WNBA star Arike Ogunbowale excited for Unrivaled league: ‘We have equity and we want it to keep growing’

The 2024 WNBA season has officially wrapped up, but some WNBA stars will be back in action in January for the debut of the new 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, “Unrivaled.” Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale is one of the 30 players participating, and she said in a recent interview with We Need to Talk she believes she can thrive in that setting.

Many WNBA players have played overseas during the offseason at one point or another. Ogunbowale hasn’t done it in two years, but most recently she played for Dynamo Kursk in Russia from 2020 until 2022. For her, the decision to stay in the United States and join Unrivaled was an easy one.

“I’ve just been working out throughout the season, but it’s a chance to play for a couple months with the players you’re about to be playing against two, three months after that,” she said. “Playing 3-on-3, I love playing 3-on-3. I think that style of basketball, I can thrive there, so basketball-wise I think it would be good for me.”

And of course there are other exciting reasons, like enjoying some nice weather.

“You are in Miami,” she said. “They put you up in Miami, you are getting a good check, you are playing basketball.”

The league was co-founded by the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier. The league still has not revealed all 30 player participants — 26 have been announced and a “full-court press” is reportedly planned to recruit Caitlin Clark — or the details of how exactly the league will be structured. However, we do know it will be a 3-on-3 league, and also include a one-on-one competition. The games will be four quarters and played on a court that is smaller than a full court but not quite a half-court.

One of the most unique things is that players will not only get a paycheck, but also get part ownership of the league. This, Ogunbowale said, will also serve as motivation for players to be at their best.

“That’s huge. You can go overseas and make money — probably around the same amount of money or even more — but they are not giving you ownership in the league,” Ogunbowale said. “How you perform helps get more money and more attraction to the league, so you are kind of putting your money where your mouth is, your skills where your money is. Like, you go out there and perform and it’s going to grow. We know that it’s going to happen because it’s 30 of some of the best players in the world.

“We are going out there and performing. We have equity and we want it to keep growing. We want to perform because at the end of the day we are going to get money, but also the game is going to grow and more good things are going to come from it. It’s a dope idea. It’s going to be a dope experience. I’m excited about it.”

The first season of Unrivaled will tip off on January 17, 2025 and last eight weeks. The league recently announced a media rights partnership with TNT Sports that includes primetime regular-season games on TNT and truTV, with all games streamed on Max.