“Philly is Unrivaled.”
That’s what the signs in Love Park said as a few hundred people gathered on Thursday to hear Unrivaled officially announce it was coming to Philadelphia.
Unrivaled, a 3v3 women’s basketball league, had its inaugural season in 2025, featuring 48 players from the WNBA, and played its entire season in its home base of Miami. But this season, Unrivaled is making a tour stop in Philadelphia, playing a game at the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Jan. 30.
The announcement kicked off with a DJ and a drumline and was hosted by Philadelphia 76ers play-by-play announcer Kate Scott. Unrivaled president and husband of Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, Alex Bazzell, made the official announcement in the shadows of City Hall.
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For its first game outside of its less-than-1000-seat venue in Miami, Bazzell said the league decided if it was going to go somewhere, it was “going to go somewhere and do it right.”
While there was a lot that went into the decision to play Unrivaled’s first and only tour stop in Philly, ultimately, Bazzell said it had a lot to do with listening to his gut.
“There’s a lot of data to back why we would do certain things, but sometimes you just got to feel it in your gut, feeling your heart,” he said. “So that’s what really ultimately led us here today.”
The 5,000 tickets sold for the game, less than half an hour after they went on sale, helped reaffirm that feeling.
“We’re going to go big,” Bazzell said. “We’re going to roll out the red carpet for the citizens in Philly, because it’s the only way we know how to do things.”
The announcement, which came on the heels of the WNBA announcing a Philadelphia expansion team in 2030, is a way to “kick off professional women’s basketball the right way,” according to Bazzell.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker also made a few remarks at the event, noting that in 2026, “the birthplace of this nation is democracy. The sixth largest city in the nation will formally and officially proclaim to the world that Philly is Unrivaled.”
The Unrivaled game is one of the first of many events to take place in Philadelphia in 2026 for the celebration of the United States’ semiquincentennial, or 250th year. The game also marks the first time since 1998 that a professional women’s basketball game will be played in Philadelphia.
“A whole generation has grown up without seeing the best women’s basketball players take the floor in this city, but that changes right now,” Parker said.
The magnitude of bringing women’s professional basketball back to Philly was backed by one of Unrivaled’s inaugural players, Natasha Cloud, who shared the stage with Bazzell and Parker to give her own remarks.
Cloud said she believes “you have to be able to see it to be it,” as members of Philadelphia Youth Basketball programs, local high school teams, and Big 5 women’s basketball teams were all in attendance for the announcement.
The New York Liberty guard grew up in Broomall, PA, played high school basketball in the Philadelphia Catholic League, and played college hoops at St. Joseph’s University.
“I’m so happy to be bringing [women’s basketball] back to Philly sports,” Cloud said.
Parker acknowledged Philly sports fans’ passion and their ability to show up, emphasizing the importance of doing so for Unrivaled because of the same significance of representation for women that Cloud touched on.
“When you think about Unrivaled, I want you to think about the power and importance of seeing yourself,” Parker said. “Especially for the young fans, the young girls, when you get a chance to see these athletes compete and train and lead, it lets them know that women literally do have game on and off the court, and that is extremely important for us to never forget.”
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