Unrivaled's Winning Brand Partnerships in Women's Sports
The Unrivaled women's 3-on-3 basketball league launched in 2023 with a unique promise: high salaries for players without overseas travel during the WNBA offseason. This created a prime opportunity for brands to invest in the growing women's sports market.
Unrivaled's inaugural season concluded in March with over $27 million in revenue and an average viewership of 221,000. A February 14th game peaked at 377,000 viewers. This success demonstrated the market's appetite for women's sports content during the WNBA and NWSL offseasons.
Brands are looking to invest more in women's sports. They're seeing true ROI now, but there's still limited opportunity to deploy. They want touch points throughout the year, and we fit into a timing where it was a wide open landscape.
— Alex Bazzell, Unrivaled President
Securing a media rights deal with TNT Sports in October 2024 was key to attracting major sponsors like Sephora. Ally Financial joined earlier as a founding partner and jersey sponsor.
Beyond Logo Slaps: True Partnerships
Unrivaled's approach emphasizes true partnerships, tailoring collaborations to each brand's storytelling goals. Wayfair, for example, furnished player housing in addition to venue naming rights. Samsung Galaxy, as the official technology partner, provided devices and integrated its technology into game broadcasts and social media content.
We have always been about innovation, inventing and reinventing ourselves and breaking boundaries. Unrivaled was exactly that: challenging the conventions in sports and investing in athletes and women's sports in unprecedented ways.
— Olga Suvorova, VP of Mobile Experience Marketing, Samsung Electronics America
Samsung's integration extended beyond product placement. The Galaxy S25 Ultra's slow-motion feature was used for in-game highlights, while the Audio Eraser minimized background noise during huddles. Players even organically adopted Samsung devices into their training routines.
Empowering Athletes as Creators
Recognizing that athletes often need support building their personal brands, Unrivaled actively creates and distributes content to boost their social media presence. The league saw a collective increase of nearly one million followers across player accounts during the season.
Samsung further amplified this effort by incorporating Unrivaled players into its Galaxy Creator Collective. This initiative, featuring athletes like Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, expanded the league's reach and significantly boosted Samsung's engagement rates.
Unrivaled's success demonstrates the power of strategic partnerships that go beyond simple logo placement. By focusing on shared values, innovative integrations, and athlete empowerment, the league is setting a new standard for brand collaborations in women's sports.
