10-week

00:46season, which makes sense. You obviously don't want players playing in your league and somewhere

00:50else that's unheard of. But what we don't know is what Project B's exclusivity will be.

00:56So is there a potential for a player to play with Project B during the November, December,

01:03or yeah, November, December, potentially early January month, and then join Unrivaled?

01:09Or would it be a strict Project B only? And the other thing to think about right now is that

01:14Unrivaled has a number of players signed to multi-year deals, which could limit who is able

01:22to commit to playing for Project B. Obviously, we see Alyssa Thomas has committed. She's an

01:28Unrivaled player, so that's an indication, okay, she's not signed to a multi-year deal because she's

01:34opting to join Project B. So I think it's really a question of what players are committed to multi-year

01:41deals and where does exclusivity lie? But I mean, just big picture, like this is a threat. This is

01:47definitely going to disrupt the women's basketball ecosystem. It's just a matter of how much.

01:52I mean, obviously, Caitlin Clark has reportedly had multiple offers to join Unrivaled in the past,

01:57and she hasn't. But does Project B need to sign a Caitlin Clark or even a Paige Beckers or somebody

02:04that's a younger, bigger name to then obviously be taken seriously, given the fact that a lot of

02:10these stars, you know, while they're great, they're sort of at the tail end of their career.

02:14Yeah, obviously, we know it's proven the value that Caitlin Clark brings to the WNBA and therefore

02:21would bring to any other league she joins. The same, in a similar sense, can be said to Paige Beckers in

02:26terms of, again, the attention that she's helped bring to the WNBA in her rookie season. And so when

02:33you're considering a startup league, of course, getting a player of that caliber matters, especially

02:39for further investment. And when you're talking about a meteor rights deal, all these different

02:45factors that are going to come into play to determine the success of the league, that certainly

02:50matters. But the question at hand, really, for players like that is, what's the value for them in

02:55joining, right? Because Caitlin's made it clear that she wants to play five on five. That's been one of the

03:01reasons to why, yeah, we have not seen her in unrivaled yet. Five on five is a priority.

03:07And so beyond that, Caitlin, Paige, Asia, Angel, you could go down the list of players who make such

03:17a considerable amount of money off the court that they don't, they need a bigger reason than even a

03:24$2 million salary to say, yes, I'll join this league. Like, what is the benefit for me? And I think

03:30this brings us to an even more important question when it comes to the women's basketball landscape

03:34and that what is the overall goal for women's basketball players? Is it to prioritize one

03:41league and then have a proper offseason? As we're seeing Asia's able to do, Caitlin's able to do,

03:47Angel's able to do now this season because of their off-court income. Or is women's basketball

03:53is the goal to maintain this year-round state of play? And I think that's what's coming up here,

04:01is what is the model? What is the overall goal and the model for women's basketball?