Breanna Stewart on How Unrivaled League Allows Players to 'Have a Piece of Equity'

Unrivaled, the players-owned professional women’s basketball league, has announced Ally as its first-ever sponsor.

"I think that Ally has continuously shown up for female athletes, women's sports, and they're doing it again here with Unrivaled," league co-founder Breanna Stewart tells Complex's Quinn Diaz of partnering with the financial company. "So to have the backing by them, I think the feeling is mutual."

The pairing formally makes Ally the Official Bank and Founding Partner of the three-on-three league, co-founded by Stewart and Napheesa Collier. The deal will help facilitate successful broadcast negotiations, get money directly to players, and see Stewart added to the larger Team Ally community.

Speaking with Complex, Stewart elaborated on how the league’s players-owned model will better serve athletes, noting that the very impetus for the league’s founding remains the core message. In short, it's all about making it easier for players to stay home instead of playing overseas.

‌"It’s built for us to have a league of our own where, especially these first 30 players, are all going to have a piece of equity in this league," she explained. "Just realize that it'll go as far as we take it, and I'm really excited for what's to come."

Back in May, it was announced that Unrivaled would boast "the highest average salary in women's professional sports league history," a distinction Stewart says will "impact all of the athletes in a positive way," particularly when it comes to enabling players to more successfully build up their own unique brand while working with new sponsors.

Unrivaled Commissioner Micky Lawler, Breanna Stewart, and Ally CMO Andrea Brimmer spoke about the partnership during a panel that took place on Friday, July 19.

Following the panel, Brimmer spoke to Complex about what the partnership means to them.

"Ally as a brand, doing things that no other brand are doing and investing and taking chances and seeing around corners and being innovative," Brimmer said. "And that's what this is all about. I mentioned it a little bit up on the stage, but there's no exact science for valuing particularly women's sports, because the models don't work for women's sports the same way that they work for men's sports, a hundred percent. And so sometimes you just have to use Golden Gut. And on this one, just everything feels so right about it. You can feel the momentum of it, you can feel the energy of it. And so to be a part of that just feels really exciting for us."

This month, the league rolled out a new logo. The first-ever Unrivaled season, meanwhile, is slated to kick off in January 2025.