Unrivaled, offseason basketball league featuring WNBA's top players, to play in Boston in January

Sports News Unrivaled, offseason basketball league featuring WNBA's top players, to play in Boston in January The league will play 10 nights in larger venues across the country. Unrivaled, the three-on-three women's basketball league, will open its third season Jan. 8. Lynne Sladky When the Connecticut Sun walked off the floor at TD Garden on Aug. 18, it looked like it could be a long time — maybe a decade or more — before women's professional basketball would return to Boston. Unrivaled has something to say about that. The upstart three-on-three league featuring some of the best players in the world will open its third season with two games at TD Garden on Jan. 8 at 7:30 p.m., bringing women's professional basketball back to New England less than four months after the Sun are set to play their final game in Connecticut. As New England's only WNBA team is set to relocate to Houston this offseason, there's a women's basketball void in the region — and a lot of disappointed fans — that Unrivaled is hoping to capitalize on. Advertisement: 'There's an appetite and there's an opening to bring the best players in the sport to Boston,' Unrivaled CEO and cofounder Alex Bazzell told the Globe. 'To establish that authentic relationship between Unrivaled and the city is just a no-brainer.' The league had been in talks with TD Garden for months about staging a game or two on Causeway Street, but a Massachusetts connection helped the events come to fruition. Unrivaled player and Newton native Veronica Burton put the league in touch with Governor Maura Healey, a former captain of the Harvard women's basketball team and a vocal proponent of bringing women's professional basketball to Boston. Advertisement: 'She's one of the main reasons that this is happening in the fashion that it is with Opening Night,' Bazzell said of Healey. 'She's been incredibly supportive, and that's also really an advantage to us: We want to be somewhere that we're wanted just as much as we want to be there.' Globe CEO Linda Henry is also an investor in the league. Entering its third season, Unrivaled wants to build a bigger audience by getting in front of more fans, so the league will play 10 nights in larger venues across the country. In addition to the two Opening Night games in Boston, the league announced Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., will be a host for the second season, with two games scheduled for Jan. 22. The other stops are to be announced. Unrivaled spent its 2025 inaugural season in Medley, Fla., outside of Miami, and played at Sephora Arena, which seats around 1,000. The league grew from six teams to eight for its second season, which ran from January to March, and began touring to new markets to create more opportunities for in-person viewership. It's much easier to connect with fans, Bazzell said, in person — particularly for such a young league. Advertisement: 'There are a lot of advantages to communicating with your fan bases through digital, but nothing, in my opinion, is going to jump over the fact that if you can bring this to life in front of people, it's going to then transition them into lifelong fans,' he said. Unrivaled played a late-January doubleheader in Philadelphia, setting a women's basketball attendance record at Xfinity Mobile Arena with 21,490 fans in attendance. The league's playoff semifinals at the Barclays Center drew a sold-out crowd of 18,261. The league's ticket sales grew year over year because of the crowds in Philadelphia and New York, but broadcast and streaming viewership numbers dropped. The 2026 championship game, broadcast on TNT and truTV, experienced a 14 percent dip compared with the 2025 title game, and overall viewership was down 9 percent year over year. Bazzell attributed part of that dip to Unrivaled's season coinciding with the College Football Playoff, NFL playoffs, and the Winter Olympics — something they're working to avoid this season. 'The in-person experience is also what's going to lead to more fans, linear and digitally,' he said. 'So it's also why touring is so important for us in that way.' Get the latest Boston sports news Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox. SIGN UP Loading recommendations…