Athletes Unlimited meets the moment in Nashville

In some ways, things have never been better, WNBA vet and second-year Athletes Unlimited vet Alysha Clark told The IX Sports on Tuesday. “I think, just this year, the roster at AU is the highest it’s been in the history of AU Pro Basketball,” she said. “So I think you’re going to see a lot of really, really great games, a lot of competitive games. I mean, you have Olympic gold medalists, you have future Hall of Famers, you have All-Stars, Champions, and just professionals, top to bottom.”

Those rosters will include Te-Hina Paopao and Aaliyah Nye, who’ve recently finished their rookie seasons with the Atlanta Dream and Las Vegas Aces, as well as players who have become Athletes Unlimited stalwarts: Sydney Colson, Lexie Brown, Ariel Atkins, Kia Nurse, Odyssey Sims, Aerial Powers, Kiah Stokes, Brianna Turner, Isabelle Harrison, and Bria Hartley.

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Athletes Unlimited will also welcome Tina Charles, the all-time WNBA leader in rebounds and field goals made and second all-time leading scorer in WNBA history; the three-time Olympic gold medalist, eight-time WNBA All-Star, 2012 WNBA MVP and four-time All-WNBA First Team selection. Charles comes with an aura of success around her, and it’s the kind of affirmative energy AU needs to, well, meet the moment.

Charles says she’s looking forward to mixing it up Athletes Unlimited-style: “Once you get a sense of how the league is — this week, I could be on the same team as NaLyssa [Smith], next week I could be going against her — it’s just neat that you get to play with different players, you get to see their approach and what their mindset is, and how they go into games,” she told reporters at the Municipal Auditorium.

The 5×5 league features 40 players who rotate teams for one month. The leader board tracks how individuals are performing, and offering another fun way for fans to track each game. Games are played twice each night, and athletes earn points when their team wins a game or a quarter, when they make a good play (they can lose points for messing up, too), and when fans and their teammates vote them as one of three MVPs.

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Nashville is a logical place for Athletes Unlimited to call home, Clark also said. As a native of the city and region, she’s seen how much fans in the area have historically responded to women’s basketball. The 2025 season brought in the largest crowds to date, and Clark anticipates more of the same.

“Last year, the way the city turned out … it set records, in terms of AU Pro Basketball history,” she said. “And so, I expect nothing less of that this year. And I think, again, just with the increased roster and everyone got a taste of what AU was last year, they want that again.”

The region has “always shown up for women’s basketball, and it hasn’t changed,” Clark continued. “And as somebody who got to experience that from high school on, we’re just kind of showing up right now. We’ve been here, we’ve been doing this, we’ve been consistent with it, and so, hopefully, that warrants a [WNBA] team coming here in the future.”

That excitement has impacted what Paopao and Nye are looking forward to this season. One of the perks of playing for a team with rotating rosters is that there are a lot of vets to learn from, Paopao told The IX Sports. “I mean, this is what it’s all about, is getting to know my vets in the league, and the old heads, as they say,” she said. “It’s just really, really fun to get to know them and pick their knowledge about basketball.”

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For younger players, part of the fun of playing in a league like Athletes Unlimited also happens online. “We have our fan bases,” Nye said, “and obviously women’s basketball has grown in the past few years. I think just [as] the growth continues to happen, and the social media presence of us, just on TikTok or Instagram, I think that’s what engages people, and the fans like that.”

The fifth season of Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball will begin in Nashville, Tenn., on Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 5:30 p.m. CST. Games will also be available on the WNBA app and the ESPN app. All 24 games will also be available on ESPN.