New womens basketball league kicks off

New women’s basketball league kicks off

by

On Wednesday, January 26, the fourth women’s league of Athletes Unlimited (AU) Basketball kicks off in Las Vegas. Each is led by world-class professional athletes. Athletes Unlimited’s motto is: “A shorter season. Much at stake. More chances”.

Under the Athletes Unlimited scheme, all matches are played in the same city and in a compact season. For basketball, the season will be from January 26 to February 26.

–WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE ATHLETES UNLIMITED LEAGUE

“With the launch of Athletes Unlimited, women’s professional basketball will be played throughout the winter to coincide with fan engagement with the NBA, NCAA and international basketball, bringing us closer to the year-round access fans have in the masculine side,” he said. Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics. “I am excited to join Athletes Unlimited Basketball and to be a member of the player executive committee.”

Who will participate in the league?

Of the 44 players who will compete in AU Basketball, exactly a quarter of the total, or 11 of them, are active players from the WNBA. Among them are the escort of the Indiana Fever, Kelsey Mitchell and the escort Lexie Brown, who played for the champions Chicago Sky last season. Mitchell, the former Ohio State star, was the second pick in the 2018 draft and is second on the all-time scoring list in Division I.

The other WNBA players who will play in the AU league are shooting guard Natasha Cloud (Washington Mystics), two-time WNBA champion mercedes russell (Seattle Storm), the escort Odyssey Sims (Atlanta Dream), the forward Kiki Herbert Harrigan (Seattle Storm), the wing Elizabeth Harrison (Dallas Wings), shooting guard DiJonai Carrington (Connecticut Sun), forward Tianna Hawkins (recently released Atlanta Dream), power forward Jantel Lavender (Indiana Fever), and shooting guard Courtney Williams (free agent, played last season with the Atlanta Dream).

“We are very pleased with Athletes Unlimited’s diverse and dynamic basketball roster for our inaugural season,” Kristen Miles, AU’s director of basketball, said in a statement. “True to our intentions from the beginning, we are providing an additional opportunity for women to play professional basketball in the United States, whether they are currently on a roster or not.”

There are several other players who are not currently in the WNBA but have played in the league, including center Kalani Brown, shooting guard Essence Carson, shooting guard Sydney Colson, shooting guard Danielle McCray, center Imani McGee-Stafford and shooting guard Ty Young. Carson won a WNBA title with the Sparks in 2016.

What is the format of AU Basketball?

In AU, there are no owners, general managers or specific teams. For the opening week, the four women captains will be Kelsey Mitchell, Mercedes Russell, DiJonai Carrington and Odyssey Sims.

A weekly draw will be held and each captain will have up to two minutes per selection. Once all 44 players have been selected to a team, it will be time to prepare for the scheduled matches. Then, a new week of competition will begin.

After the last game of each week, the top four scorers will be named captains and reselect their teams. Each captain will be assigned a team color (gold, blue, orange and purple) depending on her ranking.

Players score points based on their team results and their individual stats. At the end of the season, there will be an overall points winner. The games will be played at the Athletes Unlimited Arena at the Sport Center in Las Vegas, and will air on Fox Sports, CBS Sports Network, Bally Sports or AU digital channels.

Why are WNBA players looking for another source of income?

The highest-paid professional league in the world is the NBA, with an average annual salary of more than $8 million per player. To say that the WNBA is the little sister of the NBA would be a vile lie. But ever since the league was formed in 1997, women’s basketball stars have sought and continue to seek to earn a living at a deserved and respectable level, albeit a far cry from that enjoyed by their male counterparts.

Thanks to the WNBA Collective Bargaining Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiated in 2020 by the WNBPA President, Nneka Ogwumike, the average salary in the league for 2022 is $121,798, and the super maximum base salary a player can earn is $228,094. But the minimum salary for a player with 0-2 years of experience is $60,471. There are additional bonuses that can raise total compensation by 53%. Additionally, the Commissioner’s Cup has been added to the schedule and awards a total of $500,000 in prizes.

The purpose of the salary upgrade was to minimize the number of players going abroad in the summer, which was estimated at three-quarters of the league in 2015. Many choose the EuroLeague, where contracts pay around $1.5 million. nowadays. Diana Taurasi she missed the 2015 season because her Russian team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, wanted her to rest.

On the other hand, WNBA team owners would prefer if their players did not go overseas because of the risk of injury. How to forget the right Achilles tendon injury suffered by the star Breanna Stewart with his Russian club, Dynamo Kursk, in the 2019 EuroLeague Final that caused him to miss the entire 2019 WNBA season with the defending champion Seattle Storm?

At the end of 2019, Taurasi and Sue Bird helped create a plan with USA Basketball to pay female Olympic team players an additional $100,000 to train in the United States. This plan was implemented in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, in which Taurasi, Bird and company guided the Americans to the gold medal for the seventh time in a row.

Athletes Unlimited Basketball: Golden Opportunity

Cloud, the seven-year veteran who became the WNBA champion with the Mystics in 2019, was one of those who proposed the new AU basketball league. In 2020, when he went to watch his now-wife, All-Star Aleshia Ocasio, play in an Athletes Unlimited Softball league game in Chicago, Cloud told league founders Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros that if they pitched a basketball league, she would be the first to sign.

Last year, when Patricof and Soros announced they would launch the basketball league, Cloud kept her word and was the first to sign a contract with AU.

In addition to not wanting to walk away from Ocasio, Cloud seems to have additional motivation for not wanting to go play abroad, where seasons are practically seven months long. She only served part of a season abroad; in 2016, he was injured after only playing several games for Besiktas CT Istanbul and had to return to the United States.

“I think the WNBA and Athletes Unlimited will be a perfect fit,” Cloud said in October. “We can stay here, it’s going to be super competitive basketball, and we don’t have to be away from our families for several months.”

Now Athletes Unlimited will provide a guaranteed salary of $10,000, and up to $35,000 in bonuses, per player in the basketball league. There is no doubt that the salary is much lower than what the EuroLeague teams offer, but the options of staying close to family and friends in the winter and having an additional season in the WNBA, much shorter than those abroad , are advantages that are priceless for some sports figures.

We would like to say thanks to the author of this article for this awesome web content

New women’s basketball league kicks off

Related posts:

Ball in the air! Countdown to the U19 World Cup - COVER - NEWS
EBA: The best U22 of the week
Chola and Laguneros win the Basketball Champions Cup at the start - Momento Deportivo RD
Brooklyn comes back against some Warriors who continue to take a nap